Even at 2-5, Penn State defensive end Shaka Toney's optimism persists

By any measure, the Penn State football team’s season has been a disappointment. At 2-5, there is no other way to label a program that had aspirations of being a contender for the national title before the campaign opened.

But leave it to defensive end Shaka Toney, ever an eternal optimist, to see the positives in losing far more than winning.

“Losing isn’t fun, and I’ve never lost this many games in my career on any team,” Toney said during a video conference with media on Tuesday. “Now, I’ve just learned how to handle it. I learned how I can get better from it and what I can do to help to get out of losing. It was all a lesson. It ain’t the end of the world. … You’ve just got to maximize your opportunities when things don’t always go as planned. You’ve got to learn situations and maximize situations when they don’t got the best way.

“I just feel like it was a big learning year. There’s a lot of things you can just take away this year that hopefully you worked on in yourself.”

Presumably, there is little refinement for Toney’s affable, enthusiastic nature. Even with the guarantee that Penn State will have with a losing regular season for the first time since 2004, Toney preached the importance of completing the task at hand.

“You don’t win every marathon you run,” Toney said. “You don’t win every race. But if you finish, that’s what means the most because now, you can get up and learn. Whereas if you quit and you just lay down and keep letting people walk all over you, you ain’t learning nothing. You’re not getting better. You’re taking no lesson from the loss. All you’re learning is that I can quit when stuff gets tough.

“You always want to see things through. That’s all we preach is to finish strong. It ain’t always how you start. It’s about how you finish.”

Toney lauded his teammates for weathering a tumultuous season.

“Our locker room … we care a little bit different,” Toney said. “Yeah, you’ve got your guys you hang out with a little bit more. But when I talk to guys at other schools, all I hear is cliques this and, ‘I don’t hang with these people,’ and all of that. It’s never like that on our team.

“Guys walk out of the building and see a freshman freezing walking home to his dorm and offer him a ride. They probably never even talked to the guy like in a full conversation before that moment. That’s just stuff that we do for each other. When people want to do a cause, guys all go around donating to make sure we support each other. People don’t hate on each other here, you know?

“A competitive environment, a lot of places it breed jealousy. It breeds people to be resentful of one another. Here, it’s just like guys don’t want what’s on your plate. They want to make their own. That’s something that really helps us.”

While Toney’s optimism would certainly suggest he isn’t focused on his team’s losing record, he’s not oblivious to the external criticism directed to the program, which has fallen short of even the most modest of expectations.

He suggests that scrutiny is off key when the greater context of the coronavirus pandemic is weighed in.

“Our team hasn’t had covid cases because of the sacrifices that we’ve made as a team,” Toney said. “We’re not seeing our families. We’re not seeing students. We’re not seeing friends. We’re literally only seeing people in the (athletics) building and the team.

“When you go to the stores and stuff, you’re kind of freaked out and whatnot. You don’t want to touch people. You don’t want to risk giving (anybody) on the team covid. None of us have been home for a long, long, long time. There have been so many sacrifices this team made. Our record doesn’t reflect the work that we’ve put in. That’s what people don’t understand. People are so critical of us, and it’s like a lot of teams can’t even play because their teams can’t behave the right way. … When you see the outbreaks (with other teams) especially after big games, they’re going home and partying.

”We’ve won these last couple of games. It’s been a tough season. You would think people want to go out. Nope. Guys all go to different houses huddled around the TV and watch games. All we are doing is football and school. That’s the only thing that we can do. We’re not able to enjoy a lot of things this year that regular people are enjoying. Pump (your) brakes before you start judging us because, mentally, this is so tough.

“And losing… we’re already going through so much for ourselves and to represent the name that we all love. Just be happy that you can at least watch football this year. Because some teams, you watch some of these games, it’s like Week 12. For some teams, it’s only (three weeks). You’ve got to be grateful. You’ve got to appreciate the stuff that we’re doing here. I think we’re a model program for how you handle the coronavirus. Shout out to (coach James) Franklin. He took all the precautions he needed.”