Jensen: How Temple's Rhule made it at Penn State

The road leads back to this place, this town, this stadium, those memories. Matt Rhule, coaching Temple Saturday at Penn State, will tell you how as a 5-year-old he wanted to go to Penn State to play football.

Rhule was conditioned for it, born in State College. His father had grown up there. Rhule visited his grandparents there while living most of his childhood in New York City.

At the end of a conversation focusing on his New York years, Rhule was asked if there was a story about walking on at Penn State.

Actually, Rhule said, yes.

His path to a uniform wasn't a straight one. For several days, he was a manager. For a time, he wasn't let in the football building. But he eventually made it on the team and saw time for the Nittany Lions on special teams.

"I've been everything on a football team, from a head coach to an equipment manager, to a captain for the number three [high school] team in the country to a walk-on that no one knew his name," Rhule said in an interview in his office before the season.

The week before Rhule's first game as a head coach back in 2013, I'd asked him about playing at Penn State for Joe Paterno, how he studied Paterno's approach.

"Little things," Rhule said. "Most coaches talk to the team every day. He didn't. Most coaches call the team over after practice and talk to them. He didn't."

Rhule understood why Paterno held himself back.

"He knew how to make his voice fresh," Rhule said. "It's like, if he talked, you listened. Even though at the time he was 70 and I was 17 or 18. He talked just enough."

Rhule almost didn't get in the door. His family had moved back to State College for his last two years of high school. He got into Penn State games however he could.

"I didn't really get recruited anywhere," Rhule said. "Some Division III schools wanted me to go . . . I knew I was never going to play in the NFL. Two things happened. I wanted to be a coach and where better to go than go play for Joe Paterno?"

He believed he was a good enough player to walk on and got encouragement on that front. As a high school senior, he used to find his way into the intramural building at Penn State, Rhule said, and played hoops with Penn State football players.

"A couple of times, I told them, 'I'm thinking about walking on,' " Rhule said. "I remember Mike Archie saying, 'You should do it.' "

So he showed up at camp as a walk-on, Rhule said. He remembers going through the physical, and noted that he had lost a bunch of weight. He also had hurt his shoulder.

"Like an idiot, I said 'my shoulder slips in and out,' " Rhule said. "They said, 'OK, boy he's got a loose shoulder.' I think they thought, this kid's going to get hurt. They said, 'You can't be on the team. You can be a manager.' So I was a manager at Penn State for like a week and a half, putting out the practice dummies, doing all that stuff."

As an aside, Rhule noted, "That's one of the reasons, if you ask the managers here, I think I treat them well . . . Everyone has aspirations and goals."

His own goal, Rhule said, "I knew I wanted to be a player. I said I'm going to find a way to get healthy and join the team. So I took the whole semester, lived with football players, tried to rehab. Eventually, the doctor said you're healthy. I said great, I'm ready."

Not so fast.

"They kind of said, 'Nah, we don't need you,' " Rhule said.

End of story? Obviously not.

"I just kept persisting and persisting," Rhule said. "A couple of people who worked in administration, not coaches, kept blowing me off, blowing me off. . . . When I walked in the building they wouldn't let me see anybody. . . . And finally I got to Joe. They said, 'OK, you can come out for winter workouts and we'll go from there . . .' or maybe it was the spring. I guess I got there the next fall."

He was told he'd be the scout team center.

"I got the living crap knocked out of me," Rhule said. "We went to the Rose Bowl."

The next spring, he said, "Jay Paterno gave me a chance to play tight end. He was great to me, gave me a chance. Then I got a chance to switch to linebacker and eventually got a chance to play on special teams."

His position coach and defensive coordinator was Jerry Sandusky.

"So many people that I knew really well have been affected by it," Rhule said in 2013 about the whole Sandusky scandal. "The whole thing just makes me ache."

Mike McQueary, for instance,was a close friend.

"I don't know what happened, and I don't pretend to know," Rhule said. "I do know that Joe's legacy kind of lives on with me, the way I coach, the way I want every player in this program to feel like they're valued, not based upon their ability but based upon how hard they work and what they do and how they treat people every day."

Rhule is sure his family's move from New York to State College set his own way. If not for that move, Rhule said, "I probably would have gone to a liberal arts private Division III school in Vermont - Middlebury - and taken another path."

Instead later this week a football team from Philadelphia will make its way to State College for an important game, led by a man who knows the way.

mjensen@phillynews.com

@jensenoffcampus