That year, Forrest Gump won the Academy Award for Best Motion Picture. Sheryl Crow won a Grammy for Best New Artist, supported by her hit, "All I Wanna Do." And the World Series was cancelled for only the second time in history by way of a players' strike.

Current Penn State basketball players Joe Crispin, Gyasi Cline-Heard and Greg Grays were freshmen in high school.

Six years and two redshirt seasons later, Earl can still be seen wearing his blue and white uniform, leading the squad down the court in the Lions' new home, The Bryce Jordan Center.

Earl has seen and been through a lot during his six years. He has played for two different head coaches, with 25 different players, in two different home stadiums.

Up to the challenge

Former Lion coach Bruce Parkhill, now an assistant to the athletic director, said recruiting Earl was anything but typical. The Lions weren't looking to recruit a point guard in 1993 until Parkhill was hit with bad news.

"We had a freshman point guard on campus and he left after a week because he got homesick," Parkhill said. "So we really weren't looking to recruit a point guard that particular year. We got involved with Dan late; we got involved with him the fall of his senior year."

Something that caught Parkhill's eye while he pursued the young guard out of Medford Lakes, N.J., were Earl's personal qualities. To Parkhill, they were as impressive as Earl's basketball abilities.

"Usually when kids are getting recruited hard and they're right in the crunch time, which is in the beginning of their senior year, it's easy for them to lose perspective," Parkhill said. "(Earl) was real level-headed. It was evident to me that he wasn't real caught up with himself, which was really impressive to me. I really liked that."

Earl graduated from Shawnee High School, where he helped lead the team to a 59-3 record his junior and senior years. He also was named USA Today 1993 New Jersey Player of the Year, and is still Burlington County's all-time leading scorer (2,006 points).

Within a few months after high school graduation, Earl would become the starting point guard for a team in the Big Ten Conference, something that turned out to be an arduous task.

Earl had success statistically, tying Dwight Gibson's Penn State freshman assist record (113) and leading the Lions in 3-pointers (32), but it was the physical and mental aspects of play that gave Earl some problems his rookie year.

"It was a long season physically, because I was 6-3, 165 pounds," Earl said. "The day-in-and-day-out practices took a toll on my body. I wasn't the most mature freshman coming in.

"Mentally I wasn't used to losing, it was kind of a wake-up call to reality. In high school we lost 10 games in four years, so after we lost a game, I wouldn't talk to people for a few days. It was just weird to come into the locker room after losing and figuring out how to deal with that loss."

Along with the losses, Earl had to learn to deal with his new teammates.

Former Lion forward Matt Gaudio said Earl adapted well with the players even after some freshman initiation, which included a bucket of ice water being dumped on Earl's head while he was in the shower.

After watching Earl go through the good and rocky times and seeing how he reacted, Parkhill said he believed he had a good player in his hands.

"It always takes a coach a while to get to know a player and vice versa," Parkhill said. "I think he was wondering what kind of confidence I had in him during that year and it was a process where I was still getting a read on his abilities.

"At the end of the year, I said to him, ‘I think we're a lot alike. We both hate to lose and we're both perfectionists.' And I think getting to know him through his freshman year gave me a lot of confidence in his abilities, both mentally and physically in that position."

Parkhill saw his point guard's full range of abilities during Earl's sophomore season. Earl helped the Lions to a 21-11 (9-9 Big Ten) finish, including a trip to the National Invitation Tournament.

Earl set a school record for assists in one season with 181, and led the team in 3-point percentage and steals.

"(Sophomore season) was definitely easier on me," he said. "You've been through it once and you can know what to expect with practice, dealing with winning, dealing with losing, dealing with balancing academics, a social life and basketball.

"Your freshman year is a wake-up call and your sophomore year is a little easier on you."

The sophomore season may have been easier, but Earl couldn't foresee how tough the future would prove to be.

A degenerated disk in Earl's back was causing pain that had the point guard contemplating a redshirt season. Earl's decision was made more difficult by Gaudio's return from his own redshirt season.

Gaudio, rehabbing back problems of his own, said he and Earl would stay up late at night talking about the decision at hand.

