Here's a quiz for the Penn State sports buff:

-- Who has built a record of 114-23-1 in his years as a Nittany Lion coach?

-- Who has led his team to 11 chances at the NCAA title?

-- And who emphasizes not just winning, but winning with style?

Joe Paterno, it seems, would be the obvious choice. Although the football mentor may fit the bill, the correct answer is Karl Schier, coach of the men's gymnastics team.

Schier, in his 13th season, not only has compiled that impressive record, but like Paterno, his teams also have been to the NCAA Championships every year of his tenure except the first.

Equally impressive is that under Schier, Penn State can brag about 15 All-Americans. And last year, Schier coached his first national champion, sophomore Mark Sohn, the co-title holder on the pommel horse.

Adding to Schier's extensive list of Penn State pupils are Great Britain's Terry Bartlett, a 1984 and 1988 Olympian, and 1987 Nissen Award winner, Mike 'Spider' Maxwell. The Nissen Award recognizes excellence in both athletics and academics.

Not only have the Lions been to the NCAA championships, but with Schier at the helm they have been successful as well. The Lions have finished third in national competition four times and in 1984 took second-place honors.

This year the team is young, but Schier is confident that his team will once again find itself in Nebraska, the site of this year's NCAA Championships.

While he is anxious to get to that point of the season, years of experience have taught Schier not to push for results. This year the Lions are low on gymnasts due to a knee injury to Jamie Downer and freshman Chris Keller's bout with Epstein-Barr mononucleosis.

"We're really playing it cautiously staff-wise," Schier said. "But we don't want to lose a lot of meets early in the season like we did last year. So we're just taking it easy for now. We had a fivepoint improvement (between the first two meets) and that's about on track with what we're looking for."

That experience and knowledge is based on Schier's hands-on experience. The Penn State grad began his own gymnastic career when he was 9 years old.

"Experience-wise, he's great," said Schier's son, Kurt, who is also the team's captain. "He shares all of his knowledge, which is really invaluable to us as a team.

"He knows about gymnastics in general, but he also is learning a lot about judging and constructing routines. In that way, he helps us tremendously because he can help structure the best routines for us based on his knowledge."

Schier is also able to keep his audience happy.

"He's a very smart man," junior Rob Drass said. "He knows how to approach problems and he does things right. You rarely hear any complaints about a meet that was held in Rec Hall."

As an undergraduate at Penn State, the elder Schier helped the team to two national titles. In 1955, his senior year and the year that he served as captain, Schier became the first man to win Eastern, NCAA and National AAU all-around championships in the same year.

"I've been involved with the sport for some 40 years," the 1956 Olympic team member said in a previous interview. "So all of that knowledge and experience has kept me on top of things. You learn a whole lot of things along the way."

Twenty years after his stint in the Olympic games, Schier served as coach of the United States Olympic team at Montreal.

"Our motto right from the start was '44 and no more,' " he said. "What that meant was that the team had not won a medal -- bronze, silver, gold or any kind of tin for 44 years and we were determined to end that streak. And, we did. Peter Korman got the bronze for the floor exercise.

After the summer of coaching the Olympic squad, Schier retired from the Air Force, where, as a lieutenant colonel, he had been head of the physical education department as well as gymnastics coach. He then came to what he jokingly calls his 'retirement job' at Penn State.

"It's a retirement job for me in that I do it because I like it," he said. "But then again, it's turned in to a 13-year retirement job."

"I feel inside of myself that the real purpose of Penn State gymnastics is to turn out a quality team with quality young men and to run a tight ship in terms of rules, regulations and common sense," he said.