ALTOONA, Pa. -- Some people dream of giving back to their alma mater through a multitude of different platforms, but Ty Howle dreamed of coming back to Penn State as a coach someday.
With his promotion to tight ends coach, that dream has become a reality.
"It's always been a dream of mine. I wake up every morning and pinch myself, so I'm excited to be here and coach the tight ends," Howle said in a Zoom call with reporters. "Like I said, it's been something I've always wanted to do and tried to prepare for."
Howle returned to the program last season as an offensive analyst, a role in which he helped position coaches and learned the intricacies of the recruiting process for the staff. When he returned to Penn State, Howle didn't quite think it all would fall into place so quickly.
"The reason I came back here was for an opportunity like this," he said. "When I left Penn State as a player, it was always my goal to get back here as a coach. I always knew I wanted to coach. My dad was a high school coach for 30 years, so i knew I wanted to coach and when I got back into it, this was my ultimate goal, to get back to a place that gave me so much, a great university like Penn State, and obviously, this is home for me."
Despite not being in an on-field role for games, Howle prepared himself as though he were, knowing that someday he'd get the opportunity again.
"That was my mindset going into last year," he said.
Howle is no stranger to coaching, having served as the offensive coordinator at Western Illinois under former Penn State quarterbacks coach Charlie Fisher. Fisher isn't the only one under whom Howle has been able to learn and grow. He mentioned his head coach at Penn State, Bill O'Brien, as well as his father, David Howle, and his predecessor, Tyler Bowen, as those from whom who he's learned and with whom he has built relationships over the years.
Bowen and Howle are close friends and it will be Howle who takes over not only his position group, but a majority of his recruiting territory. As an analyst, Howle was able to build relationships with not only those in the position group, but with targets of the Nittany Lions. That has led to what has been, so far, an easy transition.
"Fortunately for me, it was a pretty smooth transition because I had been here," Howle said. "I knew those guys, on and off the field, and had developed relationships with them already. I got to know those guys very well, whether at team dinners or those kinds of things, so you get to develop relationships and that's what I tried to do last year. So it wasn't too hard of a transition, as far as getting to know the guys."
Much like his predecessor, Howle is a relationship-based coach. He's spent his short time with the program doing that, forging relationships with players and their parents, making sure they knew what they would get out of Howle and what to expect from him.
"Just making sure everybody knew I was in this for the right reasons," he said.
That mindset is sure to endear Howle to players and parents, but ultimately, Howle knows it goes deeper than the wins and losses for his players, and even himself. It's important to realize that football doesn't last forever and consequently, Howle and his fellow coaches are judged not only by what they do on the field, but how they develop players as men, as well.
"I measure success in the type of men that we'll produce here at Penn State," Howle said. "When I was a player, that was always something that was talked about."
Those wins and losses will come and go, but the memories Howle made, as well as those of his players, will last forever. That's not lost on Howle, who was a part of an unforgettable stretch of football playing for Joe Paterno and O'Brien. It's those memories that led to him to coach after his playing career ended.
"When I finished playing, it wasn't the four-overtime win against Michigan that I remember the best," Howle said. "It was the time in the locker room. That's something I love and is one of the reasons I'm coaching."
Those experiences came as a player at Penn State which gives Howle the opportunity to give the players he recruits an inside look at what it's like to be a Nittany Lion and play at Beaver Stadium. The love and passion Howle shows about the university could give him an advantage in recruiting. He's going to be able to tell his players what it's like to be a Penn State football player and what it means to be one as well, which is only going to help the Nittany Lions.
As Penn State head coach James Franklin put it when he hired him, Howle 'wears his pride for the university on his chest each day,' and that's probably putting it mildly. Now, it's Howle's turn to give back to the university, as he once dreamed of doing, this time as a position coach at the Power Five level for the first time.
"I love this place more than anything, and obviously had a great career here, made lifelong friends and got a degree," Howle said. "I owe this place so much that I hope, through my coaching, I can give back to this university."