By Chris Buchignani
Maybe it was inevitable that with months of mounting excitement over returning superstars, expensive coaching hires, and transfer portal treasure hunting, a three-game opening slate populated with the likes of FIU and Villanova would prove underwhelming. So much buildup for so little substance, at least early on, left plenty of space to find fault with all the flaws on State’s path to a 3-0 record and 132-17 margin of victory.
What’s wrong with the run game? Is our senior quarterback up to the task? What happens when a team with serious talent comes to town (as we’ll see after Penn State’s bye week, when Oregon visits for the White Out)?
As preoccupied as my mind has been with these and other similar questions these last few weeks, I entered Beaver Stadium this past Saturday resolved to set them aside in favor of simple gratitude for the present. It was in that state of mind that a bewildered young undergrad found me, as I waited for my wife in the stadium concourse. Did I know, he inquired, whether any of the concession stands around us took Lion Cash? Turns out he hailed from the Beaver Campus and was attending his very first Penn State football game.
Of course I had no idea. I am long since passed the stage when which vendors will accept Lion Cash is a relevant concern, but I was only too happy to accompany him to the nearest kiosk and take care of his order if necessary. Indeed, it seems Lion Cash is not legal tender within the confines of the Beav, or at least not at the counter where we ended up, and after some mild resistance, he accepted my offer to pay for his order. I had to explain exactly why it was important to me to do this.
During my own undergrad days, the Men’s Basketball team led by the Crispin brothers went on a run in the NCAA Tournament, upsetting North Carolina and advancing to the Sweet Sixteen (easily the least believable aspect of this story). The excitement and novelty of it all spurred my roommates and I into taking an impromptu road trip from Happy Valley to Atlanta for the game (a loss to Temple, sadly). While out in the city one evening, we encountered an alum who struck up a long conversation about Penn State, cataloging the differences and similarities on campus and in town between his school days and our own. At night’s end, he picked up the entire bar tab. “One day you will be in my position,” he told us, “And you will repay me by doing the same for some future students. Penn Staters take care of each other, and that’s how this whole thing keeps going.” I’ve never forgotten the lesson that was passed on to me that day, and I made clear to my new acquaintance that my real gift to him was not a $6 bottle of water, but an example of the Penn State spirit in action.
Who knows what our brief exchange might mean to that young man? Could be he’s already forgotten it. But maybe it will stick with him (as my “welcome to the family” story did with me) and forever influence his view of what it means to be a Nittany Lion. In this case, perhaps the outcome matters less than the effort.
What a way to shake off trivial concerns around bouts of on-field sluggishness from our would-be national championship contenders. It reminded me exactly why I have lived here for all these years (28 and counting) and what it means to renew the annual Autumn rituals of home Saturday tailgates followed by three-plus hours on the metal benches, cheering on the Nittany Lions. It’s about being a part of something bigger than yourself, the humility and satisfaction that accompany that honor, and it underscored the impact of a moment yet to come.
During the game, Penn State honored the 2005 Big Ten Champion Nittany Lions, celebrating the 20th anniversary of a very special Autumn here in the Nittany Valley. Led by an unlikely combination of electrifying freshman playmakers and indominable senior leaders, that team emerged from the long shadows of four losing seasons in five years to capture the conference title and finish third in the nation. That surprising, magical season restored the trappings of big-time college football to State College and the luster to 79-year-old Joe Paterno’s battered reputation. As the returning players lined up on the field to be recognized, the images appeared on the stadium’s video scoreboards. There, to the great and pleasant surprise of many in the crowd, myself included, was former linebacker Tim Shaw, a stalwart on that ’05 defense who has heroically battled ALS for more than a decade, wheelchair-bound but looking strong. It was inspiring to see Tim there, front and center with his teammates, those men who had, once upon a time, rescued Penn State football, united again in the shade of the student section.
As the camera shifted focus away from Shaw, it caught in close-up, for just a few seconds, Tommy Venturino, the former Director of Football Operations under Joe Paterno. A story I’ve been told about that ’05 season, one of many that has stuck with me, recounts how a near-inconsolable Tommy was the last to leave the visitors’ locker room at Michigan Stadium following Penn State’s controversial last-second loss to the Wolverines, the only blemish on that team’s otherwise spotless resume. His loyalty and affection for JoePa were such that he was moved to his core by the realization of what that loss might mean for the old man’s legacy.
