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Princeton University Athletics
Lions And Tigers
November 08, 2001 | Football
Nov. 8, 2001
The town of State College, Pa., is engulfed by the storied tradition of Penn State football. Add a father who is the longtime offensive coordinator of the Nittany Lions, working under the legendary Joe Paterno, and that provides the backdrop for what it was like while senior Jon Ganter was growing up.
Ganter and his younger brothers would follow their father, Fran, to work on game day and play on the sidelines. On Sundays they would accompany their father when he would go in to watch film. But the most memorable times of this Penn State upbringing happened after the games.
"We would always go down to the field, my three brothers, my mom and I," says Ganter. "We would meet my dad and walk out with him across the field. It was while the stadium was clearing out, and it was incredible. It is a good feeling to be a witness to something like that, you begin to feel that it is a special place at a special time." Fast forward to high school. The frenzy that is associated with the Nittany Lions, which can reach a religious fervor at times, trickles down to those games played by State College Area High School. The only detrimental aspect of playing in such close proximity to Penn State was that the high school mascot was the "Little Lions."
"The town is a football town and the stadium is right in the heart of it all so it was great, especially home weekends when everybody would come out," he says. "Playing games on Friday nights was special for me personally because my father was able to see me play when his team wasn't on the road."
In high school Ganter lettered three times in football and four in track and field, where he specialized in the 400 meters. He was an all-conference selection in football as a senior, and a National Football Foundation scholar-athlete and scholarship winner. Naturally, when it came time to decide where to go to college, Ganter was thinking Penn State.
"I always imagined that I would go to Penn State and I would walk on just because that is what I always dreamed of doing, and what I thought would ultimately happen," says Ganter.
That began to change the summer before his senior year. Princeton was the first school that Ganter visited. Despite the fact that Ganter took an immediate liking to Old Nassau, he still did not imagine himself ever donning the Orange and Black.
Kirk Ciarrocca, who was the wide receiver coach at the time, started calling Ganter that fall. At that point he started to entertain the idea of going to Princeton, even though he was still thinking that he might go to Penn State.
"My parents told me that I was crazy, and I think that they were right in the long-term sense," says Ganter. "Maybe you don't know it right away because it is hard to leave home for anybody, especially when it is so easy just to stay right there, but my decision to come to Princeton has been the right one. I have no regrets about it."
The fact that high school teammate Chris Roser-Jones, who is currently a starting linebacker for the Tigers, made the same decision, definitely helped to ease Ganter's transition from State College to Princeton.
Ganter and Roser-Jones have been playing together on different basketball and football teams since they were 12 years old. Now, 10 years later, they are living together and still playing football.
"You form a special bond with everybody that you play with, but Roser and I have been through so much together it is just kind of nice," Ganter says. "Everybody on the team and the coaches know me here. I have been through four years with them, but Chris knows so much more about me. It is different when you know people's families, where they came from and how they grew up."
The pair has seen Princeton football take its share of knocks over the past four years, but with half a season remaining, Ganter is hopeful for the future.
"It always feels like we are just about to break through and we just need some things to go our way to push it over the top," he says. "We lost a couple of games early on, which was frustrating, but we would like to win all of these games going out."
Ganter, who did not play as a freshman, played special teams as a sophomore, and cracked into the lineup against Brown last season as a nickelback.
"For me that was probably the most rewarding experience," says Ganter. "Just finally being able to break through and see some of your hard work come to fruition."
One of the few drawbacks of Ganter's time spent at Princeton is the fact that his father has rarely seen him play.
"It has been two years now," he says. "My sophomore year he got to see me play against Harvard and last year he would have gotten to see the Brown game, which would have been the first one that I ever really played in. Penn State was 2-4 at the time and even though it was their off week they ended up having practice on Saturday. He was planning on coming to the opener against Lafayette this year, but then the terrible events of September 11 happened and now it looks like he is never going to get to see me play again. It is rough, but that is the nature of his job and I understand that."
Although law school is in his immediate plan for the future, Ganter knows that athletics are always going to be a part of his life.
"I can't imagine, just because of the way that I have grown up and what I have grown up around, I couldn't fathom not being involved with athletics in some way.
- by Cassie Lawton