Penn State defensive end stops playing due to back issue
Penn State defensive end Jordan Kerner has decided to end his career because of a back injury but will remain with the team.
Penn State defensive end stops playing due to back issue
Joe Juliano
The Penn State football program announced Wednesday on its Twitter account that defensive end Jordan Kerner has decided to end his playing career because of a back injury, but will stay with the team in some capacity.
The Altoona Mirror reported that Kerner, a 6-foot-4, 239-pound redshirt freshman from Fairview, Pa., has a bulging disc in his lower back. Kerner told the newspaper that doctors advised him against playing because he risked further injury and discomfort later in life.
Kerner redshirted his freshman year and did not play in 2012 because of the injury.
Kerner is the third player to stop playing for the Nittany Lions since the end of last season. Tailback Curtis Dukes and linebacker Brennan Franklin did not return to school for the spring semester.
--Joe Juliano
Good luck to the kid.— rudytbone
Rough break for Kerner, lower back stuff is so hard to fix properly. Maybe he can pick up some coaching duties so he can still be involved in football post-college, if he would want to.— verve
This season is Joe's fourth season on the paper's Penn State beat. He previously covered the Nittany Lions for United Press International from 1976 to 1984.
Emily Kaplan is the Inquirer’s fall intern covering the Nittany Lions. She is a senior at Penn State and has covered a variety of sports for the university’s student-run paper, The Daily Collegian. Over the last two years, she has reported for The Associated Press from State College.
A Montclair, N.J. native, she has also interned at MLB Network, NHL.com and covered the 2012 Olympics in London. Follow her on Twitter here @EKaplan24.
