Pennsylvania News

Pennsylvania legislators are expected to continue working on the Pennsylvania budget over the weekend. They are expected to go through a long list of differences over the budget.

A vote on the budget is not expected until at least Tuesday.

Gov Ed Rendell has been concerned about a new arts tax

Nothing will be fancy. Little will be hidden. It will be all laid out before the 107,282 fans who cram into Beaver Stadium (ABC, 8 p.m. ET). The Hawkeyes and the Nittany Lions are as exciting as Brooks Brothers, as hip as Ivory soap. Avant garde? Try fullback over guard.

The teams are, if nothing else, a reflection of their coaches. Joe Paterno’s Nittany Lions teams have played the same way they dress — classic, conservative, clean lines, so out they’re in. Those qualities are what Paterno finds so appealing about Hawkeyes coach Kirk Ferentz and his teams.

“They’re tough,” Paterno said. “They play the game the way it should be played. I think that can be attributed to the fact that that’s the way Kirk is. Kirk’s a no-nonsense guy who’s honest. What you see, you get.”

Penn State has had one coach in 44 seasons. Iowa has had two coaches in 30 seasons. The programs are as sturdy as a pair of Levi’s 501s, as dependable as chocolate cake. Ferentz described it as “believing in what you’re doing and doing it well.”

They show instead of tell. Swagger is a word unspoken on either campus. If you were to point out to Ferentz that he has a winning record against Paterno, you might hear something like this: “Our last time up there, we got paddled pretty good.” The Nittany Lions won 27-7 in 2007.

Wisconsin athletic director Barry Alvarez coached with Ferentz on Hayden Fry’s staff at Iowa for six seasons. Alvarez coached against him and Paterno in the Big Ten before retiring as the Badgers’ head coach after 2005.

“They play good football,” Alvarez said of Iowa. “They’re not going to try to trick you. That’s the thing. You know what they are going to line up in. You have to out-execute them. Penn State is much the same.”

Is it old-fashioned? Alvarez bellowed his answer through his cell phone.

“It’s old-school, not old-fashioned,” he said. “That’s football.”

It has been a year of retrenching. People have stopped spending. They eat at home. They shop at discount stores if they shop at all. The old qualities are new again. That’s fine with the Paternos and Ferentzes. They never stopped believing in the old qualities to begin with.

“It’s not a chessboard,” Alvarez said. “It’s people, executing with fundamentals. You have to eliminate beating yourself before you can win. Only play one team. Make people beat you. Eliminate mistakes. Don’t beat yourself.” Alvarez paused. “Most people can’t do it.”

Ferentz is 6-2 against Paterno. He knows how the legendary coach thinks because he grew up in the Pittsburgh area in the 1970s under the spell of Nittany Lions football.

“You’re not going to outthink those guys,” Ferentz said of Paterno and his staff. “There’s not much they haven’t seen. You’re not going to out-personnel them. You know you’re going to play a good team. You know you better play your absolute best, and you have to be fortunate, too.”

Ferentz talked about the cycle of offenses he has seen in his college football career. He brought up the wishbone, the run ‘n’ shoot and the spread.

“There are a lot of different ways to get it done,” he said. “I also believe there are people who can play with a tight end and a fullback on the field.”

Northwestern head coach Pat Fitzgerald recalled playing against Penn State in the mid-1990s, when he became a two-time All-American at linebacker for the Wildcats.

“You line up against five or six formations and they have five or six plays,” Fitzgerald said. “It’s like they were saying, ‘We’re running it here. Stop us.’”

The Penn State offense has modernized under veteran coordinator Galen Hall. But under longtime defensive coordinator Tom Bradley, “they are as boring on defense as I’d like eventually to be,” Fitzgerald said.

Five of Ferentz’s six victories over Penn State have been by single-digit margins, two in overtime. The last two have been by a total of three points. A year ago, on a cold, blustery day in Iowa City, the Hawkeyes upset the Nittany Lions 24-23. The game cost Penn State a shot at the national championship.

