Look to the sky in Happy Valley, and you’ll see footballs soaring through the air, much like Homer Hickam’s rockets in “October Sky”
Growing up just a few hours from Penn State, Will Howard dreamed of one day donning a Nittany Lions jersey. His father went there (and his sister is currently a senior there), and with his sights set on his goal, Howard went to work. His mother recalled recently to The Athletic that when he was in high school, she would find him playing football alone in the front yard at midnight, practicing until she finally called him in.
So heading into this week’s top-5 matchup between No. 4 Ohio State and No. 3 Penn State, Howard was “stoked.” These were the kind of marquee matchups he probably dreamt of when practicing into the wee hours. Only he wouldn’t take the field wearing the white and navy jersey he had once longed for.
During a post-game interview last week, the Ohio State quarterback said, “I grew up a Penn State fan. I wanted to go there my whole life,” he said. “They didn’t think I was good enough. I guess we’ll see next week if I was.”
For him, this was personal. He had something to prove, a redemption storyline to work for.
It was reminiscent of another young man who had the odds stacked against him and set out to prove people wrong: Homer Hickam, the rocket scientist from Coalwood, West Virginia, whose life is portrayed in the 1999 film “October Sky,” based on Hickam’s memoir of the same name.
At the center of Coalwood’s economy is, well, a coal mine and Hickam is expected to grow up and work there like his father and most men in the town. But when Hickam watches the Russian satellite Sputnik soar across the night sky, Hickam, along with some of his friends, becomes fixated on rockets, much to the dismay of his father.
This brings us to Saturday, when Howard and his friends took the field in Happy Valley. Now, Howard wasn’t the only one facing doubts—the Ohio State offensive line was coming off one of their worst performances in recent memory and had to make further adjustments to account for injuries. The defense faced some criticism after the Oregon game for their inability to put pressure on Ducks quarterback Dillon Gabriel.
Howard and his friends, like the Rocket Boys, were ready to defy expectations.
Defensively, the team couldn’t have been better, keeping the Nittany Lions out of the end zone even with two first-and-goal situations from within OSU’s five-yard line. The offensive line, with left guard Donovan Jackson taking over at left tackle to account for injuries, did a helluva job creating space for the run game and giving Howard time to read the play through the air.
Howard, for his part, didn’t play his cleanest game. He threw a pick-six on just his third play of the game (putting the Buckeyes behind 10-0 very early in the game), had a few messy incompletions that could have been disastrous, and fumbled at the goal line (turning what would have been a touchdown into a touchback and returning the ball the Nittany Lions).
Hickam, too, had some hiccups. Hickam similarly struggled early in his rocket-building ventures, with one of his first small rockets landing near his father’s office and nearly injuring some workers. It led to his father banning him from building rockets on the property.
Still, both Howard and Hickam persevered, and without giving away the ending, Hickam’s efforts came to a head at the National Science Fair in much the same way Howard’s did this weekend.
For Howard, the early nerves and adrenaline, the turnovers and incompletions didn’t keep him from having the last laugh: He finished the game with 16 of 24 passes and 24 rushing yards, including a 7-yard rush for the first down that sealed the team’s 20-13 victory.
And while his rockets flew through a November sky instead of an October one, they did just as much to impress as he secured the win for a team that now controls its own destiny.