And of course I can’t be sure. It’s possible I’m just projecting and forcibly inserting “narrative” as journalists are wont to do. Hell, it’s likely that I am. And yet I thought I recognized something familiar in his eyes and on his face. A bittersweet sort of look that reflected pride and happiness to be among old friends with whom you share great memories, but sadness too, because all is not quite as it should be and can never be again. For as much joy and fulfillment as Penn State and life in State College will bring me, for the rest of my life, I will also carry the knowledge that in our absolute moment of truth, the only sort that really matter, we failed the test. When a man who had done so much to shape the character of this institution and our community most needed our faith and support, we couldn’t find it within ourselves to do what was intimidating and hard. Instead, we threw him in front of a bus to save our own skins. I thought about that team and everything their season meant to this school and town, about Tim Shaw’s leadership on the field that year and how his bravery now eclipses it, about Tommy Venturino 20 years ago, moved to tears as Joe’s last, best shot at an undefeated season vanished into the Ann Arbor night, and Tommy in that instant, perhaps betraying just a hint of the hurt that comes from knowing that when it mattered most, we took the coward’s way out, and what that means to your relationship with this thing you can’t help but love. And I choked up, there among the drunks enjoying their $14 beers, and the kids experiencing their first game, and the couples who have been in their same seats for decades, momentarily overwhelmed by the meaning of it all.
Understand, this isn’t about opening up old wounds or passing judgement on those who feel (perhaps very) differently than I do, those who come to their Penn State fandom and the experience of it from any number of entirely different angles. “Penn State” means a lot of different things to many diverse people. It’s a broad, inclusive spectrum whose limits I possess neither the desire nor the authority to define.
One of my favorite quotes in fact, one I read at the beginning of my Penn State football history class each year, comes from Jay Paterno: “Having a Penn State degree doesn’t automatically make you a Penn Stater, and not having a Penn State degree doesn’t mean you can’t be a Penn Stater.”
Think and say what you will about the messenger – and as a coach, a scribe, and a trustee, he’s a lightning rod – the message is as simple as it is beautiful. There’s a spirit to the place, waiting to be claimed by any with the audacity to do so. What it means is what you make it, and no one has a right to take that from you.
And for some of us, that means quiet acceptance that the damage is mostly done, has been for a long time, and while some say it is the doom of men to forget, we are doomed to remember. For those of us who linger here, as the wretchedness of that miserable time fades into hazy, distant memory for most, we’ll carry the scar tissue as a reminder forever. We can – should – find the grace to forgive, and for the most part, I think, we have. Nevertheless, no matter the passage of time or depth of reconciliation, it will never be the same. Something we hold sacred has been irreparably tarnished in our eyes.
But to me, therein lies the earnest beating heart of the moment, the great truth that moved me to write this piece. Not bitterness or grief, but overwhelming appreciation. To love something as surely and as deeply as I love Penn State, the Nittany Valley, that 2005 team, and all it represents, is to embrace both the often-profound well of goodness it possesses alongside its capacity to disappoint and even to wound. To see past the best aspects and face down the worst – the sins and the flaws – and embrace it in its totality all the same; that’s beautifully human, and it’s what higher education at its very best empowers us to better understand.
And that was my Saturday afternoon in Beaver Stadium, as much about what it means to love anything or anyone, but especially your home and your people, as it was about whether, in this final dress rehearsal, State’s offensive line could nail their blocking assignments or Drew Allar could hit the broad side of a barn. I have to think that to plumb life’s deepest questions amidst the tumult of Beaver Stadium on game day might even make an old Brown University grad smile somewhere in the hereafter. What a fine way to pass the first way post on what we all desperately hope and dream will be a very special journey this season, with a reminder worth repeating:
It is, as ever, great to be a Nittany Lion, warts and all; that’s a gift we should never take for granted.
Chris Buchignani is cohost of The Obligatory PSU Podcast and The Obligatory PSU Pregame Show, entering its 10th season this Fall. He teaches a course on Penn State Football History for Penn State OLLI.
