Penn State vs. Temple

As I have posted before I am a football fan. Typically I watch the NFL. One of the adjustments that Simms and I had to make with our move to PA is the coverage of football in the sports section of the newspaper. There is much more written about high school and college football than professional football. This is NOT the case in NY or NJ...rarely is there anything written about college or high school football in the local paper and there are certainly never any sections fully devoted to either one! Here in PA, they even devote a 1/2 hour every Friday in the fall to high school football on the local network news!!!

Although we have lived here now for almost 12 years, I have never been to a Penn State game. Gasp! Yes, it is true. As a result, I couldn't really understand all the hoopla. That is until today. We received free tickets to the Penn State vs. Temple game. We left the house by noon and arrived to State College around 2pm. We brought lunch so that we could "tailgate". Now, considering I am an alum of a college with less than 3000 students I also had not experienced this before. I know...truly deprived. The free tickets also came with a reserved parking spot. Even though we were 1-1/2 hours early for the game you would have thought we were 3 hours late! These people are serious fans. There were canopy's set up and barbeques going, picnic tables arranged, some people even had RV's!!! I felt like a tourist taking in the whole experience.

We decided to find our seats when it started to drizzle. The forecast said it wasn't supposed to rain until 4pm. Ugh. Then we found out that our free tickets were in the club section under a canopy!!! Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Lil' sis and I remembered that one of our former students was on the team. For any of you reading this who are actually football fans...his dad is also a PSU grad and former NFL player for the NY Jets. We watched M Jr. practice and warm up. We saw all of the coaches shake his hand (they shook all of the players hands while they were stretching). Then we saw him on the sidelines during the game. He is a soph/fr on the team. We are very proud of him.

The game was great - there were interceptions, long pass completions, a punt return for a touchdown, etc. The music was great. We joined in the "We Are Penn State" cheer and waved our blue and white pom poms. I have to admit that I think I am finally beginning to understand why my friend SS is such a huge Penn State fan...as well as so many others. After today, if I ever start to watch college football, I think I could be a fan of Penn State too.