UConn Coach Paul Pasqualoni Talks About His Alma Mater…Penn State

What’s goin on?

Spoke with UConn football Coach Paul Pasqualoni this morning. Here’s some thoughts from him following the NCAA’s decision on Penn State.

Pasquloni, in his second year as the UConn head coach, is a former walk-on under Joe Paterno and 1972 graduate of PSU..

“It’s a tremendous blow to Penn State – and I said this to you a while back – it’s still a great school but the word I heard over and over is changing the culture of the football program and evidently these severe sanctions are geared toward that theory, what they’re referring to as the leadership of the football program at Penn State. It’s a severe blow to the program,” Pasqualoni said of today’s sanctions handed down by the NCAA as a result and fallout of the Jerry Sandusky mess.

“All the evidence, the reports lead to evidence that there was a big mistake made there…the potential of covering this horrific situation up. That’s just terrible if in fact that’s exactly what happened. My feeling is, myself like a lot of players, I got an awful lot out of playing the game of football. I learned an awful lot on the football field and the experience of being involved in football. I always felt like it was a big part of my education. I felt fortunate the fact I had two educations: one in the classroom and another most students don’t have a chance to experience, you know, the real life experience and what it means to exceed in football. That was a very positive thing for me and I hope – I hope – that it’s a very positive thing for football players currently today at all programs around the country.

“The value in playing intercollegiate athletics or high schools sports is the educational part of it. There’s nothing that diminishes that part for me but in the sense that this happened, you know…for me, obviously it’s my alma mater and it’s around people that I know. That makes me sad. There’s no question but I would feel bad regardless of where this happened…  Do I feel sad? Yeah, I do feel sad.”