Tamba Hali left war-torn Liberia when he was 10 years old. The time since has been pretty good for Hali, who went from an All-American during his time at Penn State to an NFL Pro Bowler with the Kansas City Chiefs, but he was never able to return home. He told The Guardian in 2013 that while he wanted to visit, unrest in the country had made it difficult.
Over the weekend, Hali finally got his chance. Continue reading
The New York Public Library earlier this year made nearly 200,000 public-domain items available online, including thousands of classic photos. Included in that trove was this nearly century-old gem of one Hugo Francis Bezdek, who spent the majority of his Hall of Fame career at Penn State. Arguably the Nittany Lions’ first great football coach, Bezdek led Penn State to a 65-30-11 record from 1918 to 1929; he also managed in Major League Baseball and the early days of the NFL. If this image is any indication, intensity was his hallmark.
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For Nittany Lion fans still finishing their holiday shopping, Lou Prato ’59 has the perfect gift. The eminent historian of all things blue and white recently published his latest book, 100 Things Penn State Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die. As the title implies, it’s loaded with both information and advice that’ll make any even the most dedicated Penn Stater a smarter fan.
Featuring a forward from Adam Taliaferro ’05, Lou’s book covers an incredibly wide array of Penn State sports territory. Continue reading
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The snow was the story. A mid-November nor’easter brought nearly a foot and a half of snow to central Pennsylvania just days before Penn State’s 1995 game against Michigan. If you were there, you’ll never forget it: So much snow that most of the stadium parking was closed, so much snow that hundreds of volunteers, and eventually inmates at local penitentiaries, were called on to try to clear the Beaver Stadium bleachers. So much snow, in fact, that by the time the Nittany Lions and Wolverines took the field on Nov. 18, 1995, the best that could be done was to pack much of that snow under the bleachers.
At kickoff, it was an open-air igloo for 80,000 shivering fans.
The fans who toughed it out that day witnessed one of the most memorable afternoons in Beaver Stadium history. Continue reading
Each issue of The Penn Stater magazine features a short profile of a current Penn State student-athlete, but back in the fall of 2012, we tweaked that formula ever so slightly, interviewing Lucas during his post-grad year at a Massachusetts prep school, months before he had actually arrived on campus. We felt like Lucas was a fitting exception: Continue reading
As Massimo Manca remembers it, the pivotal moment in Penn State’s 1985 season came rather early.
On opening day, to be exact.
“I think the turning point was that very first game against Maryland,” Manca ’87 says now. “Nobody had us picked to win that game. That’s when we realized: We could beat anybody.”
The Nittany Lions’ long-awaited return to Maryland this week brings to mind Continue reading
It was one of those Twitter moments that even folks who spend a lot of time on Twitter might have missed, a brief conversation between two guys 20-some years apart, but with more than a little in common.
The first tweet came from Ki-Jana Carter ’95, a name that anyone reading this blog should be familiar with. The second came from Saquon Barkley, a young man Penn State fans—and a couple of unfortunate defenses—have learned all about the past two weeks. If one reminds you a bit of the other, you’re probably not alone. Continue reading
By day, Jesse Brown is an IT consultant in Penn State’s Division of Development and Alumni Relations—one of the go-to guys on an incredibly helpful and friendly tech staff that we’re lucky to have. But by night (and on certain mornings and weekends), Brown is an amateur drone pilot who has compiled some very cool footage of Beaver Stadium, all controlled via an app on his iPad.
With the Nittany Lions’ home opener this Saturday, we recently caught up with Brown Continue reading
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It was a legendary performance made all the more impressive given the injury that almost kept him out of action.
According to the pregame write-up in the Nov. 25, 1958 issue of The Daily Collegian, quarterback “Joltin’ Johnny” Black suffered—and we warn you, this is difficult reading—an “acute hangnail on the third finger of his throwing hand.” Continue reading
Ben Kline is back this fall for his final season as a Penn State linebacker. A grad student—he finished his finance degree last winter—Kline hasn’t seen much action since playing in every game as a redshirt freshman in 2012; he played sparingly as a sophomore, and injuries kept him off the field entirely last fall.
Still, if you wanted to pick a favorite Nittany Lion to follow this season, Continue reading
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