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Are the new immigrants assimilating peaceably into the native country or do they represent an outpost of resistance against the customs of the homeland? It’s not just a question on the Arizona/Mexico border or in the most Irish pockets of South Boston, it’s a question in the Big Ten as well. Penn State is entering its 15th year as a member of the conference. Do the Lions feel welcome in the Big Ten? Do they even desire it? Is Nittany Nation being assimilated into Big Ten Country?
Big Ten Country was founded on the rocks of schism over this very issue. I come from a traditional Big Ten perspective, having grown up in Wisconsin and attended school in Indiana, amidst a football culture where beating one’s own and going to the Rose Bowl were the principal objectives of every conference season. A colleague of mine grew up as a Penn State season-ticket holder (and remains so), and grew up in a football community that thirsted to dominate the East and win respect on the national stage. A joint effort to create a blog fell apart after the Lions devastating 2005 loss to Michigan, amidst charges that the conference and its officials were conspiring against Penn State, presumably out of some sort of Aryan-esque desire to make sure only “pure” Big Ten teams won. At the grass-roots in the conference Nittany Nation vs. Big Ten Country has often been a source of contention, rather then assimilation.
There are several issues driving the culture gap. One is the general problem that many of us foresaw with taking a team whose natural home had always been the East and ramrodding them into a Midwestern league. The other is a debate over who has benefited more from the merger, and whether Penn State would be better off leaving. Finally, there is a major culture gap over just how important winning among one’s own really is.
All things being equal, the landscape would make more sense if Penn State was playing in the East. Given their history, there is a hatred for the Nittany Lions at places like Syracuse, West Virginia and Pitt that will never be matched on campuses in Madison, East Lansing or West Lafayette. And while Penn State’s hard fall from grace in 2000-04 was an aberration, it did clearly signal that their chances of being dominant enough to earn that hatred are not very good. The Nittany Lions’ history and heritage is in the East, and it would have surely been better off had they had been able to join in conference play there.
Joe Paterno foresaw all this long ago. The football schools of the East were all independents, though they had a loosely formed league in how frequently they played each other. In the early 1980s he tried to get his Eastern brethren to join him in forming an all-sports league. But the other schools were blinded by the basketball dollars they were getting in the Big East and did not wish to make any changes. History has judged them as monumentally shortsighted. Football is now the driving revenue force in athletic departments, but not until Penn State was out the door to the Big Ten, did any of the Eastern schools belatedly organize the Big East football conference. Without PSU, the league has been characterized by instability and is still in danger of falling into irrelevance in the BCS picture. This is temporarily obscured when programs like West Virginia or Louisville reach short-term highs, but to ignore the long-term problems in this league is to be as short-sighted as many of these very schools were a quarter-century ago. While there’s a certain element of justice in seeing them wallow in the fruit of their errors, college football is not better off with a weakened northeast corridor.
But Joe Paterno had to deal with the world as it was, not the world as it ought to be. Looking to secure his program’s long-term stability, he made the deal to enter the Big Ten starting in 1993. Conference schools have indisputably benefited from the Lion presence. The newfound access to Eastern markets gave Big Ten schools a newfound visibility in talent-rich Pennyslvania and New Jersey. Wisconsin was the biggest beneficiary of this, with the recruitment of Heisman winner Ron Dayne out of Jersey being the most obvious fruit. Would the Badgers have built a program that would win three Rose Bowls had the conference stayed stagnant? I doubt it. Since Penn State’s arrival, Michigan and Ohio State won their first national titles in decades. Would they have done so without the benefits Penn State brought? It’s possible, but the coincidental timing is surely worth noting. On the flip side, the Nittany Lions did not get nearly as much in return. Their newfound access to markets in Minnesota and Iowa on the league’s far west side doesn’t exactly compensate. Greater access to Chicago would only compensate if the school had a basketball program worthy of the name.
Penn State also had to assimilate into a conference culture different then the one it was used to. Nittany Nation brought a mindset that the national championship was the only crown truly worth playing for. In Big Ten Country, the national title is a big goal to be sure, but smaller goals of winning rivalry games, conference championships and the Rose Bowl are what motivate programs, even at Michigan and Ohio State. This can produce heated arguments among fans. One side sees the other as insufferably arrogant, passing itself off as national contender when recent years have seen them stage a better rivalry with Indiana or Illinois. The other side views its new home as appallingly small-minded and overly parochial.
In reality, neither characterization is fair. Historical differences explain the differing worldview. Penn State produced unbeaten teams in the late 1960s and early 1970s that were not given serious consideration for the #1 spot. Voters correctly viewed Eastern football generally as subpar. Thus, Penn State was in a situation where they craved national respect at a time when beating their own was increasingly unsatisfying. Seeing a national title as the only possible remedy was a logical consequence.
At the same time, Michigan and Ohio State were staging an annual grudge match with each other that made today’s Red Sox-Yankee wars pale by comparison. The conference title and Rose Bowl bid was always at stake. The personalities of Bo Schembecler and Woody Hayes were larger then life. Both teams were drained when it was over, and even winning the Rose Bowl seemed insignificant next to what beating the other meant. With the rivalry at this kind of fever pitch, an inward focus, away from the national stage was a logical consequence and it extended downward to the other eight schools who longed for their shot in Pasadena.
