Penn State interim coach Tom Bradley addresses team
About 10 hours after Penn State's Board of Trustees announced legendary head football coach Joe Paterno would be relieved of his duties, interim head coach Tom Bradley spoke to the football team at the Lasch Football Building.
Penn State interim coach Tom Bradley addresses team
About 10 hours after Penn State’s Board of Trustees announced legendary head football coach Joe Paterno would be relieved of his duties, interim head coach Tom Bradley spoke to the football team at the Lasch Football Building.
The team gathered to meet with Bradley at 8 a.m. Thursday, with the entire staff, including wide receivers coach Mike McQueary and quarterbacks coach Jay Paterno. Players said Bradley spoke for about 10 minutes and then the captains led a players-only meeting for about five minutes.
Cornerback Stephon Morris said Bradley did not want to say a whole lot as the coaches still seem a little shaken from everything that has occurred the last few days. According to Morris, Bradley emphasized to them that it’s their team. He can coach, but he can’t put on the pads.
“It’s our team. It’s not the coaches’ team. It’s not the university’s team. It’s the players’ team,” Morris said. “It’s a very unfortunate situation, but at the same time we still have football to play and we have to go out there and take care of business on Saturday.”
Despite everything that has happened, Morris said the team’s goal of winning a Big Ten championship remains. Linebacker Michael Mauti said the team is pretty unified and the meeting helped them to stay on the same page.
“It’s something that there’s the big white elephant in the room. How are you not going to look at it? But that’s what we just got done talking about,” Mauti said.
“All the coaches left and the players got in there and said ‘What do you want to make of this thing? You only got one shot at it. This is for our seniors.’ We’re not gonna let all this, this has nothing to do with us… We want to finish this out the right way.”
Bradley will address the media at Beaver Stadium at 11 a.m.
--Jake Kaplan
Comment removed.
Why hasn't Mike McQueary been fired yet?— jimmymack- that is a fine question. as an eye witness, seems he should have been first to go to the POLICE, not the head coach. — phillyfaninmn
- Bradley handled this as well as possible under the circumstances.
Let's win the game for the abused kids and healing for all. Go State !— anthemra - Winning does not fix everything. This coverup ran deep in the PSU community. I cannot believe they are asking Nebraska to have to come to Happy Valley for the game. The Husker players have got to be in shock over this. A moral conscience says "how do you play football in this environment"?
Penn State needs a hiatus from football. They need to put a priority on finding a coach for ETHICS AND MORALITY, before thinking about how do we get back to business as usual. I hope every recruit reads the Grand Jury Testimony before committing.
— JusticeMann
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.
