PSU History: Fans' Love & Loyalty Helped Build This Place
- 2 days ago
- 15 min read
NOTE: This is the latest in a continuing series of offseason essays highlighting Penn State football's history of unique student-athletes. It is in response to Coach Matt Campbell and his staff reconnecting with the Penn State football alumni. These essays are designed to highlight history beyond the current generation and to remember players and stories that delve deeper into a proud legacy of excellence;
Here are links to the previous essays:
This spring we’ve presented essays that cover the proud history of the student-athletes that helped build Penn State football across the generations. Today we salute another group of people who’ve made all that we see around us on game day Saturdays and throughout the year possible.
Penn State’s fan base is built on passing down a passion from generation to generation. Most fans are names you’ll never know, it’s hard to know everyone when they travel in packs of 108,000 at a time.
When I first came back to coach at Penn State in 1995, our next-door neighbor Tom Runyan was a World War II veteran, a Penn State alum and fan. He lived in California for many years before retiring to State College. For years he was a regular at the Sportsman, a restaurant and bar in Ventura, where he regularly dueled with USC fans.
Luckily for me he loved to tell stories about his college era. During his college years after WW II they carried kegs into Beaver Field where much drinking and merriment ensued. Beaver Field was near the Nittany Lion Inn, and many alums would have a breakfast or lunch there or at places downtown before walking to the stadium.
Two remnants of that era remain. The current Biomechanics Lab was the team locker room when both Beaver Field and the practice fields were near it. Beaver Field was where the Nittany Parking Deck and Kern Building are now.
And just a little further east, along North Allen Street between Chambers Building and the Music Building the Old Beaver Field White Oak still stands, a tree that was just east of Old Beaver field and as the plaque says, was visible from Old Beaver Field photos as far back as 1893.
Jack Branigan, a family friend and passionate Penn State alum spoke with reverence about watching Penn State in the 1950s including Penn State’s Lenny Moore and Syracuse’s Jim Brown play on Beaver Field (PSU won).
The 1959 season was one that stood out to him. He told me about going to Cleveland Municipal Stadium to watch #8 Penn State beat #13 Illinois 20-9 and called the 20-18 loss to eventual National Champs Syracuse one of the greatest football games he ever saw. That season ended with a Liberty Bowl win over #10 Alabama.
The next season the stadium moved across campus in 1960. It was taken apart and moved to its current location, a place that, at the time, seemed like it was on the other side of the planet.
What happened next changed the course of history.
Surrounded by grass fields, Beaver Stadium grew into a tailgating mecca. And like the Hajj, Penn State fans often travel now to their football Mecca dressed in all White.
As the 1960s turned into the early 1970s, Penn State football and fan interest grew exponentially. University enrollment gains produced more alums and fans. From 1968 through 1975 Penn State finished undefeated three times, won 3 Orange Bowls, 2 Cotton Bowls and played in two Sugar Bowls.
The outdoor track was in Beaver Stadium with the South End Zone open. As the team became a consistent national power, south end zone bleachers were put up to meet ticket demand.
The kid section was there, allowing fans to send their kids to the game for a couple bucks a game. Kids all sat together, without parents. Which was probably great for the parents.
And in the age before cell phones, if a kid and their parents could not find each other, an announcement over the PA system would say something like “Would Mr. and Mrs. Jones of Boalsburg please report to the First Aid station…….under the West Stands.”
The First Aid station was where people were summoned for a kid who got separated from their parents, or for a medical issue.
That era was also before the words to the Alma Mater were well known. Fans of a certain age never really knew “the goddam words.”
When the Alma Mater was played the verses sung by the student section and many alums echoed loudly across the stadium. “We don’t know the goddam words. We don’t know the goddam words, we don’t know the goddam words. And we don’t give a sh**.”
That was repeated for all four verses. Now as Penn State marks the 125th anniversary of Fred Lewis Pattee writing the Alma Mater, thankfully everyone does know the goddam words.
Before the 1978 season, the track was taken out of the stadium. The entire steel structure was lifted 20 rows up and twenty rows of concrete seats were put. That season average home attendance jumped from 61,019 in 1977 to 77,492 in 1978. It was just two years later that an extension of the south end zone seats took place and the average attendance climbed to 83,045.
