FORMER PENN STATE PLAYER & ALUMNA START MARKETING & PR COMPANY
Pre-Launch Event Set for Blue White Weekend at the Blue Line

Excell LLC, Marketing & Public Relations consulting firm will be hosting "Excell at the Blue", a cocktail reception at the Blue line (234 E. College Avenue State College, PA 16801) on April 19, 2008 from 7 – 9PM. The event is to pre-launch the new start up business and to invite local business owners in the State College area, who may be interested in teaming up with Excell for their marketing and pr needs. Invited guests will have the opportunity to meet with the Excell team, mingle with current and former Penn State Football players, and enjoy a relaxed night out in State College.

Excell , LLC was created to thoroughly meet the marketing and public relations needs of any individual, small business, or large corporation. Excell was founded by former Nittany Lion quarterback and present San Francisco 49er Michael Robinson and Penn State Marketing Alumna, Allison Tibbs.

The Blue Line (www.bluelinenetworks.com) is a privately-financed start-up business incubator located in downtown State College. Throughout the weekend the Blue Line will be hosting numerous events to promote all the businesses that fall under the Blue Line umbrella. Former Nittany Lion, Matthew Rice, will have his art on display all weekend at the Blue line and will be available for purchase, including the “BluPrint”, the official painting of the 2005 Big Ten Championship season. There will also be autographed Penn State memorabilia to be auctioned off to raise money for Penn State Football’s Lift for Lift charity.

Matthew Rice will be available all weekend promoting his company, Mateo Blu (www.mateoblu.com), which he has created to sell his art. He will be displaying and selling art all weekend at the Blue Line and making guest appearances at the Nittany Lion Club Luncheon and Blue White spring game.

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If you would like more information about Excell or MateoBlu, please contact Allison Tibbs at 814-883-6460 or atibbs.excell@gmail.com. If you would like more information about The Blue Line, please contact Dave Barton at 814-360-8747 or dbarton@blueswarf.com.

Rice Endures Health Problems
As Matthew Rice puts it, the way he was forever altered this past August was as simple as going to sleep one night and waking up to a completely different life.

On a Thursday morning, he woke up not peacefully, like every other day, but to a seizure. A series of CAT scans and MRIs identified the cause as a tumor on the right frontal lobe of his brain, ironically the section from which artistic abilities are derived. The tumor was benign, but a second seizure made surgery a certainty.

A year earlier, Rice was a defensive end at NFL training camp, competing for a roster spot, and now he was about to undergo brain surgery.

“I was actually surprised at myself with how I handled it,” Rice said. “I never lost faith I wasn’t going to be okay, because I had been through too much in life for this to take me out. It was more like something I had to go through.”

The surgery, performed by Dr. Henry Brem, the director of neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins, was successful: since the tumor was so close to the surface, it was removed without any damage to Rice’s brain, and no additional growths were discovered. Hopkins is an international mecca for surgeries like the one Rice needed, but for him, a native of Baltimore City, it was also a neighborhood hospital.

Brem, whose daughter is also an artist, contradicted an earlier prognosis Rice received and told him that, instead of him potentially losing his artistic talents, the removal of the foreign object in the brain could actually allow them to develop more fully. He also placed extra reinforcements in Rice’s skull, allowing for the possibility of again playing football.

Neither of Rice’s two passions, then, had been extinguished.

Rice had staples in his head for nearly three weeks, which shook him, and he had to return to the hospital once to eliminate a post-operation infection, eerily placed in the same room as his original hospital stay. It will take him a year to be fully healed, and he will always need regular MRIs, but the recovery has gone well: he feels no lasting physical effects, save having to tone down weight room sessions a few notches from the professional football level.

The worst part, to him, has been the strain he feels it put on his family, especially coupled with the recent loss of his aunt, Louise Andrews, a family matriarch.

“A lot of people put so much into me, and to see a child or a brother or an uncle just in a state like that, that’s a lot for them,” Rice said. “I’m still me, but mentally I’m feeling all this.”

