Moran, February 2012

It's time for Penn State to reopen its locker room

The game ended, the doors opened, and we all brought our questions inside. I look out at quizzical faces in classrooms at Penn State as I describe the way things once worked in nearly every college football town.

Those looks remind me that the chance to learn from conversations with players in their dressing-room environment, rather than the antiseptic surroundings of an interview room, has all but gone the way of single-platoon football, typewriters, and Western Union operators.

Malcolm Moran is the Knight Chair in Sports Journalism and Society and director of the John Curley Center for Sports Journalism. His award-winning journalism career includes experience with The New York Times, Chicago Tribune and USA Today.

We entered the Penn State dressing room soon after the 1978 home opener, a nondescript victory over Rutgers that had been the only event standing in the way of a week's worth of anticipation of a game at Ohio State. All anyone in town was thinking about was Ohio State. All we wanted to ask about was Ohio State.

Until a high-pitched voice suddenly pierced the room. "Don't ask about anything except this game," Joe Paterno said. "I've done all the talking about Ohio State."

All righty then. A columnist at the student newspaper, apparently upset that his angle had just vanished, compared the coach of the Nittany Lions with Genghis Khan and Idi Amin.

But that is not the point. We had been able to witness a glimpse of a coach's concern, the first hint of next week's plot. We had learned something about how things work and, by extension, so had all the followers, in the stands at Beaver Stadium and in front of all those television screens, whose interest fuels the football industry.

I was reminded of that moment as a reconstructed university administration confronts the issue of transparency, a factor that will help determine the reputation and credibility of the new Penn State. A coaching staff led by Bill O'Brien has a chance to make a symbolic statement toward that effort. The Nittany Lions can reopen the dressing-room doors.

According to information compiled by the Football Writers Association of America, of the 120 institutions in the Football Bowl Subdivision, six opened their dressing rooms to the media after games during the 2011 season:

Auburn. Georgia. Hawaii. Rutgers. Stanford. UCLA. That's it.

Let's eliminate an old rationalization for closing the doors. The intersection of large, unclothed athletes and female reporters was successfully navigated by the New York Cosmos, the soccer team, nearly 31/2 decades ago. It was a dressing room like no other, with international stars such as Pele and Franz Beckenbauer explaining the key moments to Henry Kissinger and Mick Jagger before they dealt with us. Since the room often resembled a Warner Communications family picnic, players were issued white bathrobes to wear to and from the shower. Decency was preserved, the players put on their pants in peace, and the Cosmos sold their product.

Penn State has a product to sell - more than ever - and its athletes can play an influential role in that process. Amid the disgrace of the Jerry Sandusky fallout, the academic achievement of the football players pushed the program to a No. 1 spot among teams appearing in the BCS rankings. The players have a story to tell, and there is just something about the spontaneity of an informal conversation that helps observers better understand their increasingly complex lives.

The moments can provide balance to unflattering reputations. I remember the tenderness of a moment in a University of Miami dressing room, a place that sometimes presented a more combustible mix. After a 2003 victory at Florida State, a running back named Jarrett Payton, who had endured unreasonable comparisons to the artistry of his late father Walter, stood at his locker after a career-best 97-yard day in a driving rain.

He held his father's blue No. 34 Bears jersey. He described the reassuring reminders, direct from Dad, that he had contemplated all week. It was a moment any father would have loved, a stream-of-consciousness series of observations that had not been in response to a question. Jarrett Payton had made a discovery in the Tallahassee rain.

"The thing today I realized was how much I respect him so much more, what he did when he played," the son said. "You start getting older - I feel old - and you appreciate what other people do. My dad did it for 13 years and only missed one game. I have so much more appreciation for him."

We could watch a son begin to understand.

"Because this ain't easy," Jarrett Payton said, and chuckled, and smiled a tired smile.

Last month, there was Jordan Jefferson's quiet triumph. The Louisiana State quarterback had begun the season dealing with the high-profile legal fallout from a fight. He ended it as the unfortunate focal point of an overwhelming defensive effort by Alabama in the BCS Championship game.

Now, as the result of an open-door policy mandated by the BCS, Jefferson was the focus of a demand for explanations, wave after wave of the same questions about how things had gone so wrong. He sat in front of his dressing stall, looking straight ahead, nervously toying with a shoelace as he spoke. He politely attempted to supply answers even as he searched for them.

"Winning this last game would have meant a lot to me," Jefferson said, finally. "That bitter taste in my mouth, from losing, will never fade away."

When athletes are successful, we can learn about their humility. When they are not, and they display a willingness to discuss their pain, we can describe their better selves and hold on to the memory for years.

A football team's open dressing room will not solve a university's crisis. But the symbolism behind that openness might eliminate one reason for a concerned audience to wonder what's going on behind the mountains.