More fan growth led to more expansions. After the 1991 expansion, average attendance jumped to 95,846 which jumped to 107,516 after the 2001 expansion. In 2002 Penn State set the all-time NCAA home attendance and overall attendance record when 856,066 fans came to eight home games and 1,247,707 total fans saw PSU play (an average of 95,977 fans at home and on the road). That year, with road games at Ohio State and Michigan, 10 of Penn State’s 13 games were played in front of crowds of over 103,000 fans.
After that 1978 expansion, the kids’ section remained in the south end in sections SJ and SK. And through all these expansions, the faculty/staff section was an important part of the stadium. Those sections created a local community tie to every game.
Much of the rest of the stadium was filled with people from small towns across Pennsylvania. Family friends would come from places like the Lehigh Valley, Williamsport, Altoona or Latrobe for the weekend that included tailgating and the game.
Penn State even converted families. Michael Casale was a long-time attorney in Williamsport who put Penn State atop his list, moving them past Notre Dame. His physician Raj had grown up in India. He was unfamiliar with the college football experience but became a regular at games and a passionate Penn State fan.
After Penn State beat Pitt to finish the 1978 season, Raj was so caught up in the moment that he disappeared and helped students tear down the goal posts. Then he had to find his way to our house for a post-game dinner and ended up giving one of our friends in the neighborhood $20 for directions (no GPS then).
As crowds and interest grew, RV tailgating became increasingly elaborate. Fans started showing up on Thursday or Friday nights to stay overnight and tailgate through Sunday.
For decades, these people parked next to and sat with each other, creating “neighborhoods” for 14 or more nights a year. In the mornings, you’d see people walking their dogs along the rows of RVs. These football “neighbors” watched each other’s kids grow up. They went to each other’s family weddings and built a real community.
On the west side Billy Gilchrist’s RV went to every game along with friends like Lou Gatto and Jerry Kowalski. The Reliable Boys from Minersville are still there every week. There’s even an RV that looks exactly like the EM 50 Urban Assault Vehicle from the movie Stripes.
Going back to the late 70s and early 80s, there was a generation of students and young people who had a bond with Penn State that was unique. Many of them grew up in the kids’ section and sneaking friends in by passing ticket stubs through the chain link fence.
And when many of these same kids got to be 15 or 16, they sold programs or hot dogs or Cokes (yes it was Coke then). They had big metal racks, and they’d work certain sections going up and down the aisles. The racks were full of red and white paper Coca-Cola cups. They carried straws and lots of change. More than a few of those cokes ended up being supplemented with rum or Jack Daniels smuggled in via a flask.
The hot dog guys had Styrofoam boxes hanging in front of them to keep the hot dogs warm.
You’d hear “Whoooooo wants a hot doooooog?” And when someone waved them down the money would get passed down the row to the aisle. The change, the hot dog, a French’s mustard, a Heinz ketchup and relish packet would get passed back.
Others opted for a much more lucrative and illegal trade scalping tickets. Back then reselling tickets for more than face value was against the law. As the scalpers worked the parking lots or outside the gates like drug dealers, there was always the fear of undercover police officers.
One of their favorite opponents was West Virginia. Their fans would come into town in droves, many of them without tickets. Many would pay whatever they had to pay to get into the game.
Some of the scalpers were guys I went to high school with, and they were always hustling Monday through Thursday looking to get tickets. Another trick was to go to the visiting team hotel (the Holiday Inn) on Friday. The visiting team officials or fans often had extra tickets they’d sell.
Thursday and Friday in school and Saturday outside the stadium these guys had to be careful working the resale market. They were the forerunners to the current system of ticket exchanges.
And for decades locals worked as ushers where they could watch the games. Other locals worked in parking lots directing people to the right spaces. Their compensation included a ticket into the game where they sat on temporary bleachers, some at field level in the south end zone.
This cemented Penn State football’s bond with so many local connections from Happy Valley and the nearby towns.
Big game wins only solidified the connection that students, locals and fans of that era had. After big dramatic wins over #2 Nebraska (1982) and #3 Alabama (1983) the goalposts came down.
In 1990 Penn State defeated #1 Notre Dame 24-21 on a last second field goal in South Bend. The students got into empty Beaver Stadium and tore the goal posts down. It mirrored a celebration after a 27-0 road win at #2 Ohio State in 1964. That night a VW Bug ended up in the shallow pond at the university president’s residence (now the Alumni Center on Campus).
