Penn State hoops star Maggie Lucas' parents have a game plan when she plays

As Al and Betsy Lucas pulled out of Narberth on Thursday afternoon, on their way to State College, Al was wearing a Penn State jersey - Lady Lions, 33 - the number of his daughter, Maggie. But wife Betsy wore no Penn State gear. She just couldn't.

After the loss to Michigan State at home last month, Betsy decided she needed to wear "the opposite" - a plain sweater. Maybe the loss wasn't her fault. She is only the mother of the shooting guard. But the Lucases, like sports parents everywhere, love to see their daughter play and thrive, and they have to do their part.

They were leaving around 1 p.m., in time to arrive comfortably before the 7 p.m. tipoff. They always go to a bar for one beer before the game. This is a ritual they don't dare break.

Maggie is a sophomore on the Penn State basketball team, and all last season and this season, until the Michigan State loss, her parents went to an Irish bar. But they now have switched to a Mexican bar. Betsy realizes that if Penn State loses at home again, "we might have to go to the opposite of the opposite" - maybe back to the Irish bar, and even put a Penn State sweatshirt on.

But not yet.

Maggie is a star, a former Inquirer player of the year, a McDonald's all-American in high school. Last season, as a freshman, she broke the three-point scoring record for the Big Ten Conference. But she went 1 for 11 in the second-round game of the NCAA tournament, a loss, and vowed to shoot 100,000 shots over the summer. And she did.

That's 100,000 makes. Misses didn't count. One thousand shots for 100 days. She kept a spreadsheet.

Even her parents, who have grown accustomed to Maggie's basketball intensity, and are in part responsible for it, couldn't believe her pledge.

"Are you crazy?" her mother asked - and this is a mother who would sit in the car in her pajamas and shine the high beams on the Narberth basketball court late at night just so middle-school Maggie could shoot and shoot.

By the way, Maggie wouldn't wear long pants, truly nothing but basketball shorts, through seventh grade - not to school in winter (the teachers would call home), not even to church on Easter.

As Maggie explained, "I had to be ready if there was an opportunity to shoot."

Maggie did finally wear her first pair of jeans after her AAU team, consisting of girls a year older who had started to wear makeup and act like teenagers, performed what Betsy called an "intervention," and took Maggie to T.J. Maxx and made her buy jeans.

Maggie chose Penn State for two reasons. One is that college had to be near enough so her parents could go to every home game. And they do.

The second reason was that in August 2008, before Maggie even began her junior year of high school at Germantown Academy, she was already being recruited by many colleges and went back to Penn State for a third visit.

She had already met the college president. This time, the basketball coaches took Maggie and her parents to the football stadium, and walked them down onto the field ("The grass itself felt like Augusta," recalled Al) and Maggie met linebacker Sean Lee, who now plays for the Dallas Cowboys, but was then a Penn State football star. He was handsome and charming and modest and exactly the kind of boy parents such as Al and Betsy would love for their daughter to meet at Penn State.

But then, of course, who should walk up to them in the end zone but Joe Paterno. The coach had been prepped and he had come to meet Maggie Lucas and close the deal.

JoePa asked Al and Betsy if they'd mind if he and Maggie took a walk. The Legend put his arm around Maggie and took a stroll toward the 50-yard line, and Joe told her, "I'm going to come see you play. Any of the other football coaches tell you that? We'll have you over for dinner. Sue makes a great plate of pasta . . . " He whispered in her ear, according to her parents, "Come on, Maggie. Come to Penn State!"

And she was blushing and her parents swore she grew taller that very day.

Two days later Maggie, just 16, committed in words and in her heart to play for Penn State.

As Al and Betsy approached State College Thursday afternoon, the light on the gas gauge in their SUV came on.

"I should put gas in," Al said.

"That's not our normal routine, honey," Betsy replied.

"I know," he said.

Their normal routine is always to stop at the Exxon and Dunkin' Donuts as they leave town after the game, to fill up on fuel and coffee for Al. Even though they still had miles to go, they decided to risk it. Didn't want to jinx Maggie.

At the Mexican bar, they had their beer, and were joined by Betsy's parents, Margaret and Carl Milleker, both 79, who had driven up from Baltimore. Then they went to the Bryce Jordan Center, the arena, for the game.

Betsy carried in four tins of cookies and brownies. She has become known for her baking, a tradition she started when Maggie was in AAU ball.

