New PSU hoops coach has Philly ties

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. - Just before the gates opened last Saturday at Beaver Stadium for Penn State's football game against Alabama, the new Nittany Lions basketball coach was supposed to be at the student gate, the spot known as Paternoville, to "pump up" the students. A security guard was asked where the coach would be speaking from.

The guard pointed to a landing in a staircase just inside the stadium gates, above the crowd.

"Players and coaches usually speak to the students from there," he said.

The security guard hadn't met the new basketball coach.

At the scheduled time, Patrick Chambers, formerly of Newtown Square, Episcopal Academy, Philadelphia Textile, Villanova, and Boston University, walked through some students and jumped onto a two-foot platform in front of Gate A. The square-jawed hoop coach looked ready to return a kick, wearing a Nittany Lions jersey and mini-shoulder pads, screaming variations of "We are . . . Penn State."

Chambers furiously pumped a helmet in the air, threw a jersey at a student, then pulled the helmet on and disappeared into the crowd, only his arms visible as Chambers high-fived everybody in his path.

"Felt like I was playing football again," Chambers said right afterward.

Chambers' big job, of course, is to transfer some of that energy across the street to the Bryce Jordan Center, to turn Penn State hoop games into a destination, to make Nittany Lions basketball relevant. All you need to know about Penn State's history over the last quarter century is that the last coach, Ed DeChellis, led the Nittany Lions to the NCAA tournament last March and then left to coach Navy, deciding his long-term future was more secure in the Patriot League.

"Chambers to Penn State" is bigger news in Philadelphia than just a Philly guy getting a job - and relevant right now, not just in the winter - because every Division I coach in Philadelphia knows Chambers is at Penn State. A school that perpetually failed to gain a basketball foothold in Philly now has one. Winning hoop games in Happy Valley is never a slam dunk - "prove it" is the smart mode - but Chambers can walk into any gym in this city and find people he knows. He has relationships with virtually all the AAU movers and shakers. That energy the students saw crosses the Susquehanna and then the Schuylkill.