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Wednesday, October 8, 2008

If you're worried about Penn State being tight for this Saturday's test in Wisconsin, here's a story that should ease your worries. Center A.Q. Shipley was scheduled to be on an 11 a.m. conference call this morning with reporters. I was supposed to be on the call, but mixed up my times and missed the Q&A. However, about a half hour ago, I received an e-mail from Jeff Nelson, Penn State assistant athletic director for communications, apologizing for today's Shipley conference call.

Apparently, another member of the team posed as Shipley and answered questions in his place. I did a little investigative work (Uh, called another reporter) and found out that it was guard Rich Ohrnberger, considered the class clown of the team. Supposedly, Ohrnberger had all of Shipley's verbal tics ("ya knows," etc.) down pat. He answered around 15 minutes of questions (even one about himself), but there were a few suspicious reporters. Nelson was told, hence the apologizing e-mail. I doubt Ohrnberger will be disciplined (I hope he isn't. This is funny.), but I'm sure he won't get any other chances to be on conference calls (or maybe he'll be forced to be). The senior has been surprisingly left off conference calls all season.

Here I was bummed I missed the Shipley call. Ends up I didn't miss anything pertinent except maybe a good gag. It sounds like media payback time, however. How should we get Ohrnberger back? Suggestions?

 

Posted by Jeff McLane @ 2:51 PM  Permalink | 1 comment
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Posted by dahartman 10:16 PM, 10/08/2008
Actually, I sort of like that the media got it this time!!! It seems the media is always getting the last word. Finally, someone was able to put a little bit of a red face on some of the media
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About Jeff McLane
Jeff McLane
Jeff McLane has been at The Inquirer since May, 1996, and has been the Penn State football beat reporter since August, 2007. He also covers Big Five college basketball, among other assignments for the sports desk. Jeff has never won a Pulitzer Prize, an APSE award or any other writing award for that matter. But his wife and two sons think he's as good a writer as Red Smith ever was. A native Philadelphian and a recovering Penn State graduate, Jeff will blog on all things Nittany Lions football.