In fact, after a high school tournament in Brooklyn one summer, the New York Post began a story like this: The only thing better than Betsy Lucas's chocolate chip cookies last night was the three-point shooting of her daughter, Maggie . . .

Betsy had a ritual, of course. When she arrived, she had to give five cookies to the guy at the Will Call window, where she picked up their tickets, and one each to two people working at the souvenir stand right inside the arena. She then brought cookies to Paul Warnick, 99, in the front row, and Lorraine Roller, 75, a stroke victim, next to him.

"We usually win because of these cookies," Roller said.

Al went down to courtside, where he always goes, so Maggie would see him when Penn State came in for warm-ups.

Maggie is pretty much always smiling, except when Penn State is losing, but she smiled even more broadly when she saw her father Thursday. She nodded to him, and held up three fingers - he says it's because she's a three-point shooter - and then he went off to his seat.

Al sat in Section 107, Row CC, Seat 14. Betsy sat in Section 107 - but Row AA, seat 1. Two rows and 13 seats away.

They haven't sat together at games in a decade.

Betsy started to move away from Al because he just watched the game differently. Al played high school ball in Baltimore (Al and Betsy, 52 and 53, met at Towson University) and he coached their older sons and Maggie in youth leagues, and he sees the game on a different plane. Al knows every play and can see what doesn't happen. He will scream, "She missed a pick!"

This is not Betsy. She's concerned much less with actual basketball than with the emotional well-being and happiness of her daughter. In fact, sons Peter and Ben played on the Lower Merion High School state championship team in 2006, and Betsy says of herself, with both pride and embarrassment, "No one has seen more basketball and knows less about the game."

What really drove Betsy farther away from her husband was when he started yelling at referees by first names, because, of course, going to so many games for so many years he knew them all. She tried shushing him but then people would shush her for shushing him, and she didn't like that.

She says, with both truth and humor, "A lot of parents don't sit together. We're all still married. It was those parents that were sitting together that aren't."

After the national anthem, Al folded his hands, closed his eyes and bowed his head. As the ref was about to toss up the ball, Al said, "Come on, baby girl, do work now."

She did. Within a minute or two, she took her first three-point shot. The ball left her hands. "Boom," her father yelled. And then as if after a delay, the ball floated through the net.

Maggie was first dragged to gyms when she was 2, and her brothers were 4 and 6, and she was the kind of kid who always had a ball and begged her father to teach her how to shoot. He taught her mechanics, squaring the legs, being on the balls of her feet. And he can tell now by her form, and by her release, whether a shot is going to fall.

He also taught Maggie to release the ball quickly, because Betsy Lucas is only 5-foot-2, and Al himself only 6 feet on a good day, and Al figured if Maggie wanted to play on the college level she better learn to shoot quickly before somebody taller could come over and block it.

Maggie, amazingly, grew to "an honest 5-9," said her mother, who insists Maggie simply "willed it."

Helped by Maggie's quick scoring, Penn State jumped out to a big lead and Maggie led all scorers Thursday night with 24 points and Penn State won by 32, and it was a fun and stress-free night for both parents. All the various rituals they followed had worked.

After the game, they waited for Maggie to come out after her shower. Maggie walked up, was about to hug her grandmother when she noticed the new sneakers and stopped short: "MomMom. Nike Frees. Oh, my gosh, I'm so proud of you right now."

The family posed on the floor for some pictures, and when PopPop missed a few shots at the basket, Maggie was very forgiving. But when her father tried and missed, she was less so.

"Oh, my God - that's so bad," she said.

He missed another. Clang.

"You're a disgrace."

(Give the guy a break. He works six days a week as director of operations for Stephen Starr's restaurants. He's out of practice.)

But a voice came down from on high, from the upper level, perhaps from God or a custodian: "If you wear number 33, you can't be missing."

Al set up for one more shot. "Can't quit on a miss, right?" he said to Maggie. Swish. "I'm done," he said.

Maggie was off to a late dinner with her grandparents, who were staying in a motel. Al and Betsy hugged everyone, said their goodbyes. Al did the one thing that all fathers of college daughters do before leaving, and got out his wallet. "Let me give you some money," he said.

Al and Betsy stopped for gas and coffee, per ritual.

It was 1:05 a.m when they pulled up to their home, and both would be working in the morning. Betsy is administrator for Nalls Architecture in Narberth. Al, with complete honesty, said, "I can't wait to do this again."