After Sue Paterno watched the 1990 Notre Dame upset, she went to the basement to work on a project on her sewing machine. The doorbell rang so she went back upstairs. When she got to the door, a police officer stood in the darkness at the front door. After turning on the porch light, she saw the throng of students with the goal posts from Beaver Stadium.
Four years later, undefeated Penn State was on the road playing Illinois to clinch its first-ever Big Ten championship in just the second year in the conference. After falling behind 21-0 against the top defense in the nation, Penn State rallied to win 35-31.
The students headed to Beaver Stadium to tear down the goal posts. Penn State risk management undoubtedly had learned the lessons of 1990 and had the stadium locked down.
The resilient students looking for a goal post to sacrifice to the gridiron gods went to the intramural fields and tore down one of those goal posts. Penn State students were nothing if not determined to find a way to celebrate.
The memories, the connections, the access to see games and to tailgate forged moments and memories that transcend one point in time. That helped build this program.
We learned that during the last few years of the early 2000s. We hosted a Penn State Football fantasy camp. We coached the camp and loved every minute of it. Both the men’s and women’s camps included a flag football game in Beaver Stadium.
The morning of the flag football game in Beaver Stadium we asked each guy to share what the game, the camp and Penn State football meant to them.
One camper spoke about wanting to be there and play for his father. They’d sat together at games for years before his father died. After the flag football game was done, he sat alone in an end zone corner. The afternoon sun fell on him as he smiled, gazing up at the seats that held so many memories of his late father.
And it wasn’t always Penn State alums. Retired Marine Jake Graham flew Marine Corps One for years. The list of people he flew to the White House, or Camp David or elsewhere across the years was incredible. And yet, Penn State football was a true passion, one he’d married into.
Another camper had been in the Navy as an aircraft operations officer during the Vietnam War. When asked why he was at the camp, he gave an answer that still gives me chills.
“After I graduated from here, I was deployed around the world. I listened to games at all hours in places like the Philippines hanging on every word. I can tell you, I’ve been on the deck of an aircraft carrier, sending war planes on night missions into combat zones. I can still smell the jet fuel and can still feel the tension and the noise as the planes roared into the night. But as incredible as those moments were, for me they never matched the roar of the crowd in Beaver Stadium.”
That’s how the community was built here. The enduring bond of tradition is college football at its best. And through success and adversity community is what keeps us coming back.
In the Alma Mater we “Sing our Love and Loyalty” and that love for and loyalty to this program has been tested.
Heading into the final game against Michigan State in a disappointing 2004 season, Penn State was in last place in the Big Ten. The opposing coach figured the stadium would be half empty. He could not have been more wrong. It was filled and Penn State won a second consecutive game to end the season.
The next season, the fans’ belief was rewarded in what was a watershed moment. The “White Out” game against the Ohio State re-cemented the bonds for another generation of students and fans.
The night before that game the video below was shown at the Rec Hall Pep Rally and was then shown right before the game in Beaver Stadium. It was a tribute to the fans’ loyalty. The explosion of noise on both occasions was unprecedented.
As Tamba Hali knocked the ball loose from Ohio State QB Troy Smith and Scott Paxson crawled to make the recovery, the legend of the White Out was born. And the world saw why Penn State's Student Section was and remains quite simply the greatest in the world.
Later that year two alums brought their son, a young fan battling Leukemia to the Wisconsin game (another student White Out for Senior Day) to see his favorite player, Tamba Hali. Tamba knew he was coming and absolutely dominated the game with a school record 4 sacks. After the game the two met and the power of what football could do became evident. And a few months later, Tamba Hali demonstrated what fans always appreciated, that Penn State football had the ability to transform lives. In this case, the life of a young man who'd grown up with war in his native Liberia before finding a home in America and in Penn State.
The loyalty of our fan base was again tested six years later. Without rehashing all the things that happened in November 2011 what is undeniable is that the Saturday after the unjust firing of the head coach the fan base turned out in support. Their presence and their support meant the world to so many of us.
When the university administration gave in to the NCAA, loyal fans still supported this program, even in the face of ridicule by ill-informed fans of other schools. The players that remained kept playing with the same pride and passion that had gone back for 125 years. And the fans remained. They were there for an OT win over Wisconsin to close the 2012 season and for a 4-OT win over Michigan in 2013.
