Tropical birds and insects chirped, squawked and croaked in the background as Craig Herman talked to me on his cell phone in the middle of a rainforest about 20 miles south of Hilo, Hawaii.
What were we talking about, you ask?
Well, at first, anything but Penn State football. In fact, the Class of 1977 alumnus started the conversation by asking if I surfed, and, being from northeastern Pennsylvania, I, of course, said no.
The 49-year-old retired stockbroker and military officer then sounded more than a little wistful.
"There is nothing more wonderful than laying on your surf board and seeing a humpback whale jump in front of you," he said.
Then he told me about how he is building a new house on a two-acre, rainforest property where he can pick papayas and bananas whenever the mood strikes him.
But at some point this man -- whom I had called simply because he had sent one of the more striking of the many doom and gloom e-mail messages I've gotten lately -- started talking about Penn State football. And its problems.
Not to mention its demise. Its woeful state. Its hopelessness. Its flat out misery, deflecting sorrow upon so many alumni and supporters in a increasingly discontent fanbase.
"Unfortunately, it's not going to change until the Paterno regime ends," he said regretfully. "It will be just as dismal next season."
Now, you might be saying there's a logical question here. That is, why is this man -- who is a 49-year-old retiree living in Hawaii who watches humpback whales jump out of the ocean as he surfs -- so troubled by the affairs of Penn State football?
"I care because it's a part of me, and I don't want to let it die," he said. "It's one of the things I remember about Penn State: getting Grilled Stickies, going to the Creamery and get up early on Saturdays to walk over to the football games."
Though the story of Craig Herman is probably one of the starkest examples of how Penn State fans feel these days, he is certainly not alone.
A grassroots movement of sorts seems to be developing. Many alumni and fans have flooded the inboxes of Penn State President Graham Spanier and Athletic Director Tim Curley with e-mail messages calling for a coaching change.
Others have gone a step further.
Doug Skeggs (Class of '99 - English) is one of those. Fueled by the frustration stemming from Penn State's 6-4 loss to Iowa, Skeggs has created an online petition, which advocates the termination of Joe Paterno's tenure as Penn State's head football coach.
As of last night, the petition had 580 signatures. Of course, many of these electronic signatures are bogus, with some of the more humorously false authors including former Florida coach Steve Spurrier along with "The Boston Red Sox."
"Every week you watch the game and walk away feeling like there's no hope," Skeggs said. "It's become glaringly obvious that the program isn't going to recover while [Paterno] is there."
And that also just about sums up what Joseph Korsak was trying to get across in the half-page ad he took out in this newspaper's football magazine. The ad, which ran on the bottom half of page 13 in the Nov. 6 issue of Collegian Magazine, said: "The talent is there. The coaching is an abomination. TIME FOR JOE TO GO."
Korsak, who included his name and address within the ad, said he's received about 70 letters of support since the ad ran, as well as "30 or 35 supportive phone calls."
Korsak said he had e-mailed both Spanier and Curley before taking out the ad, and did not get a response. He took out the ad because he said he wanted to "create a spark."
And it appears he has, considering the ad has been mentioned in stories written by The New York Daily News, The Detroit News, Chicago Sun-Times, The Associated Press, The Washington Post and The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.
"I feel that he's overstayed his welcome," Korsak said. "Virtually everyone gets to the point in their life where you have to move on to other endeavors."
Each of these three alumni talks with a high degree of either passion or sorrow in his voice.
And, then, you can't help but wonder: why do all these alums feel this strongly? Why do a young mortgage broker, an early retiree and an attorney from York all have such fervor about the future of Penn State football?
Well, it seems to me, because they care. And, really, you might call it a sort of love. Yeah, it's ugly right now -- but it's pure, almost irrational love for a football program to which they feel they belong.
It's as if -- in these very extreme times for Penn State football -- we're seeing the best and the worst of Penn State fans.
They jeer the man they once loved, but only because they once loved the man so much they can't help but jeer.
Whether they're in still in Pennsylvania or half a world away.
