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Patience. This is a word I often think about as a father of two kids under three.
How much patience should I have while my child is melting down in public?
How much patience should I have when my child screams and cries for more than ten minutes over her hair getting washed at bathtime?
How much patience should I have when my child asks endless questions* about things that seem to have very basic answers?
*I have decided I will answer every question my daughters ask me. I was inspired after watching an episode of “Abbott Elementary” where a rookie teacher is having trouble with countless questions from a persistent student. That rookie is given remarkable advice by a seasoned teacher who reminds us that a child asks questions because they are curious and want to learn. When we tell children not to ask questions, we stunt their growth and their level of curiosity decreases. So when a child asks you a question, always answer it, even if it’s followed by twenty more!
In a larger sense, patience seems to be vilified in our mainstream culture. This is the age of instant gratification. Amazon went from giving us two-day to same-day delivery. We can have meetings virtually and at the click of a button for almost any occasion. If you don’t know the answer to a debate with friends over a beer, you can pull out your phone, Google it, and have the answers or data to support your opinion in a matter of seconds. We get antsy when there aren’t instantly hundreds of “likes” on our Instagram posts. And one of the world’s most frustrating phenomena is when you are unable to get WiFi or cell service because the ability to do something immediately is rendered moot.
But even in a world where it’s underappreciated, patience is a powerful competency to master. When done right, it can lead to some of the most gratifying feelings humans can have.
Of course, toeing the line between patience and decisiveness is right up there in the pantheon of hardest tasks for humans to master. An error in judgment, one way or the other, can prove catastrophic, while a move in the right direction may not show instantaneous results. And that’s where a lot of people get caught. They mistake the slow return of patience for the fallacy of rapid success.
Nowhere is all of that harder to discern than in the world of… college football? Yes, this is a college football column. Let’s get to it!
James Franklin came to Penn State during a very broken time for the football program. The crown jewel revenue driver was in transition for a myriad of reasons, beginning in 2011, after seemingly having accomplished the greatest stability college football had seen for decades before.
Franklin’s arrival on campus in 2014 came with a lot of pomp and circumstance. A private jet flew to little ol’ State College, Pennsylvania in the middle of the night, rumors abound that it carried a coach who was a Pennsylvania native and had rousing success at the traditionally dormant Vanderbilt. In just three seasons with the Commodores, Franklin guided the football program to unprecedented heights. He led the team to three consecutive bowl appearances for the first time in school history, including back-to-back AP Top 25 finishes in 2012 and 2013.
Expectations were high for Franklin when he was officially announced as the sixteenth head coach of the Nittany Lions on January 11, 2014. But from the start, expectations didn’t match reality. While it’s true that Franklin was bringing a lofty coaching pedigree with him to Penn State, that experience couldn’t account for all the bleeding within the football program and athletic department resulting from the Jerry Sandusky Scandal.
When Franklin was announced as the new head coach, the program was still in the midst of NCAA sanctions from the scandal that included a $60 million fine, a four-year postseason bowl ban, and reduced scholarships from twenty-five to fifteen during the same four-year period. The public wanted Penn State to get the “death penalty” and the NCAA delivered: Penn State football was set to die, albeit a slower and more painful death.
That was the reality when Franklin came to Happy Valley. But among the somewhat skewed excitement, the question remained: could he survive long enough to change the fortunes of the program for the better?