Michael Mauti Returns to Penn State in Development Post for Athletics

The All-American linebacker, who helped create a football-focused NIL collective, will play a role with the Nittany Lion Club.

Former Penn State linebacker Michael Mauti, pictured with the Nittany Lions in 2012, returns to the program as an associate director of development with the Nittany Lion Club. / Evan Habeeb-USA TODAY Sports

Michael Mauti, the Penn State All-American linebacker who helped organize the football program's first NIL collective, has joined Penn State's athletic department in a full-time role. Mauti has been named as an associate director of development with the Nittany Lion Club, the chief fundraising arm of athletics. The Nittany Lion Club raises money for scholarships, capital projects and endowments through its member-based organization.

Mauti, the Big Ten linebacker of the year and a first-team All-American in 2012, remains a significant figure in Penn State football history, largely for what he did off the field in 2012. After the NCAA meted out sanctions against football program that summer, Mauti and teammates Michael Zordich, Jordan Hill and others spearheaded one of the largest player-organized retention drives in college football history.

Mauti called teammates as they drove out of State College, convincing them to turn around, and spoke with Zordich in a widely viewed video they made two days after the sanctions. Their 2-minute statement was punctuated with several memorable lines.

"We take this as an opportunity to create our own legacy," Mauti said in the video. "This program was not built by one man and this program sure as hell is not going to get torn down by one man."

He added, "No sanction, no politician, is ever going to take away what we've got here. None of that is every going to tear us apart."

Mauti, who played parts of five NFL seasons with the Minnesota Vikings and New Orleans Saints, returned to the Penn State universe in 2022 as part of an NIL initiative. Mauti and former Nittany Lions Chris Ganter and Ki-Jana Carter founded Lions Legacy Club, a collective that served as a football-focused organization. Mauti was the organization's head of business development. In 2023, Lions Legacy Club merged with Success With Honor to become Happy Valley United, Penn State's official NIL collective.

When Lions Legacy Club initially formed, Mauti compared its purpose to that of his player-retention drive in 2012. In issuing the sanctions, the NCAA also permitted Penn State players to transfer penalty-free to another school. Ten years later, Mauti said that the newly expanded provisions of the NCAA Transfer Portal reminded him of that situation.

"I can't help but draw comparisons and parallels to my experience in 2012," Mauti said in a 2022 interview. "For the first time in college football history, overnight any of us could leave and go to another school and play immediately. I feel those underlying themes here now. ... I’m not sure our fan base really appreciates the gravity of what's going on. We are at risk of losing players. It is code red for us. That's why I think it's important to understand what we're doing."

Mauti's return to Penn State in this role seems a natural fit, one he described in the 2022 interview as part of Lions Legacy Club.

"I understand the cultural values, the Grand Experiment. I’m a legacy product," he said. "This now has allowed me to do it. I didn’t intend a year ago to be sitting here trying to spearhead this project. However, here we are, and it needed to be done. I saw an opportunity to do that with the new athletic department and coach [James] Franklin and their needs and to have the solution to those. Who better to unify Penn State football the community that it supports and by extension the fan base and the economy it supports? I’ve seen that as close to gone as anybody."

Mauti joins a lengthy list of Penn State football lettermen working for the program or in athletics. Three members of Franklin's staff are former players, including associate head coach Terry Smith. Ty Howle coaches tight ends, Deion Barnes is in charge of the defensive line, Torrence Brown is a defensive graduate assistant and Dan Connor serves as an analyst.

The recruiting staff includes former players Alan Zemaitis and Jordan Lucas, Wally Richardson is director of the football Lettermen's Club and Omar Easy heads the new Brand Academy.

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AllPennState is the place for Penn State news, opinion and perspective on the SI.com network. Publisher Mark Wogenrich has covered Penn State for more than 20 years, tracking three coaching staffs, three Big Ten titles and a catalog of great stories. Follow him on Twitter @MarkWogenrich.