Each year as college football begins again, we are reminded of a love rooted in tradition and childhood memories forged across decades. The first cool late August morning gets our attention. It makes us think of fall Saturdays.
I was almost 5 years old with my bleacher ticket in hand headed into that first game. Times were different then. We sat in the bleachers because the head coach didn’t get free tickets. The cheap seats were what my mom had budgeted for the season.
After the south end zone was enclosed, the seats moved to section SK, the corner of the end zone where Penn State had a “Kid’s Section.” Prices were $4 per game. They subsequently rose to $6 per game. It was truly a kid’s section and you saw most of your friends there.
The student section was next to it and as the Alma Mater played they sang out “We don’t know the god-damn words, we don’t know the god-damn words.”
Even now, we remember how we all jumped up and down in those seats after Kirk Bowman caught the game-winning touchdown pass from Todd Blackledge in what may still be the greatest game ever played on that field. One of my very best friends disappeared, rushed the field and ended up on the season-ending highlight tape among the throngs of fans on the field. The goalposts came down too.
Those who know… they know.
Moments like that are part of autumn’s pull that gets us all.
It is a walk to the game through the sporadic fallen leaves of gold and yellow and red that fell on the often-uneven sidewalks of the neighborhoods and campus. It is the knowing smile of others who walk by adorned in your team’s colors. The anticipation of the drama yet to unfold is electric, a current of nervous energy binding the faithful.
Walk the sidewalks of State College, South Bend, Madison or Ann Arbor on a sunny late-October Saturday morning and you’ll feel it. Better yet, walk toward the stadium when October’s beauty has given way to the steel gray chill of November. The passing snow squall and wind’s bitter bite, omens of an impending drama in a high-stakes late-season game.
This is college football in America. This game, more than any other in our country, has its roots in the fertile earth of tradition’s collective memory.
It is children imprinted with memories of their family’s passion for their team, seeing the emotional ebbs and flows that come with the drama of a late afternoon game against a great team. Many of those parents were brought by their parents. And, odds are, today’s children will grow and share that passion that spans generations with their families.
Much of what created that hold is in jeopardy. Television dollars have torn asunder decades and decades of rivalries as teams move and shift to chase the money. NIL, transfer portals, players studying playbooks, schoolbooks and how to build their brands can confuse even the most devoted college fan.
It is up to the people charged with protecting the game to navigate the present to a future where the game’s hold remains.
As change occurs and a new season starts, we are once again reminded that autumn is nostalgia’s sweetest season. One’s mind can’t help but be moved by the brisker blowing of light breezes sending gentle cascades of golden leaves falling softly to the ground.
And although Penn State has been part of the Big Ten for 30 years now, every once in a while the old soul that has always been within me, thinks back to those days when Penn State was fiercely independent. It was a time when most games were drivable. Pitt, West Virginia, Temple, Syracuse, Rutgers, Boston College and Maryland were a sort of “conference schedule.”
In the years that forged our generation, the intersectional battles were incredible. In our pre-teens and teens there were regular season games against Stanford, Ohio State, Iowa, Kentucky, NC State, Houston, Texas A&M, Nebraska, Missouri, Alabama, Notre Dame, Texas, Virginia and USC.
In 1990, one of its last seasons as an independent, Penn State played Texas at home and had road games at USC, Alabama and Notre Dame. Now teams are locked into nine conference games and the ability to play “blue blood” teams from around the country is limited.
But that is the sweet siren call of days long past that comes each fall. Soon Penn State will be playing Big Ten games against USC and UCLA, and perhaps others will join the conference.
Inevitably, times change and teams change. The players move on. The days when they don that uniform are but a fleeting few moments in life’s journey. Sooner than they realize, the time will come when they no longer put on that jersey for their school. The best we can hope for the players is that they compete at a level so they will never look back on and wish they’d done just a little more.
Wins and losses will happen. Memories, both good and bad, will be forged in the mind forever. No matter the outcome, it is the competition and the effort that count most. And as the season starts anew, as we look ahead while relishing days gone by, we should savor the competition, the effort and the moments that will soon, too, be part of tradition’s roots.
