Morelli OnLion: Lady Lions Get Verbal

This week’s edition of Morelli OnLion starts with a bit of local news. Not exactly Penn State news, but sports news nonetheless.
I am pleased to announce that after some discussion with the new owners of WCPA/WQYX, I will be back for another season of Clearfield Area High School football. I won’t be doing all the games, but will do as my schedule permits.

First Media is also pleased to announce that Penn State football will once again be on the airwaves in Clearfield. If the Big Ten Network is not available on your cable system, you will be able to hear the game on WCPA/WQYX.

Now, let’s get to the Penn State news. Last week, the football team picked up a verbal commitment as did the Penn State women’s basketball team. We also have another question for Penn State athletic director Tim Curley.



(Mike Yancich.  Photo courtesy of Blue White Illustrated)

Another Verbal
The Nittany Lion football team got their fourth verbal of the year on June 26 when Mike Yancich from Trinity High School in Washington, Pa., verballed to the Nittany Lions.

Yancich selected the Lions over Pittsburgh, Connecticut, Michigan State and West Virginia. He had a pyramid of hats at a podium and pulled a Penn State schedule poster from underneath the podium.

“I’m going to be a Nittany Lion,” he said, smiling. “When it came down to it, I’m a linebacker and Penn State is ‘Linebacker U.’ If you have a dream of playing football at a certain position, you go to that place. For running backs, it’s USC, for linebackers, it’s Penn State.”

Yancich joked that one of the things that drew him to Penn State was the Creamery’s ice cream. He is Penn State’s fourth verbal.



(Emily Philips.  Photo courtesy of Blue White Illustrated)

Lady Lions Get Verbal
New Penn State women’s basketball coach Coquese Washington has gotten her first verbal commitment for next season, stealing a player right out of Notre Dame’s backyard.

Emily Phillips, a 5-foot-4 point guard from South Bend Washington is the first player to verbal to the Lady Lions since Washington took over for Rene Portland, who resigned.

“It’s kind of scary and exciting," Phillips told the South Bend Tribune. “(Teammate) Skylar (Diggins) and I went back to the hotel Sunday night after they offered the scholarship and talked about it. We started crying from being happy. This is a big step.”

Phillips led South Bend Washington to the Class AAAA state runner-up position in 2006. She picked Penn State over Michigan State, Notre Dame, Northern Illinois and IUPUI.

Phillips will probably sit and learn from Brianne O’Rourke, who will be a senior when Phillips is a freshman. Barring an injury to O’Rourke, Phillips
would probably take a redshirt as a freshman.

Questions with Curley
This week's question for Penn State Athletic Director Tim Curley is about how coaching has changed at the university.

CM: Since many of the Olympic sports coaches don't teach anymore, do you see them spending more time going out and making the rounds and shaking the hands of donors?

TC: Well, that's a great question and very timely because just (recently) we had a coaches' retreat and seminar where we spent the entire morning with our coaches talking about fund-raising responsibilities. We did move out of our teaching responsibilities. For years many of our Olympic coaches had teaching responsibilities.

Because of the recruiting calendars, the pressures that were on our coaches in terms of competing against other schools where the coaches weren't teaching, plus the recruitment factor where we were trying to recruit a new women's coach. Many of the people we interviewed expressed that they had no interest in teaching and it became a challenge for us. We got out of the teaching responsibilities and as we move out of the teaching responsibilities, there is going to be an increased expectation on the coaches to go get involved in fundraising and then help us to meet the goals of our Success with Honor Campaign and then whatever campaigns we have after that.

Private support in college athletics is really important. We feel it's really important for a number of reasons, but here at Penn State one of the things it helps us would be, if the athletic department could be self-supporting, then the university doesn't have to take any money away from the academic side of the university to support the varsity athletic program. If we can do that, then the university can continue to strengthen the programs academically and we'll continue to do things well athletically and at the end of the day, we're better off because both rise. And, when both rise, it's best for all of us.

So we want to continue to try and do that, but in order to do that, to remain self sustaining, there's only so much money you can get through
television revenue and ticket revenue. Those are the two primary revenue sources, but there's only so much you can do there. You max out. When you negotiate television contracts over the next nine years, that's set.

The men's basketball/CBS contract was an 11-year contract. We still have seven years to go on that. And ticket prices can only go so high.
So supported private fundraising is where you're going to make up the difference, and those schools that are going to be able to raise more money and have interest donors to support the program, those are the programs that will be in the best position to improve their facilities, improve their recruiting opportunities and ultimately be successful nationally across the board.