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There’s a familiar name on the Appalachian State coaching staff who will be marking a homecoming of sorts today when Penn State launches its 2018 season at Beaver Stadium. Greg Gasparato is in his first year as the Mountaineers’ safeties coach. His father, the late Nick Gasparato, was on the Penn State staff from 1981-82 and 1984-88, coaching the offensive line when the Nittany Lions made consecutive appearances in the national championship game and won it all with their all-time signature moment, the 14-10 win over Miami in the 1987 Fiesta Bowl. Right about that time, Greg ...

Fair or not, criticism a way of life for offensive linemen

Blame the offensive line — nobody really knows what those guys do anyway, so it’s got to be their fault when something goes wrong. Isn’t that sort of how things go in football? No matter which team you root for at any level, from Penn State to the Steelers or anyone else, chances are you’ve spent a lot of time discussing with your friends about how the team’s O-line has a lot of problems. Even if, truth be told, you don’t really understand exactly what it is you’re talking about. Because let’s be frank, how many people have any clue what offensive linemen do or think ...

Notes from the 15-year-old Babe Ruth tournament trail

Mifflin County is the second league from Pennsylvania to send a team to a Babe Ruth World Series twice in three years. The other is West End (Williamsport), which sent 13- and 14-year-old teams in back to back years in 2009 and 2010. ¯¯¯ Two of the three junior Babe Ruth World Series have Pennsylvania teams in them for 2018. The 15-year-olds have Mifflin County and the 13-year-olds have Broomall-Newtown. Levittown leads all Pennsylvania leagues with five appearances in the World Series, while Mifflin County and West End each have four. Broomall and Drexel Hill each have ...

With clouds over Ohio, PSU is in a good place

Throughout his five-year tenure, James Franklin has regularly used examples of bad behavior to help educate his football team. That includes what’s currently going on in Columbus. In case you’ve been in a cave, Ohio State — the Big Ten’s flagship program — has been weighing whether Urban Meyer will remain the Buckeyes’ coach after last week’s ugly allegations surfaced that Meyer covered up an assistant coach’s abuse reported by the assistant coach’s then wife. Though incidents were investigated in 2009 while the assistant, Zach Smith, was with Meyer at Florida, ...

Athletes, that nagging pain one feels could be a sports hernia

If you play sports like hockey, soccer, wrestling or football, you probably know someone who has experienced a sports hernia — a painful, soft tissue injury that appears in the abdomen. “Though symptoms are similar to a traditional hernia, a sports hernia is not really a hernia at all, the conditions are very different,” said Geisinger fellowship trained family and sports medicine physician, Dr. Aaron Dawes. Both injuries occur in the abdomen as a result of overuse, but with a traditional hernia the abdominal wall weakens and eventually a hole forms in this wall, allowing ...

Notes of the tournament trail

Mifflin County now has won two state titles in Williamsport: The most recent one and the 2007 13-year-old title. Mifflin County’s record in Williamsport is now 38-22. ¯¯¯ Mifflin County’s record at Armagh Memorial Field in Milroy is 254-55. It has played two Mid-Atlantic regionals in Milroy and has a record of 6-2. ¯¯¯ Mifflin County’s record for opening games in the Mid-Atlantic is 16-8 and for the 15-year-olds is 8-4. ¯¯¯ Justin Yoder, the Mifflin County manager, now has a 14-1 overall record as an all-star manager. He has become the 15th Mifflin County manager to ...