Christmas on the beach

The Penn State players took a break as they prepared for the Orange Bowl.
Knight Ridder Newspapers
BAL HARBOUR, Fla. -- Joe Paterno stole Christmas.
Not that the Penn State football players care.
With the beach, the bikinis, the balmy climate and their first bowl appearance in three years, the Nittany Lions don't seem upset that they missed out on the holidays at home.
"Sure, I wish I was with my family," defensive tackle Scott Paxson, a Philadelphian, said Wednesday night as he stood near the Sheraton Bal Harbour's pool and watched a perfect day turn to dusk. "But I'm not going to complain about being on a beach when it's 80 degrees."
Paterno brought Penn State to Florida on Dec. 20, nearly two weeks before its Orange Bowl matchup Tuesday with Florida State. The families of a few players came down in time for Christmas, but most of the Lions did nothing special on the holiday.
Christmas Day at the beach
"We just hung out at the beach," guard Tyler Reed said. "We didn't do anything special at all."
At least there was no practice that day, a welcome break from the grueling preparations Paterno has put them through. But it was more than a little strange for these mostly northern players to have spent that winter holiday on the beach.
"It was funny coming out of the water and laying down in your beach chair and having people come up to you and say, 'Hey, have a Merry Christmas,"' said Paxson, who has been wearing a Santa Claus hat much of the week.
"We played beach volleyball for about two hours," Paxson said, "and that's not something we usually do on Christmas back home."
Some of the Nittany Lions gathered in informal groups Sunday night to celebrate the holiday in local restaurants.
"It's good, and it's bad," linebacker Tim Shaw said. "It's strange being away from your family. But last year, I was sitting at home with them on Christmas wishing I was somewhere else."
Like in a bowl game.
Practice at Barry University
After a week of workouts in Delray Beach, Fla., 40 miles from this posh beach community, Paterno and his Big Ten champions arrived here Tuesday night. They practiced Wednesday at Barry University, where they will conduct the rest of their workouts.
"In Delray Beach, we had two days where we went twice a day," Reed said. "We went at it pretty good. [Wednesday] we had a tough practice, a good practice."
Perhaps the most encouraging aspect of those practices has been that freshman wideout Derrick Williams, who broke his left arm two months ago in the Michigan loss, is back and apparently cleared to go in the Orange Bowl.
"He looks good," senior wide receiver Ethan Kilmer said. "He's practicing good. But knowing Derrick, he probably could have played even when he had the cast on."
Only a few of Penn State's players were available to reporters at the hotel. But from them it was clear that Paterno has told them to try to avoid what figures to be the week's primary topic -- the showdown between Penn State's 79-year-old coach and Florida State's Bobby Bowden, Division I football's two winningest coaches.
"We know that that's the case," Springfield High graduate Isaac Smolko said, "but that's not something we really want to focus on. We need to be thinking about playing Florida State."
Mostly, they said that after not having played a game since Nov. 19, they were eager to get going.
"We're antsy," Paxson said. "We really want to get out there and line up against somebody."