Considering name options to honor JoePa

PENN STATE is planning to honor Joe Paterno. The question is, how?

Petitions have been circulating online to rename Beaver Stadium as Paterno Stadium, to name the field as Joe Paterno Field, and to change a State College street name from Park Avenue to Paterno Way.

Former Penn State wide receiver O.J. McDuffie suggested going further. "The P [in PSU] could stand for Paterno University, for all I care," he told reporters this week. "Joe helped build the whole university."

The plan for Joe Paterno Field is the one that has gained the most traction in the last few days. As of yesterday afternoon, more than 32,000 people had signed an online petition. Organizers are hoping for 107,282 signatures, equal to the capacity of Beaver Stadium. A number of similar campaigns are also ongoing online.

In explaining their effort, organizers wrote, "This is a simple way of giving back to a man who spent basically his entire life making sure that the students who went to Penn State would have the tools they needed, and the professional buildings that they needed to do their jobs.

"He was so much more than just a football coach, he was a mentor to thousands of students over the years, probably in the hundreds of thousands, and this is a way to honor the legacy that he worked so hard to create.

"We will stand tall, we will right the wrong that has been done to his name, we will not stop until this goal has been finalized, like Joe Paterno, we will not give up the fight!"

Penn State spokeswoman Lisa Powers said university administrators are aware of the initiatives to rename the field.

"There are discussions that will be ongoing, but at this particular juncture we are focused on the services on campus," she said. "There will be future discussions about a variety of ideas."

Powers said the Facilities Naming Committee meets six times a year to consider requests. The university president is authorized to approve the name of a room, a part of a building or an outside park or plaza and put it on the agenda for information for the Board of Trustees.

For something more substantial - an entire building or a road - the board must approve the naming.

The football stadium is named after James A. Beaver, a Civil War hero and former governor who also served as Penn State president. One possibility would be to combine the names such as Bryant-Denny Stadium at Alabama. Paul "Bear" Bryant's name was added after his death.

There is precedent on campus for a field to be named within a stadium. Penn State's baseball field is named Medlar Field at Lubrano Park and the softball team plays at Beard Field at Nittany Lion Softball Park.

WBUS (93.7-FM), a State College radio station, had more than 7,000 online signatures in a few hours yesterday with its idea for Paterno Way. The current Park Avenue proceeds along several significant Paterno landmarks - the soon-to-be completed Suzanne Pohland Paterno Catholic Student Faith Center and Beaver Stadium - and also intersects with McKee Street, where Paterno lived.