Penn State fans calling for Rose Bowl ‘white out’
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When Big Ten football teams travel to Penn State to play in Beaver Stadium there’s always the possibility of a white out -- courtesy of Mother Nature or the thousands of white-clad Nittany Lions fans.
Some of them want to bring the white out to Pasadena on Jan. 1 when the Nittany Lions play USC in the Rose Bowl. Here’s the clarion call, as relayed in Thursday’s Nittany Lines, a blog written by Bill Kline, editor of the Morning Call, a sister paper of The Times.
Penn State fans today have been asked to take their Beaver Stadium White Out on the road to the Rose Bowl on New Year’s Day when the Lions face Southern Cal. The idea is from Penn State’s student body, which wants all Lion fans to wear white for the big game. Dating to the last game of 2004, Penn State is 26-2 at the Beav, and the Lions are hoping some of that home cooking and fan enthusiasm works in the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. Will it help? Doubtful, for at most about half of the fans will be Penn State fans. But at least it’s something to talk about and it’s something to help Lion fans unite.
Here’s a comment from the Penn State Daily Collegian newspaper, in which an Ohio State player recalls playing in a whited-out Beaver Stadium in 2005:
‘I’ve never heard anything louder in my life than what I heard at Penn State,’ Ohio State lineman T.J. Downing recalled last month. ‘You could notice the earthquake on the ground as it was trembling. It affected us and got in our heads. We didn’t play the game we usually do and that’s why we lost.’
And, here’s a Nittany Lines comment from a Penn State fan who sees a plus side to a Pasadena white out:
It will be easier to wear white in Pasadena since the temp should be about 65. Wearing the white T-shirt in November in happy valley ain’t much fun. Can’t wait to get out there for my first bowl game.
-- Greg Johnson