The Penn State fans will turn Beaver Stadium into a “white house” for the nationally televised game. The tents in Paternoville began going up Monday. When the hoopla recedes and the game begins, two teams well-schooled in the fundamentals of the sport will take the field. The hits will be clean. The uniforms will be dirty.

The fullback may even go over the guard.

(CNN) — A state commission issued a finding of probable cause that racism was involved in the decision by a suburban Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, swim club to revoke privileges of a largely minority day care center.

Children for Creative Steps Daycare

The Valley Swim Club canceled a contract for swimming privileges for the approximately 65 children from the Creative Steps day care center after a visit June 29.

Some black and Hispanic children said white club members made racist comments to them during that visit, asking why black children were there and raising concerns that “they might steal from us.”

The Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission, in its 33-page finding, details the incident. It notes that the swim club maintains that it canceled its relationship with the day care center because members were requesting that their membership fees be refunded and because of safety concerns “attendant with overcrowding of the shallow end of the pool by a large number of non-swimmers.”

But the commission, in its finding, stated that the club “routinely has members at the facility in numbers that are equal in size or exceed the number of Creative Steps campers.” The club has also hosted groups of similar size without raising safety concerns, the commission said.

As the group was swimming at the club, one of its members voiced concerns that “all of these black kids” might “do something to my child.” When confronted by a Creative Steps official, the woman — a teacher at a local school — denied the comment but said she was concerned because one of the children “was a known thief” and had previously stolen a cell phone. The commission found no evidence that the child was ever accused of or disciplined for stealing at the school.

Other group members sent negative e-mails to club board members after the incident. One board member said in an e-mail, according to the commission, “I feel we were mislead (sic) with the type of camp this was. This camp is a city camp and it is run with tax payers money. This is not the type of camp that is going to bring any new members into the club.”

The finding is “an invitation to sit down with our staff and have the parties settle their differences,” commission Chairman Stephen Glassman said. “If they don’t, it will go on to a public hearing.”

Depending on the outcome of that process, the club could face damages for humiliation and embarrassment, as well as a civil penalty of up to $50,000, commission spokeswoman Shannon Powers said. The public hearing, she said, is held before a body of commissioners.

The commission enforces state human rights law, Powers said. It launched an investigation into the incident after being contacted by a number of advocacy organizations following media coverage of the story. Since then, she said, a number of complaints have been filed with the commission.

The commission noted in the finding that none of the club’s 155 paid members this year was African-American and that last year there were “179 paid memberships, none of whom were African American.”

In addition, the commission said that in 2009, the Valley Swim Club “made a concerted effort to expand the geographic range of its membership by engaging in a marketing campaign. … The respondent efforts were mainly directed at areas with overwhelmingly caucasian populations. … The respondent made no effort to direct such marketing efforts at areas with significant African-American populations.”

Glassman said the swim club had 30 days to appeal the finding.

Joe Tucker, a lawyer for the club, said his client will do just that. “We believe this is wrong,” he said.

“I believe the people at the PHRC are very good people, but they were put in a tough position. … If the PHRC would have decided against the children or in favor of the club, they would have been painted with the same unfair and untrue racist brush that the Valley Swim Club was painted with.”

The day care center had originally contracted to use the pool during the summer, but the club canceled the agreement and returned the day care center’s $1,950 check without explanation. The club canceled contracts with two other day care centers because of safety and crowding, swim club director John Duesler said.

Those facilities have not protested the club’s actions.

The issue was exacerbated when Duesler told two Philadelphia television stations that the children had changed “the complexion” and “atmosphere” of the club. The comment brought protesters outside the facility.

Duesler later said that safety and crowding, not racism, prompted the cancellation.

As the controversy gained national attention, the swim club asked the day care center to return. Center officials refused and said they would pursue a lawsuit.

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