First-year Penn State football defensive coordinator Jim Knowles grew up in Philadelphia, Pa. and always dreamed of finding a home with the Nittany Lions.
"Penn State was the school of my boyhood dreams and being an inner city kid, I never got to go to a game and certainly wasn't talented enough to be recruited as a player," Knowles said to Big Ten Network's Dave Revsine.
Knowles attended Cornell University where he played defensive end and eventually started his coaching experience with the Big Red. His first stint at Cornell was as an assistant coach from 1988 to 1996 and he returned to his alma mater from 2004 to 2009 as head coach.