Feature: Star Power
The following story appears in the August 2017, Penn State Football Preseason Kickoff Edition of our magazine.
Trace McSorley is running late.
An intern for Merrill Lynch’s wealth management team in State College this summer, the Nittany Lion quarterback is pursuing a business degree, and that goal takes precedence over preseason Penn State football magazine interviews. McSorley doesn’t hesitate to acknowledge his aversion to any and all media attention, so a few additional minutes at the office on this particular day are likely welcome.
By the time he arrives at the Lasch Building, entering the players’ lounge through a side door, he could be mistaken for any undergrad slogging through the same summer routine. He’s wearing a spread-collar dress shirt unbuttoned at the neck, gray slacks and plain black oxfords, a uniform familiar to much of the world’s cubicle-dwelling workforce but a departure from McSorley’s attire on autumn Saturdays.
His arrival interrupts a meandering conversation between a 33-year-old sportswriter and junior running back Saquon Barkley. While waiting for the joint interview to begin, the Heisman Trophy hopeful had been making small talk on a range of topics, from his morning workout (two or three hours of lower body work before noon) to his eating habits, all while inhaling a bowl of cereal, a bagel and a cup of yogurt.
About those eating habits: Barkley, who now packs 230 pounds on his 5-foot-11 frame, pays closer attention to food quality immediately before the season and during it. He’s tried to eliminate fast food, but notes, “I’m a teenager, so I eat what I want.” His weakness is a hole-in-the-wall Chinese restaurant intimately familiar to Penn State’s starving undergrad population. Barkley usually orders the shrimp fried rice because, in an acknowledged feat of mental gymnastics, seafood seems vaguely healthy. But sometimes he doesn’t bother with the rationalizations and just orders the fried chicken wings. Consider that a pro tip from a seasoned vet. “A lot of people wouldn’t know it,” he says, “but chicken wings from Chinese places are pretty good.”
Gregarious and earnest, Barkley seems to like or love just about everything in his orbit these days. A few months removed from a remarkable sophomore season in which he compiled 1,496 yards and 18 touchdowns on 272 carries, he has inspired heightened anticipation as he gets set for his junior campaign. A legitimate Heisman contender, he will see his name included on a multitude of preseason award watch lists and All-America teams. And although he’s certain to avoid the conversation in its entirety, the chance to become one of the highest picks in the NFL Draft next April will be on his radar in a matter of months.
But no matter how flattering they may be, the trappings of fame offer little in the way of personal satisfaction. Among the more doggedly process-oriented players on Penn State’s roster, Barkley finds joy in the work. The excellent numbers he has posted in the weight room and in speed testing are the byproducts of a core belief that his commitment to a demanding training regimen will translate onto the football field. The on-field success drives him to keep pushing in the weight room, creating a positive feedback loop that seemingly has no limit.
Barkley’s passion for both the game and the preparation that it requires, even the parts that some other people might consider drudgery, is so seemingly complete that it raises an obvious question: Is there anything about football that he doesn’t love?
“Losing,” he says earnestly. “That’s a given.”
Indeed, but not an acceptable answer for our purposes. So Barkley mulls the question a little longer. “If I had to eliminate something… I don’t know the word I’m looking for. It’s basically the things that come with being a football player…”
As Barkley ruminates, McSorley, just arrived from the Merrill Lynch office, pulls up a chair and joins the conversation. He is asked to guess what his teammate likes least about football.
“Heavy squatting,” he says.
Noticing Barkley’s nonplussed expression, McSorley tries again.
“Injuries.”
Barkley says he’ll consider both of those answers acceptable, but they’re not getting at his original line of thinking. The part of football that he doesn’t love, he says, is the “all eyes on you” sensation that accompanies players off the field.
“The spotlight,” McSorley says.
The spotlight. Barkley and McSorley have both seen their lives change dramatically in the past year. And while they cling to any semblance of the normalcy they enjoyed pre-stardom, their influence on Penn State’s remarkable 2016 season has rendered those efforts fruitless.
For Barkley, the transition started to take hold by the end of his true freshman season. Racing to the top of the depth chart before the season’s midpoint, he announced his presence on the national stage by gouging Ohio State for 194 yards on 26 carries. Soon after that nationally televised game, strangers began to recognize him, whether he wanted them to or not.
