Archives for September 2020

You asked for it. You got it.

We gonna get right to it. Writing is therapeutic for me, but reading it can be painful for you, my wonderful and elite six readers! The 2020 Penn State football season schedule has been announced, and here it is (with comments, of course):

On October 24, the season kicks off at Memorial Stadium in Indiana. Talk about starting big! I don’t know what the Covid-19 rules will be for Memorial Stadium, but they don’t need rules to tell fans to stay away. They do it on their own.

Hallowe’en (October 31) finds the Schmuckeyes wearing the costumes of football players when they ghoulishly descend on Big Beave. The Nittany Lions will be dressed in plain blue and white, never being one to dress fancily. Ohio State is, as usual, the best regarded of Penn State’s opponents, having been ranked #2 nationally in pre-season polls.

And what could be a better follow-up to a victory over the most wellest regarded contender in the Big-10? Why, Maryland, of course. Who’s the coach there, anyway? Anyhow, this contrived “rivalry” takes place on home turf on November 7. We’ll know who our next President will be by then (or not).

The former football team known as Nebraska hosts Penn State on November 14 in the winds and snows of the Great Plains. This should be a great, plain game between the Nittany Lions and Small Red.

Returning home on November 21, the day after my birthday, the Nittany Lions host the Iowa Hawkeyes. Always interesting twists and turns in the Iowa game, with memories of 6-4 always at the ready for storytelling fans. I have a note on my calendar to change my air conditioners’ filters. I don’t know which will be more exciting — that or the game.

To the Big House on November 28. Happy Thanksgiving! This should be a snowy post-Turkey Day event where this Turkey feels relieved as a Thanksgiving survivor for yet another year. I don’t know what to think of Michigan this year, but I’m certain to develop an opinion by then.

We’re not supposed to have any BYE weeks in this Eight Plus One Schedule, but the Big Ten scheduling gods favored us with one anyway — at Rutgers on December 5.

Back home to host the D’Antonioless Spartans of Moo U (our original non-rivalry game), for the “regular season” finale on December 12, if they can find Beaver Stadium under the snow. It is our hope that the obnoxious Land Grant Trophy stays at Penn State, but gets mangled by a snow plow so it can be replaced with something more esthetically pleasing.

And then, there will be a “Plus One” game with the equally-ranked team from the West Division on December 19. Venue uncertain. They’ll figure out how to determine the home team by then. I don’t know how this will work out, or what it will mean. Might just be a ninth game to make up for lost TV revenue.

Anyhow, that is it! What are your thoughts?

Several years ago, I published some photos I took of Beaver Stadium back in 1964, when I was a student at Penn State. At that time, Beaver Stadium had been in its present location for only about five years since it had been moved piece-by-piece from its prior location north of Rec Hall, where it was called “New Beaver Field.” I’ll republish the photos here this year just in case anyone missed them.

The capacity of the stadium then was around 45,000. The south end was open, with only some rickety bleachers where the parking and traffic guys and the kids who chased field goals watched the game; that end is also where the antique scoreboard was located. There was no second deck, there were no luxury boxes, and there was no Mt. Nittany Club. In fact, you could still enjoy a perfect view of Mt. Nittany itself because of that open end. Pennants representing each scheduled PSU opponent flew from flagpoles at the very top of the east and west stands which you can see it here. Rip Engle was the head coach back then, and his feisty former quarterback at Brown University, Joe Paterno, was his number one assistant. There sure as hell was no Paterno statue behind the east stands or a Penn State All-Sports Museum and Gift Shop under the nonexistent south stands!

The photos, 35 mm slides long stashed away in a shoebox, have become a little bluish over the 50 years since they were taken as you can see above, and they might have some dust spots here and there. Most were taken from the freshman/sophomore section in the stadium, which were cheap end zone seats. (Cheap, hell. They were free. This was before I learned how to borrow an upperclassman’s matric card so I could get into the senior section on the 20 yard-line over in the east stands. It was an early form of condoned identity theft. But I digress…) Nevertheless, the photos will give you an idea of what Beaver Stadium was all about back then.

 

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As those good old days are long gone, I wanted to make those photos and descriptions available to you again. The original post is here. You’ll find another post about how things were for students at Penn State in 1964 here. Finally, an aerial photo of the pre-1959 New Beaver Field is here. This foul old fowl hopes you enjoy them!

Is this for real (this time)?

I think I’m confused. First, I posted on August 5 that PSU would be playing a ten game all Big Ten Schedule, starting on September 5. On August 6 I added that Pennsy Governor Tom Wolfe had limited outdoor gatherings to 250 people, hence there would be no fans in the stands for that season that, oh by the way, did not start on September 5. (Since that time, a court has found Wolfe’s order to be unconstitutional, which is good because two collegiate teams plus all the coaches, trainers, and other putzes they bring along to a game total more than 250, but I digress). Then on August 10 I wrote that the presidents and chancellors of the Big Ten had voted 12-2 to shitcan the football season completely. Are you following along here? I know it’s getting complicated.

The following day, I confirmed that the football season “now appears to be irrevocably cancelled”. We all believed at that point and through the end of August that there would be no football season for the Big Ten, at least not before winter. However, at that point desperate people were making noise about a spring season, or even a snowy January start. Not wanting to believe the crap I was reading after having been through all the gyrations of August, I mused on August 29, “Everything is so up in the air that today’s speculation is tomorrow’s toilet paper…”

Typically, my cynicism knows no bounds. However, the Big Ten was making my former, cynical self look like Rebecca of Sunnibrook Farm.

Are you ready for this?

Wait! Not so fast! Now, the big news today, rumored since Sunday because you can’t keep a lid on anything in the Big Ten, is that there will be a season starting on October 23. Just how it came about is anybody’s guess. Lots of shit was taking place behind the scenes, to wit:

• Players wanted to play
• Parents wanted players to play
• Coaches wanted to play
• Fans wanted to play, or at least get season ticket refunds
• Donald Trump wanted to play
• Presidents and chancellors feared Covid-19 lawsuits
• Kevin Warren was brand new and didn’t know what to think

Our girl Sandy Barbour belongs to committee of Big Ten bigwigs who were tasked with the notion of returning to competition.

So, without further ado, the Big Ten speaks.

Enter the Chief Infection Officer

This will be a data driven thing, apparently. They’re going to monitor infections closely and take stringent medical precautions, including daily antigen screening. So called student-athletes, trainers, coaches, and other putzes who hang out on the sidelines who test positive through the point of contact test would require further testing to confirm the result.

Comprehensive cardiac testing and data collection will be a significant part of the testing protocol. If anyone tests positive, they’ll have to run the gantlet through Cardiac Canyon.

Each school will need to appoint — I cracked up at this — a “Chief Infection Officer.” The abbreviated acronym used in the story was CInO, pronounced (I guess) “see-in-oh”. If you have the sniffles, you must consult with the CInO.

The official announcement goes on to describe medical criteria for halting practice and competition: when and for how long.

The daily testing will begin by September 30, 2020.

What about the damn schedule, already?

Thus far, we haven’t seen a formal presentation of individual team schedules. Conceptually, though, Wisconsin AD Barry Alvarez stated that the Fablungeta Committee had come up with four different models, and what was chosen was an eight game schedule starting the last week in October, with a ninth, so-called champions week where teams in each division play their equally ranked counterpart in the other division. Called a “Plus One” week, this means there is a nine-game schedule. (What a wonderful Week Nine game we’ll see with Rutgers squaring off against Illinois).

Read the whole article here.