In both cases, it is not a question of which side was right and which side was wrong. The cultures that developed in both Nittany Nation and Big Ten Country were understandable—and Penn State’s entry into the conference placed them on a collision course. This had immediate consequences in 1994, when the Lions went unbeaten and were ranked #2, behind Nebraska. Penn State fans were shocked the conference made no effort to negotiate them out of the Rose Bowl commitment so they could play the Cornhuskers.
1994 produced more bad blood before it was over. The voting for the national championship showed the Cornhuskers carrying Big Ten Country. But in 1997, when Michigan and Nebraska were both unbeaten and as comparable of choices of what was available in ’94, what happened? Michigan carried its home region. In no way am I suggesting that voters should default to their home teams—but the difference in voting patterns showed that Big Ten people viewed the Wolverines as one of their own, while seeing PSU as an outsider.
But elements of Nittany Nation have not exactly handled their transition with grace and elegance appropriate to people entering into someone else’s house. Whatever Penn State has brought to the Big Ten, the conference has brought at least as much, if not more to Penn State. They’ve given the Lions stability, instead of confining them to a weakened Big East. Would PSU still be getting ESPN time slots if they were playing Syracuse instead of Wisconsin or Iowa. Would games against West Virginia or Louisville get prime-time Saturday night time slots they way games against Ohio State and Michigan have? I doubt it. If Penn State were in the Big East would a four-loss season get them a chance to play a program like Tennessee on New Year’s Day—a venue where they were able to salvage the season and lay the groundwork toward what should be a big year in ’07? Three or four losses in the Big East mean you can look forward to the Carquest Bowl—or maybe PSU can go back to an exclusive deal with the Blockbuster Bowl. If Penn State and the Big Ten were still separate what would happen? The Big Ten would still have its TV contracts, it would still put 6-7 teams in bowl games and its runner-up would still be a major player for a BCS bid. If Penn State were alone, they’d be in all-or-nothing position—keep winning big or lose access to the national stage. There’s no way a Penn State team that lost as much as they did from 2000-04 would have gotten on TV as frequently—if at all—in the Big East. While Penn State’s brought real advantages to the Big Ten since its arrival, the question of who benefits more from the marriage and who would be most damaged by a divorce is really a no-brainer.
So what to make of all this? If there is a schism and a lack of assimilation, it should be acknowledged that in most such cases there’s generally enough blame to go about on both sides of the aisle. Those in the native land of Big Ten Country might start by recognizing that while Penn State has more at stake in the marriage, the entire conference is better off with the addition of the newcomer. In addition to the recruiting benefits, we can add a list of the conference’s highest-rated TV games that is filled with Lion contests. Are we better off with instant replay? Penn State was the prime mover behind that. Are we better off having the esteemed voice of Joe Paterno calling out the substandard officiating that persists in this league? Yes. Anyone who watched Big Ten officials call the USC-Texas national championship game in 2005 had to be struck by the poor performance. And Paterno’s been the most consistent voice in carping about it.
But on Nittany Nation’s side, there are some changes in attitude that would make the marriage better for both sides. It could start with acknowledging that the officiating might be bad, but it is bad for everybody. The Penn State blogosphere is rife with conspiratorialists that would make Michael Moore blush. Charges that the Big Ten hierarchy hates PSU so much that officials sandbag them deliberately are a regular part of life in Nittany Nation. Conference traditions are mocked and denigrated. I’ve listened to Paul Bunyan’s Axe (UW-Minnesota) and the Old Oaken Bucket (Indiana-Purdue) spoken of with derision by PSU diehards, as the work of a bunch of bumpkins. Such an attitude might give the Easterners an air of superiority. But beyond the sports world, there’s a principal of human interaction that governs talking that way in someone else’s house—it’s just plain rude, and if you don’t feel accepted, you might have yourselves to blame. And focusing on winning a conference championship as the principal goal of the season doesn’t mean abandoning national goals. Michigan and Ohio State do it. Even Southern Cal does it. Penn State’s need to focus on being ranked #1 above all else fulfilled a legitimate need of the program at a selected point in history. That point no longer exists, and they ought to be able to accept that national titles are few and far between for even elite programs. It’s all right to say “winning the Big Ten is what we’re about” and let the national picture take care of itself. It doesn’t seem to have hurt Jim Tressel or Lloyd Carr. And jumping sports, it didn’t hurt Tom Izzo or Bob Knight too much. If Penn State thinks themselves above mere conference titles, that’s their own problem and they shouldn’t be surprised if they continue to be unaccepted by the bumpkins they mock—or to see that lack of acceptance manifest itself in national voting.
In an ideal world, Penn State would be able to rejoin its natural brethren in the East and perhaps persuade Notre Dame to eventually join them. But the odds of that are long indeed. There’s no going back for either side, and the task of Big Ten Country is to create a cohesive conference culture with Nittany Nation integrated into it—like any new immigrants, the native country should accept the newcomers bring a life and culture of their own that makes the homeland all the more vibrant. New immigrants have an obligation to accept the responsibility of conforming themselves to fundamental native customs. If both take on their responsibilities, the Big Ten version of the great American melting pot can be lived out
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