And when a coordinated legal effort combining former coaches, former players, family members, some trustees, State Senator Jake Corman, Treasurer Rob McCord and others forced the NCAA to surrender, students celebrated on Old Main lawn because their faith had been rewarded. That legal effort freed the program from unjust sanctions.
The fans were there in 2016 when a late pass against Minnesota lifted Penn State to an overtime win that saved the season. And when a kick was blocked and returned for the game-winning TD to beat Ohio State, they were there.
The point here is not to elevate one game or one era over others.
The purpose is to show that the success of this program, the lifeblood of this program has been the loyal support of generations of fans. Just as the former players have expressed the feelings of being back home again, fans also seem to have been rejuvenated in the last six or seven months.
The fans have remained consistently loyal and passionate. And they are hopeful the new coaching staff and players will understand and honor their history by playing as hard for that tradition as anyone has ever played here.
It’s what we expect as Penn Staters. Remember, you don't have to have a Penn State degree to be a Penn Stater, and having a Penn State degree doesn’t automatically make you a Penn Stater.
Penn Staters carry a set of values and beliefs that on the field, in the classroom and in the community, this university is doing something unique, something different, something better.
And why were those fans in the early 2000s still at the stadium and still loyal? Because at their core, they understood that there was something bigger than just wins and losses happening here. There were life lessons, a set of academic challenges and successes as well as the proper perspective of football’s role within the context of the large university.
If we lost the game, the fans shared their displeasure at times. Having grown-up as the son of a head coach who had a listed home phone number, I picked up some new vocabulary answering the phone after some losses.
But fans understood, respected and celebrated the bigger mission here. Win or lose, they loved the effort on the field and more importantly the effort they knew was being put in and reinforced in the classroom and as people.
Certainly, no one was perfect and there were some fans that sometimes didn’t necessarily agree with the whole approach.
During a tough season, there was an email from a fan who insisted that we were spending too much time trying to graduate players. He wanted us to run players off before they graduated and replace them with other players to win more games. My response was: “How would you feel if it was your son we chose to cast aside? Our first commitment to these players is to get them an education. That is the point of college football. We intend to honor our word.”
But he was in the vast minority then and one hopes that sentiment remains incompatible with Penn State fandom now.
Part of the coarsening of fan vitriol has been fueled by the prevalence of legalized sports gambling. But it’s not like gambling just became a thing.
In 1985 Penn State was a 7.5-point favorite at home against a good Temple team. Leading by two with under 2 minutes left with first and goal, Penn State took a knee three times to run out the clock. The fans who’d bet on Penn State to cover booed.
In 2008 Penn State led Michigan 39-17 and we were not covering the spread. Late in the game we had the ball on our own twenty and time was running out. Given Joe’s history, the guys who’d bet on the game were distraught that we wouldn’t cover a 23-point spread.
With back-ups in the game, we threw a screen pass behind the line of scrimmage hoping just to get a first down to run out the clock. Speedy running back Stephon Green caught the pass, hit a seam and went 80 yards for a TD that made the final 46-17 and covered the spread.
Several fans ran up just outside the press box, banged on the wall and yelled up to thank us.
“Thanks for what?” I yelled back out the open window.
“WE COVERED!” The fans yelled back.
All I could do was just shake my head and laugh. Sometimes passion becomes “invested” beyond appreciating the game’s outcome.
The fans’ passion and connections are being strained by gambling, by players getting paid, by the transfer portal. Fans’ connection is tested by the perception that anything and everything is for sale; naming rights, an official vodka/fruit drink, official beer and so much more.
Time will tell. But one thing remains consistent, as long as they can be proud of their players and coaches, as long as the passion for tradition exists with the people on the headsets and the guys in the helmets the fans will return that passion.
The moment that will always stand out for people of a certain age will be that long-ago late September evening in 1982 with a win over Nebraska under the lights. As the game ended and the fans mobbed the field and the goal posts came down, it created a shared moment that endures.
Years later watching video from the highlight tape, I saw something that looked familiar. In the postgame footage of fans on the field there were people of all ages. As kids in our early teens, it was one of the formative memories. Rewinding the tape, there it was. A childhood friend who was just 14 years old was on the field, holding up a "Go Lions" sticker and jumping in front of the camera and celebrating.
That friend has never forgotten that moment. In 2026, that same friend looks at the new coaches and new direction and feels the same preseason hopes and dreams he did 44 years ago. And the older generations are ready to begin a new era sharing the passion of renewed pride and tradition with generations to come.
