Newly named Penn State offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki is no stranger to hitting things or using his helmet.
It was a helmet that got Kotelnicki’s football fandom started in the 80s, a white helmet with a blue stripe.
“I’m five or six or seven years old and my mom brings home a football helmet,” Kotelnicki told reporters at Beaver Stadium Friday afternoon. ” We know what football is. They weren’t college football players by any means, but I grew up cheering for whoever. There’s a white helmet with a blue stripe.”
About a year or so later Kotelnicki discovered there was a college football team out there that wore the exact same helmet as the one his mother brought home.
“Sometime in the next year, I see you either on TV or in the paper there’s a college football team that’s wearing that same helmet, it’s Penn State. I didn’t know anything about it, but I immediately became a Penn State fan because they had the same helmet that I would put on to run into trees and things like that.”
It’s not known what knowledge Kotelnicki gained from running into trees, but it was those early football memories that led to him pretending he was Penn State legend Curtis Enis despite not playing the same position.
“Of course, I played o-line, but I thought I was Curtis Enis running around in the mid-90s even though that certainly was not my future,” Kotelnicki said.
The moral of the story wasn’t for Kotelnicki to tell Penn State media how big of a fan of the Nittany Lions he was growing up, but rather how important this new job is to him.
“I share that story with you so you understand that I’m not taking this opportunity lightly,” Kotelnicki said. “It’s a big-time honor. For me to sit up here today and get a chance to interact with this fan base, this family if you want to call it that.”
Being with his new family is right where Kotelnicki proclaims he wants to be. It’s a place where he’s wanted to be and dreamt about being.
“It’s something that if you would have asked me when I wanted to start college football where I’d want to coach or where I want to be the offense coordinator, I would have said this.”
