Penn State football’s Jesse Luketa ready to lead after a summer training with NHL star Claude Giroux
Jesse Luketa has plenty of talent alongside him in the Penn State football linebacker room, but found himself training with just as much talent when he returned home to Canada over the summer.
The Nittany Lion spent the quarantine and time away from campus working with Philadelphia Flyers’ forward Claude Giroux. Luketa said the workouts have been a staple to his time at home in Ottawa after he built a relationship with the NHL All-Star when he was a kid.
“Me and Claude started working out (in) 2016 or 2017,” Luketa said on a conference call with the media Tuesday afternoon. “As I started to grow and started to take football more seriously, they started allowing me to work out with them ... Claude, he’s a dude that does not get tired. So training with him I always gotta be on my Ps and Qs. I love working with him.”
Luketa’s training with Giroux has pushed the linebacker in his workouts and helped him improve, but it hasn’t led to him spending any time in a hockey rink.
“I can’t skate,” Luketa said. “That’s the funny thing. I never played hockey growing up because it was too expensive. So that was out of the question.”
Luketa never took up Canada’s most popular sport, but he’s done his part to bring the popularity of his favorite sport back to his home country.
The Nittany Lion linebacker has been a key piece in helping Penn State recruit the country and puts forth the effort to bring Canada’s best football players to Happy Valley. While he said there’s plenty to sell to prospective football players, he tries to let the program do the talking.
“When I have the opportunity to host those guys when they come onto campus, it’s not really hard for me,” Luketa said. “I don’t sell them a pitch. I keep it real simple. ... I let them know that Penn State is one of the best institutions in the country, if not the world ... They love it. I love being able to be a ‘Canadian ambassador’ for Penn State.”
He is one of three Canadians, alongside Theo Johnson and Jonathan Sutherland, currently listed on the Penn State roster with one more, incoming freshman Malick Meiga, set to join them when the roster is updated for the fall. The Nittany Lion pipeline to Canada isn’t disassembling any time soon, either, with 2021 quarterback commit Christian Veilleux also hailing from the country.
While Luketa has helped Penn State pitch its football program to other Canadians, his international route back to campus complicated his return during the pandemic.
The junior linebacker had to plan in advance in order to safely cross the border.
“It was kind of hard at first because travel is still banned,” Luketa said. “Myself and Jonathan (Sutherland), we had our paperwork to get back in the country, but the question was if we’d be able to cross if somebody drove us. I had to have one of my coaches drive us to the border. He dropped us off there and we had a representative from Penn State come and pick us up and they brought us back to State College.”
While it may have taken extra planning to get back to Penn State, Luketa still made it back. He returned last week and is ready to get back on the football field. The linebacker has plenty of confidence in his position group this season, calling it the best in the country, and he’s ready to take a step forward with his teammates.
Luketa started two games but appeared in all 13 in 2019 and found a way to make an impact by recording four passes defended in his time on the field, along with 24 tackles. He’ll be battling with redshirt junior Ellis Brooks for a starting spot tihs fall, but should have a leg up on his teammate because he made two starts last season.
The on-field improvement will be a key aspect to Penn State’s continued growth at linebacker in 2020, but so will the off-field component. The Nittany Lions lost two starters — and two leaders — after Cam Brown and Jan Johnson exhausted their eligibility after 2019. Star junior linebacker Micah Parsons could assume some of those leadership responsibilities, but he previously said it will involve him stepping outside of his comfort zone.
For Luketa, taking hold of the room as its leader is right in his wheelhouse.
“Those guys are gone, now it’s my turn to step up,” Luketa said. “I have to essentially be the old head in the room because guys are looking up to me. Whether it’s jumping on Zoom calls, making sure they’re staying on top of their stuff, helping them out with the playbook, that’s stuff I’ve taken upon myself because as of now, the onus is on me.”
“I’m a leader of the room now and I’m gonna have to be a leader on the field,” he continued, “especially playing the Mike and the Will positions. Penn State has a standard. Penn State has a rich history of what it is to be a Penn State linebacker. That’s something I’m gonna carry.”
This story was originally published July 2, 2020 at 8:00 AM.