For the first year since ninth grade, football season has taken on a different meaning for Rice: a period of quiet recovery instead of fiery competition. Trying football again remains a possibility, though Rice knows it’s a battle to make it as a professional athlete without taking a year hiatus to heal from brain surgery. The fact that a comeback is considered improbable, though, appeals to him.

For all that Rice has found inconveniently dropped in his path, through 25 years which he says feel more like 50, he is calm when he speaks of it. How he frames it now is that he’s just dealing with life — a mature perspective, but one he feels he has no choice but to have.

An interruption from football, then, has become not a difficult step away from the game he loves, but a chance to rest his body from forceful tackling and, most importantly, to dedicate himself wholly to his artwork, which he hasn’t yet been able to do.

Already, Mateo Blu is working itself into grander circles — permanent displays in two Baltimore restaurants, the potential to unveil affordable art prints for college students by next April, more art shows on his agenda — and Rice next plans to take a sojourn to Arizona so he can turn himself over to painting in new, calm surroundings.

As he silently assured himself in August, the brain tumor was just something he had to go through, not something which would eradicate his life’s possibilities.

“I live life and put that on canvas,” Rice said. “I paint me.”

Rice Returns From Euro Trip
Defensive End played for NFL Europa’s Rhein Fire while drawing overseas inspiration
(July 4, 2007) — The first time Matthew Rice played for the Rhein Fire in Düsseldorf’s LTU arena, he was taken aback when he heard multiple whistles blowing.

In all the football games he had played in the United States, the sound of a whistle always meant the referee was stopping the play. But in Germany, tens of thousands of fans also blew whistles, to help cheer on the team.

“You’re trained to stop playing when you hear the whistle blowing, so that was kind of tough in the beginning,” Rice said, laughing. “All those whistles blowing, it was like a sea of locus.”

It was a noisy — but friendly — welcome to NFL Europa, where Rice spent two months playing defensive end for the Fire against four other teams in Germany and one in Amsterdam. Rice’s team was affected by injuries to many players — Rice himself dislocated ligaments in his left hand — and finished with a 4-6 record. But his immersion in European culture, and the camaraderie he built with teammates from countries including Mexico, Finland and Japan, affected him uniquely, both within football and beyond.

“The level of humility I gained over there will never be forgotten,” Rice said. “Learning how to withstand different circumstances, I gained a lot of growth from my Europa experience. Just focusing on the positive, because there’s always negatives and there’s always positive, to me, focus makes you.”

NFL Europa folded last week, to allow the NFL to pursue different international opportunities. But in his one season of football overseas, Rice saw the impact the league had on the area of Western Germany where the Rhein Fire was based. The 2007 season attracted record crowds, even when the team was struggling, reminding Rice of the faith of Penn State fans. And like Rice grew accustomed to the fans’ whistles as the season progressed, so too did the futbol-driven region pick up on the rules of American football.

Most of Rice’s time abroad was consumed by football: each morning, he woke up at 6 a.m., and team practices, film sessions and meals kept him busy until 7 at night. But he didn’t abandon the artist in him. He took pictures and observed Germany’s well-maintained open park spaces and distinctive architecture, which Rice describes as “downtown Baltimore crossed with a Dr. Seuss book.”

He also met two dance students from the Netherlands, who not only gave him a native perspective on European culture, but helped him to work movement into his art. He did two photo shoots of the dancers performing and hopes to incorporate their live motion into a future art show in the U.S. or Europe.

“Trying to balance football and becoming immersed in European culture was crazy, because each of my careers demands so much emotion,” Rice said. “But with the openness and free will the two dancers had, and the imagination they used in their choreography, it was a great experience to capture that and be there for that.”

After returning from Europe, Rice traveled to Alabama to rehab his hand. Though he was injured early in the NFL Europa season, he chose to play through it, not wanting to abandon his teammates. He is currently with the Detroit Lions and will report to training camp on July 25.