"I think it was very tough on him when I came back, because we were so close and we wanted to have a successful season (together)," Gaudio said. "Everybody knew we needed Dan to do that."

That year also was the first year for players to work with Coach Jerry Dunn and the brand new Jordan Center.

Gaudio's wish came true -- Earl decided not to redshirt and the Lions had a successful season, with a record of 21-7 (12-6 Big Ten) and a bid to the NCAA Tournament. Despite Penn State's first-round 86-80 loss to Arkansas, Earl said that season was one of his proudest accomplishments.

"I was able to play through the pain, but it was frustrating because I thought I could have done some more things, but my back was bothering me," Earl said. "But one of the happier moments was making the NCAA Tournament, just being there watching the show and knowing you're going to be one of the teams there in the field of 64."

A tough choice

After his second season, Earl said his back pain was getting worse, so he decided to make what would have been his third season a redshirt one. It was a tough decision for Earl because he had always been healthy and rarely missed games or practices before.

It was also tough on his teammates, especially former Lion shooting guard Pete Lisicky, who thought he would have three years to play alongside Earl.

That year the Lions finished with a lowly 10-17 record (3-15 Big Ten). It was the squad's first losing season in Earl's college career.

"That year was really tough," Earl said. "It was the first time in my life that I had to step away from it. It was strange not being out there, being able to help your teammates through the tough times."

In 1997, Earl thought he was healthy enough to finish his career. The Lions started the season on a positive note with four straight wins -- Earl averaged 8.4 points and 3.8 assists per game in those first four.

Then came the fateful afternoon.

Driving to the basket against Lehigh, Earl went up for a layup and landed on the floor in great pain. He said his knee seemed to buckle on him.

"Initially, I was very scared that it was something very serious, because I was in excruciating pain," Earl said. "Then the trainer came over, moved it around once or twice and all of the sudden the pain went away.

"I got up and thought that there was nothing wrong, so I was almost embarrassed because I was lying on the floor so long having everybody make a big deal about it."

The Jordan Center crowd became silent along with the players, Dunn and Parkhill, who was courtside as a color-commentator.

As Earl lay on the floor motionless, Parkhill found himself trying to fight back emotions. Back in the locker room, Earl was informed that he had torn his anterior cruciate ligament (ACL).

"I was devastated," Parkhill said. "I went down in the locker room to see him and I was in tears. I remember feeling such a loss to try and figure out something to say to him, something to make him feel better.

"I just put my arm around him. I couldn't think of anything to say."

Earl was forced to petition the NCAA for a sixth-year medical redshirt, and the NCAA granted his wish. He rehabbed while watching his team go to the NIT finals against Minnesota.

Grandpa Earl

This past Nov. 16, Earl stood in his blue-and-white warm-ups with the lights off in the Jordan Center. The public address announcer went through the starting lineup. After introducing the first four players, the crowd erupted when it saw Earl rise from the bench and run onto the floor.

It was the beginning of Earl's final season, and he did not want to waste the opportunity. Now 17 games into the season, teammates say he hasn't.

"He's been a vocal leader on the team," Cline-Heard said of "Grandpa Earl," the team's nickname for the 24-year-old. "He wants to go to the (NCAA) Tournament, you can see it in his eyes. The guys really look up to him."

Feb. 27 will be senior night at the Jordan Center, the last night Lion fans can see No. 10 running up and down the floor.

When his name is announced for the last time, Earl doesn't really know what kind of feelings he will have.

"I'll probably just think about my time here," he said. "I've had my ups and downs. Hopefully, I just go out like the rest of the guys. I just want to concentrate on winning the rest of the year and hopefully we're in a good spot for the Big Ten Tournament."

"I think in a way it's going to be extremely difficult because it's been a part of his life for so long," Parkhill said. "Maybe in another way he'll take a deep breath at all the rehab and all those endless hours when it's just him and that weight machine. I hope he looks back and takes a deep breath and really has a sense of what he's meant to Penn State basketball and feels really good about it.

"I think he'll have mixed feelings. It's always tough for guys who really love the game to just walk away from it and have it end no matter how long they've been at it."

And Earl's been at it for six years.