It’s now been nearly two years since he started garnering widespread acclaim, and while the scrutiny has only intensified, Barkley continues to find it perplexing that strangers would want to take his picture. He’s constantly on guard, aware that even the most routine interaction could easily end up on social media and be subject to misinterpretation. “You always have to be aware, even if you’re not doing anything wrong,” he said. “You could be at a party and say you don’t even drink, and someone is like, ‘Can you hold this for me real quick?’ You hold it and someone catches you in a photo, it looks bad.”
McSorley, with his 6-0, 200-pound frame and penchant for low-slung baseball caps, might be expected to draw a little less attention than his teammate. He was a backup for his first two years at Penn State, and his debut season as the team’s starter began with uncertain expectations. But by the end of the year, he had joined Barkley as one of college football’s brightest young stars. He completed 224 of his 387 passing attempts for 3,614 yards and 29 touchdowns while adding 365 yards and seven touchdowns rushing the ball. He was a second-team All-Big Ten selection, setting a variety of Penn State season and game records, and he led the Football Bowl Subdivision in yards per completion.
With Penn State once again garnering national attention, McSorley has had to acclimate to his newfound fame. “The last couple of years I could kind of go out and no one really recognized me. I look like a pretty average white guy,” he said. “But now, people recognize you. You wear anything Penn State-related, they’re going to know. The biggest thing is just having to get used to it and then just trying to be as understanding about what it is.”
For Barkley and McSorley, sitting down to dinner with family or friends is no longer an anonymous activity, and that can be frustrating. But they are appreciative of fans wishing them well, and they’re determined not to let the experiences warp how they view others.
That said, those encounters do sometimes veer into bizarre territory. There was the time that Barkley was waiting for his meal at an on-campus restaurant and realized that a girl standing close behind him was attempting to take a photo. She was hoping he wouldn’t notice, but her plan went awry when her phone’s flash lit up.
McSorley, too, has had brushes with amateur paparazzi. Once, while he and his girlfriend were out getting breakfast, he noticed out of the corner of his eye a phone pointed directly at him. The phone’s owner didn’t appear to be paying the couple any attention, but then McSorley saw him doing a pinch-zoom on his screen. Said McSorley, “I almost wanted to wave at them or let them know, I see you doing that!”
It’s those surreptitious encounters, especially the stealth photography, that Barkley and McSorley find most vexing.
“We’re normal guys. We’re not going to bite,” Barkley said. “I’m not mean. If you want a picture, just come up and ask. I’m going to smile if you take a picture. If you want to talk to me, I’ll hold a conversation with you. I’m not weird or awkward or anything. But when it’s secretive, it’s annoying because I feel like they’re trying to do something sneaky. That’s the only time when I’m just like, what’s up with you?
“If you want a picture, just ask. You don’t have to be sneaky.”
If their team aspirations for the 2017 season are met, the photo-op requests are only likely to increase for Barkley and McSorley.
A year ago, the Nittany Lions were emboldened by veteran Nyeem Wartman-White’s willingness to verbalize his lofty goals. Few people outside the program were citing Penn State as a potential title contender last summer, but the senior linebacker stated plainly that the team’s intention was to win a Big Ten championship. The Lions went on to accomplish that goal, and now the returning players are going a step further. A return trip to the Rose Bowl, this time to play in a College Football Playoff semifinal, is on the agenda. Boasting an offense that is loaded with proven talent on the line, at tight end and in the receiver corps and backfield, Penn State may have that kind of potential.
“The sky is the limit, and everybody knows what game we want to make it to and what game we want to play in,” Barkley said. “But the only way you can really succeed and get to that game is if we focus on [the season opener against] Akron.”
Step-by-step, McSorley and Barkley have resolved to do everything in their power to help the Nittany Lions ascend that mountain, keeping an eye on its height while understanding the importance of the path necessary to get there.
“It’s just focusing on what we’ve got to do this year,” McSorley said. “We have goals academically and athletically that I want to accomplish. I’m just trying to do whatever I need to do as the quarterback and as a player to bring this team to the heights we’re talking about, to make sure that we’re reaching our ceiling. After this year, we don’t want to look back and say, ‘Man, we had all this talent come back. We had all this promise.’ We don’t want to have any kind of regret. To make sure this team is reaching its full potential, that’s where I’m at, and I’m focusing on those things.”
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