We’d barely gotten out of the car and stepped into Terminal C at Newark Airport on Monday afternoon when we saw them. There were couples, extended families, groups of six or eight, all of them—dozens of them—clad proudly in Penn State gear. And of course, we were all headed the same way.

That group you see pictured above is just one of them, a combined Penn State family by way of graduation and marriage. The bookends are April Detar ’96 and her husband, Chris Magent ’96, ’05g. Next to April are her parents, Rose and Lee Detar, and next to them are Chris’ parents, Myla ’72 and Lew Magent ’71. And while James Franklin has held off confirming whether his players will be so easily identified this Saturday, there’s no question here: The Detar/Magent clan did indeed put the names on the back of their shirts.

That’s teamwork right there.

Anyway: Since arriving early Tuesday after a sleepless overnight flight—I brought my kids with me for this one, and it turns out having a middle seat between a restless 6- and 9-year-old for a seven-hour red-eye makes it hard to sleep—I’ve made a point of trying to stay on my feet today. That meant lots of walking, from St. Stephen’s Green to Temple Bar and up along the River Liffey, which runs through the heart of the city. Along the way, we saw dozens more of our fellow Lions, and I have a feeling that’s just a trickle compared to the flood we’ll be seeing in town over the next few days.

I can’t wait.

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