Former Penn State star battles debilitating disease; Nittany Lions develop recruiting pipeline

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The final battle

Penn State will head to the Fiesta Bowl, site of arguably their most famous win in school history. On Jan. 2, 1987, fullback Steve Smith and his teammates shook up the college football landscape with a 14-10 victory over Miami to win the school’s second national title.

Now Smith is locked in another battle, one that he ultimately will not be able to win, writes Frank Bodani of the York Daily Record.

Smith is suffering from ALS and, as Bodani notes, believes football was the cause for his condition.

Bodani writes:

He stopped watching the games and doesn’t talk about them. He and his family believe the brutal hits he absorbed as a fullback at Penn State and in the NFL have led to the ALS that has robbed him of so much of his life the past 15 years.

Smith has been confined to a wheelchair for more than a decade and uses a computer to speak.

A pipeline formed

As the Nittany Lions await word if they will land 5-star prospect Micah Parsons, they have wasted little time in developing a pipeline at Parsons’ high school.

With wide receiver Shaquon Anderson-Butts already committed to the Class of 2018, current Harrisburg junior Andre White picked up an offer from the Nittany Lions on Thursday.