She never knows it, but her former coach and mentor still watches her, admiring her transformation from a young girl into perhaps the most successful young coach in the history of women's soccer.
Penn State women's soccer coach Paula Wilkins is one of the fastest ever to reach the 100-win plateau, doing so in just 121 games. Former Penn State coach Patrick Farmer was there for Wilkins' win No. 99, a 5-2 thrashing of West Virginia in the second round of the NCAA Tournament. He stood in the corner away from fans and personnel, hoping he wouldn't be recognized by a contingent of program supporters before he made the trip northwest back to Syracuse, where he coaches now.
"I just want to watch the game," Farmer said. "I don't want to take a percent of the attention away from what she's done."
Farmer preceded Wilkins as head coach, a spot he held for the first seven years of the program's existence. During that time, he spearheaded the evolution of the program from a club team in 1992 to a Big Ten dynamo when the Division I program was created back in 1993. Wilkins wishes he would make such visits known to her, rather than lurk somewhere around the field where he has seen so much success.
"He likes to keep a low profile because he still thinks, although Lindsay Bach and all them are all my players are mine, he recruited Lindsay but he feels this is my program," Wilkins said. "I don't always appreciate it because I want him to be a part of it."
Wilkins finished where he left off, filling the job he vacated in 2000, a year removed from a season the Lions had advanced to the program's first Final Four. She has guided them back to two more College Cups, the second of which will take place this weekend at Texas Tech. She is now two wins away from the program's first national championship -- wins No. 102 and 103 would giver her that title.
Back when Farmer came to State College in 1993, he had already had two national title rings on his fingers, both of which came with Division III Ithaca College in 1990 and 1991. His passion to start something new lured him from the land of the gorges to Happy Valley.
Meanwhile, Wilkins had just finished her senior season on a University of Massachusetts team that had just gone to its own Final Four. With her college days winding down, and no professional soccer outlet available, she sat down and applied to graduate school to continue her study in physiology. Several of the application deadlines drew near, others came and went. Soon the former second-team Adidas Scholar Athlete saw the stack of rejection letters rise. One of the envelopes in the pile was from Penn State.
Looking where to go next, the Pennsylvania native turned to family and friends. Her aunt and uncle had an idea and a friend provided the connection.
As former Penn State students, they had learned through the grapevine that their alma mater was starting a NCAA women's soccer program, and they encouraged her to contact the university.
She contacted Farmer, whom Wilkins hoped would recall days that had faded into 9-year-old memories.
Back when Wilkins was 12-years old, she attended a camp coached by Farmer. He did remember those summer days, days that he laughs about now.
"She had an Afro," Farmer said. "Well, not an Afro, but some sort of perm thing."
Although the days of the 'fro had been replaced by bangs and a ponytail, the familiarity was still there. He knew she was the ideal person for the job, a job that would have to be left vacant for four to five months until she graduated from UMass.
The Penn State bureaucracy was not so sure she was perfect for the job, a problem that would emerge later and again would require Farmer's intervention. Her résumé was too loaded to ignore. According to Wilkins, Farmer was looking for a young, female coach, native to Pennsylvania.
While Farmer was fighting the administration on her behalf, he still was not so sure he could get her here, but again a tangled grapevine led to a common root. Both Wilkins and Farmer turned to the same friend for support.
Jeff Rickrode was an assistant under Farmer at Ithaca and would ultimately replace Farmer at the New York school. He was also a neighbor of Wilkins back in her crazy hairdo days and had nothing but positive things to say about her.
"It's a small world, so when Pat asked about me, he said 'I had known her since she was growing up' and it all sort of all fit together," Wilkins said.
Yet Farmer still took a chance, according to Wilkins, on a recent college grad that had never coached on a level beyond that of youth leagues.
"To be honest, I was a 21-year old female with no coaching experience but he gave me a lot of experience," she said. "Like I don't know how many 50-year-old, established coaches would be able to hand the team over to his assistant in the spring to teach her to work on it. And you know, I think that's one of the greatest gifts, the greatest opportunity I've been given as a coach."
Penn State conceded to Farmer's request and Wilkins became one of the defensive coaching assistants, and shortly after the graduate program accepted as she engrossed herself in other extracurricular work. She received her Master's in physiology in 1999.
"It wasn't bad," Wilkins said of the balancing act. "It took me five and a half years. Most people, it took one, but I took more time doing it because, obviously, I was more passionate about this and I thought that it was necessary to get my Masters and I actually really enjoy physiology. At the end, when I was writing my paper, I was burning the candle at both ends, but it was worth it. I'm glad I got my degree."
The relationship between Farmer and Wilkins once she arrived on campus was nearly as turbulent as the process that brought her here. Farmer said because of his desire to win, he sometimes leaves the emotions of the people he coaches behind.
Penn State assistant coach Tim Rosenfeld was an assistant with Wilkins under Farmer for one year and can attest to the up-and-down times.
"Weekly, I'd probably say, there were yelling arguments between the two while I was on staff," Rosenfeld said. "But he was such a softy that he would buy you an ice cream sandwich. That was his way of appeasing you. He'd bring everyone ice cream after the game or take Paula out to dinner.
