STATE COLLEGE, Pa. -- In the days leading up to Saturday night's White Out showdown between No. 2 Penn State and No. 19 Michigan, arguably the only thing busier than the staffers hustling in and out of the Lasch Football Building is the phone ringing off the hook at The Naked Egg Cafe.
"It's been nonstop," one Naked Egg employee said Thursday.
The quaint restaurant on the outskirts of State College, just far enough to keep most of the student population away during the week before it closes at 3 p.m. yet popular enough that everyone comes in droves on the weekend, has a bit of a conundrum this week. This phone, in the place that seats about 50-60 diners max and houses just four cooks and a small wait staff, keeps ringing with reporters looking for Paula O'Korn, the mother of Michigan's starting quarterback. Paula is a server at the cafe and has been since it opened 3-plus years ago.
What started as a side job for her to get out of the house has transformed into a focal point this week, and with ESPN's College GameDay in town it's only done more to thrust the O'Korn family into the spotlight. The network wanted the café to cater a meal and to do a segment on quarterback John O'Korn and his family. The problem?
"We don't have a big enough staff to do catering," a Naked Egg employee said while I sipped coffee in a booth on Thursday. "We're really a small little place and I don't think most people get that."
Michigan's starting quarterback grew up in Huntingdon, about 30 miles west of State College, and then left town to attend football powerhouse St. Thomas Aquinas where he played his final two high school seasons. It's a homecoming of sorts for the Wolverines' starter who was inserted into the starting lineup following Wilton Speight's injury last month. The fifth-year senior who transferred to Michigan after playing two seasons at Houston, where he started 16 games, will make his third consecutive start for Jim Harbaugh's team Saturday night.
Paula's co-workers said she continues to make sure she's off on Friday so she can travel to his games and this week she's already clocked out for what figures to be a busy and special weekend for the family.
"He's a veteran quarterback. He's been around," James Franklin said this week. "He's done a lot of different things. Obviously coach Harbaugh does a great job of coaching those guys, played the position. He's a big, strong guy. He's athletic. He is surrounded by a lot of talent."
The game could also make for some interesting conversations the next time some of the Penn State football players and staffers who regularly visit the breakfast spot stop by. They're familiar with Paula, someone who Lions' tight end Mike Gesicki has gotten to know while chowing down on his go-to breakfast burrito.
"She was asking me about football, then mentioned that her son played at Michigan," Gesicki recalled this week. "I asked what position he played and she said quarterback. He wasn't starting at the time, and then I put it all together when she later said he got the job."
It's hard to miss the Lions' 6-6, 250-pound NFL prospect, but the outgoing Gesicki looks forward to making his next trip across town for a meal and striking up a conversation with the quarterback's mother yet again.
"She's a great lady," Gesicki said. "She'll ask how the team's doing, how I'm doing, how I'm feeling. And when her son became the starting quarterback, I congratulated her on that and wished her the best and all that kind of stuff. I don't personally know him, but I have obviously met his mother. I'll go over there to see her and wish her the best."
