Aug. 1, 2010
FOLLOW BIG TEN MEDIA DAY AND KICK-OFF LUNCHEON COVERAGE HERE
CHICAGO, Ill. -
The Big Ten football season begins to hit full steam Monday and Tuesday, Aug. 2-3 as Big Ten coaches and top conference players gather in Chicago for the annual Big Ten Football Media Day and Kickoff Luncheon at the Hyatt Regency McCormick Place.
Fans can follow all the latest Big Ten Media Day happenings from a Penn State perspective live and behind the scenes at GoPSUsports.com as several members of the Penn State Athletic Communications staff post an up-to-the minute live blog, photos, tweets, quotes, notes, behind the scenes video and items of interest from Chicago. Unprecedented behind-the-scenes access to Coach Paterno and Nittany Lion players as well as quotes and notes from the conference's other coaches and players will be available as they participate in a whirlwind two days to kickoff the 2010 Big Ten football season.
Postings begin Monday morning as each of the conference's coaches opens the day with a 15-minutes question and answer session with several hundred gathered media starting at 11 a.m. ET. Coach Paterno takes the podium at 1:15 p.m. ET.
Penn State players begin their day at 1:00 p.m. ET Monday when they begin taping segments with ESPN College Gameday, the Big Ten Network and CBS. They will meet the gathered media at large at 1:45 p.m. ET when the players and Coach Paterno begin a one-hour rotation with local television stations from around the conference. Following that, coaches and selected players will do live interviews on Sirius XM radio.
Coaches wrap up the day conducting interviews with ESPN, the Big Ten Network and CBS between 2-4:30 p.m. ET.
Tuesday's events begin with a two-hour, one-on-one session with print and radio reporters for coaches and players starting at 9 a.m. ET. All of the conference's representative coaches and players will gather at individual tables in one large conference room as hundreds of reporters quarry them on the upcoming season.
Players will then conduct a one-hour autograph session with Kickoff Luncheon attendees from 11 a.m. -to-12 p.m. ET while the Big Ten Football Saturday crew of Dave Revsine, Gerry DiNardo and Howard Griffith will sit down with Big Ten football coaches to get their thoughts just days ahead of preseason camp. These interviews will be featured on a 90-minute Big Ten Kickoff Special that will air at 2 p.m. ET on August 7.
The 39th Annual Big Ten Kickoff Luncheon emceed by ESPN's Rece Davis at 12:30 p.m. (ET) wraps up the two days of events. The Luncheon always provides lots of laughs as all 11 of the conference's coaches address nearly 2,000 guests and inevitably one-up each other with jokes and good-natured jibes. The Big Ten Kickoff Luncheon annually draws some of the most interesting and talented names in college sports. The list of former Kickoff Luncheon attendees includes coaching legends like Bo Schembechler and Woody Hayes, along with each of the Big Ten's Heisman Trophy winners since 1970 - Archie Griffin, Desmond Howard, Eddie George, Charles Woodson, Ron Dayne and Troy Smith. In all, approximately 750 of the conference's finest players, more than 50 head coaches and nearly 44,000 supporters have made the Big Ten Kickoff Luncheon a yearly stop in their preseason college football schedules.
--NITTANY LIONS