"There were times he would look down the bench and tell her 'F' off, literally, just 'F' off," he added.
Farmer does not hide the facts that he bribes women to get them back on his good side.
"That's what old guys like me do," Farmer said. "We buy girls things when we're wrong. I'd buy the team ice cream, her something... Depending on how wrong I was, sometimes I'd buy her jewelry."
Over the seven years, the apology presents rolled in.
"I have a significant amount of gifts," Wilkins said with a laugh.
The young assistant still learned a lot from the wise, intense old man
"He got me to think differently -- more technically. I had always sort of looked at it from a competitive standpoint, not really tactical adjustments," Wilkins said. "He helped me with that. How to manage players, his philosophy on that. The biggest thing was the competitive attitude that he sort of taught.
"That, you know, that people always say you can't win them all. Well, he always said, 'Yes you can. You know, some people have.' But he had that sort of philosophy and that idea."
Farmer is modest about the credit his protégé throws his way, as he prefers to deflect it upon others in her life that came well before him.
"A lot of how she coaches comes from JR and I think he's one of the top shell coaches in our country." Farmer said, referencing UMass coach Jim Rudy.
In 2000, he and Wilkins sat down to lunch following a Penn State loss in the Elite Eight. They dined in the same place that they went to after the Lions lost to UCLA in the 1999 College Cup -- an Applebee's in Los Angeles.
"I know exactly where I was sitting. We were sitting at the bar," Wilkins said. "Actually the year before, I had sat with Bonnie Young and Christie Welsh after the Final Four."
He again bought her a meal, but this time it was not to make amends for mistakes of the past week. It was here that he confessed that he was leaving the program for the new professional women's soccer league, the league that had not existed when Wilkins left college seven years earlier. He again could not pass up the opportunity to start something completely new. He was asked by the New York Power to coach in the Women's United Soccer Association.
"I've always looked at different challenges, especially with starting someplace new," Farmer said. "It's something that's never been done before, and it's not like I'm leaving the team in a bad spot.' "
Farmer wanted Wilkins to stay behind and coach the Lions, but if she did not want to stay, he told her at lunch that he'd want her to come with him to the New York Power and be his assistant.
But there were other plans in the mix. Wilkins was going to interview with Northwestern. She was faced with the dilemma of leaving a program she started, following her mentor or breaking ties and heading west to Evanston, Ill.
"I got back on Monday from the Final Four, and so Curley called me in the office and said, 'It's your job if you want it,' " Wilkins said. "But I already had a job interview set up with Northwestern and also the job offer with Coach Farmer, so I had three jobs in the matter of one day."
Farmer said he wanted to tell the team that he was leaving without having Wilkins there because he was also going to tell his players that he wanted them to go to athletic director Tim Curley and lobby on Wilkins' behalf.
"I did tell the team I wanted them to go to Mr. Curley," Farmer said. "I thought it would be awkward if she was there as I asked them to sing her praises to Mr. Curley."
And sing they did, as they talked up Wilkins the best they could, fearing that if Curley brought in an outsider they would lose the blue-collar dynamic of the program.
"I remember sitting around a big table somewhere around in the Bryce Jordan Center somewhere," said an admittedly scared Welsh, a former player. "I don't remember much of what we talked about, but I know that they wanted to hear the players' concerns and basically hear about what we thought about Paula and the future of the program."
These measures were done to ensure Wilkins would get a shot at a job many in the program felt would be kept out of her hands.
"I didn't think they'd hire her," Farmer said. "Penn State, generally, does not hire assistant coaches. They hire elite head coaches."
But the athletic director, Curley, was forced to take notice, as he offered Paula the job shortly thereafter.
Yet Wilkins was not positive she was going to stay. There were reasons to part ways, but she ultimately thought the environment was conducive to her staying at Penn State. The program had become her child -- and she was there to mentor it.
"The way she looked at it, she was like 'This is my baby. I've been here since Day One. I was here for the very first practice of the team, and I don't want to see this program fall into somebody else's hands,' " Rosenfeld said.
She was doubtful that she was ready for such an undertaking despite having been around since the birth of the program.
"I wasn't really sure if I was ready for the job," Wilkins said. "To be honest, in the last five years, I know I've grown a lot as a coach, and I know that I'll continue to grow.
"I learn from my players a lot. And I learn from my assistants and I learn from the other coaches around here. If I ever have a problem, [men's volleyball coach] Russ Rose is right down the hall. To get advice from a guy who's won that many volleyball matches or that many championships, I don't think you can go wrong here. You know, Char Morrett is the same way. There are great coaches who have a great tradition here, and I think they've been great mentors for me," she added.
She brings up the difficult decision when she attempts to recruit some of the best athletes coming out of high school. She stayed because she wanted to see this through.
"I tell this to all the recruits that come in here -- when they offered me the job I had waited for a week, and I had said I was going to the WUSA," Wilkins said. "The other applicants, they were all very qualified people, but I didn't want them to affect the program we had started, whether it would go up or down."
Now, five years into her program, she has taken the program further than Farmer thought he ever could have.
Should she win games No. 102 and 103, Wilkins will have her first national title. Whether Farmer will be there, she won't know, but she always knows that he is in her corner.