As he works to restore himself physically, he will also continue to work artistically, preparing pieces for an upcoming show in Washington D.C., as well as prints for sale in State College later this month. For Rice, the whirlwind never stops.

“I move around so much, I sometimes forget where I’m at,” he said. “So now I just say, ‘I’m on Earth.’ ”

Rice brings “Transition from Death to Life” to Maryland Art Show
BALTIMORE CITY, Md. (Feb. 24, 2007) — BALTIMORE CITY, Md. — Less than an hour from his hometown, in Mt. Rainier, Md., artist and football player Matthew Rice will display his artwork Saturday, Feb. 24, in the Synergy Fine Art Show. The collection of pieces he will showcase captures the theme of “Transition from Death to Life.”

The sponsors of Syngery are The Collective, an organization devoted to enlivening the Washington D.C. visual fine arts culture, and Catfish Fridays. Held at Artmosphere, 3311 Rhode Island Ave., the show will run from 5 to 8 p.m. for the public, with $10 admission at the door, and 3 to 8 p.m. for passholders. Among the pieces Rice has selected are Four Prophets, No Child Left and Kind of Blu, as seen on his Web site, www.mateoblu.com, in addition to new paintings he plans to debut.

“I feel as though teaming up with The Collective has given me a great opportunity to showcase my artwork within the metropolitan area,” Rice said.

Synergy will also feature work by Lisa Jones, Donna Turgeon, Lynde Washington, Nyles Montgomery, Deborah Brooks and Daryll Dawson, among others. Rice founded his personal art business, Mateo Blu, in the summer of 2006, and has expanded his body of work since then. After spending time with four NFL teams in the fall of 2006, Rice will compete abroad in NFL Europa’s 2007 season, beginning in April.
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RICE CHOSEN FOR SUPER BOWL XLI ART SHOWCASE
Football player’s paintings will be auctioned off in Players Association Smocks & Jocks event
BALTIMORE CITY, Md. (Jan. 21, 2007) — On Super Bowl weekend, defensive end Matthew Rice will have the opportunity to showcase his talents: not on the football field, but on canvas. The 24-year-old professional football player and artist has been invited to include three of his paintings in the Smocks & Jocks Jazz Brunch & Silent Auction, to be held Saturday, Feb. 3 from 10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. in South Florida.
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$885 Raised to Fight Cancer
Matt appeared at the Northern Lebanon Middle School gynasium and helped raise money for cancer by bringing some of his artwork to autograph and sell.
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Matthew Rice, Former Penn State Defensive End and Artist, to Sign Autographs at Northern Lebanon's Sixth Grade Challenge Cup Silent Auction
Matthew Rice, a starter on the Penn State football team at defensive end from 2003-2005 and contributor to Penn State's highly successful 2005 campaign, will sign autographs for donations at the Silent Auction to be held in conjunction with Northern Lebanon's Sixth Grade Challenge Cup event Tuesday evening, October 24, 2006. The Silent Auction and signings will take place in the Northern Lebanon Middle School Cafeteria from 5:30 - 6:30 PM.

Mr. Rice, also well known for his painting "Bluprint", which became the 2005 Penn State football poster, will exhibit his art work at the Auction. Mr. Rice created "Bluprint" to represent the unity between the students and the players on game day in Beaver Stadium. The piece was based on the energy he felt before going to battle on the football field.

Admission to the Silent Auction and signing with Mr. Rice is free. The Sixth Grade Challenge Cup Finals will begin at 7:00 PM. Admission to the finals is $5.00 for adults and $3.00 for senior citizens and students. All proceeds from the Sixth Grade Challenge Cup activities will be presented to Penn State Football Lift for Life which supports the Kidney Cancer Association and raised more than $50,000 for the Association this year.

CONTACT:
Sally Bair
Northern Lebanon School District
(717) 865-0541 ext. 2516
(717) 865-0606 (Fax)
sbair@norleb.k12.pa.us