Beaver Stadium

Penn State is studying the idea of expanding Beaver Stadium with more than just the traditional bench seating. A sports consulting firm is questioning members of the football booster club to gauge their interest in private luxury suites. The cost? Upwards of $60,000 a season or $400,000 for 10 years. And you still have to buy a ticket. "We have a waiting list right now," university director of athletics Timothy Curley said yesterday. "This season we weren't even able to accommodate our Nittany Lion Club members.

Beaver Stadium is now big enough to hold every man, woman and child in Reading while the entire population of Lancaster tailgates outside. It is a very big place - with a capacity of 83,770, it is the eighth- largest stadium in the country - and still the demand for rear-end space on one of those 120 rows of aluminum benches outruns the supply. Let's put it this way: If you go by the 1980 census, there are still 11,780,950 Pennsylvanians who could not fit into the place. Those who still would like to would be advised to do one of two things: enroll at Pennsylvania State University, maintain a 2.0 grade-point average and get one of the 20,000 student tickets; or listen to Nittany Lion football on one of 51 radio stations, and be patient.

One can sense the awe in Michael Fay's voice as he talks about Penn State and Beaver Stadium and the hope as he recounts the story of waiting a few years ago for someone on the Nittany Lions' coaching staff to make a recruiting call to him. The call never came, and the 6-foot-4, 294-pound junior from Allentown will line up at left guard for Kent State when it plays the Lions on Saturday. Still, Fay holds no grudge and eagerly awaits the opportunity to step on the green grass before more than 100,000 spectators.

Penn State must replace Beaver Stadium's football field after jubilant students celebrating a win over Michigan tore up sod on the 50-yard-line and in the end zones. Authorities yesterday continued their investigation of the late-night revelry, which began Saturday after the Nittany Lions' 31-24 victory at Ann Arbor. More than 10,000 students and other fans roamed campus in rowdy clusters, yelling in support of their team, which moved up to No. 1 Sunday in the Associated Press and CNN/ USA Today polls.

As a 32-year-old assistant in 1959, Joe Paterno told Penn State head coach Rip Engle that Nittany Lions football was headed for ruination. Paterno's dire prediction was prompted by the news that Beaver Field was going to be dismantled into 700 pieces and moved a mile east from the heart of the campus to a rural area. Only the displaced cows that grazed along the new site were more put out than Paterno. "I thought the stadium was already in an ideal spot," Paterno said. "I told Rip it would ruin football at Penn State.

I know I have bad seats for the Penn State-West Virginia tussle when, instead of an usher, a Sherpa guide comes up to me and asks: "Can I see your ticket stub?" When he points up a steep incline of concrete steps to the snowcapped top row at Beaver Stadium, I fall in line behind a character wearing a Penn State jersey with two globular love handles spilling out the back. He squints up at his seats, down at his ticket, up at his seats, then over his shoulder at a women loaded down with sandwiches and sodas.

Eddie George was so infatuated with Penn State football as a youngster that even his daydreams were in blue and white. The setting was the lush Beaver Stadium turf, and he'd close his eyes and imagine himself falling in line with all the great tailbacks who have passed through Happy Valley. Those dreams were fueled by his memory of jumping up and down in front of his television as a 13-year-old, watching the Nittany Lions grab the 1986 national championship with their win over Miami in the Fiesta Bowl.

Who: Kent State (1-1) at No. 22 Penn State (1-1) When: Today, 12:01 p.m. Where: Beaver Stadium, State College TV: ESPN2. Radio: WNTP (990-AM), WPNV (1440-AM)

The kickoff time for Temple's football game at Penn State on Saturday, Sept. 25 has been set for 3:30 p.m. The game will be televised live nationally on the Big Ten Network from Beaver Stadium.

Penn State will play Navy in 2012, their first meeting since 1974. The game is scheduled for Sept. 15 at Beaver Stadium. That date previously had been set for a Temple-Penn State game, which has been moved a week later to Sept. 22. Penn State visits Virginia on Sept. 8. Penn State and Navy have played 37 times, with the Nittany Lions leading the series, 18-17-2. The series began in 1894 with a 6-6 tie in Annapolis, Md. "Navy was our season-opening opponent a number of times in the 1960s and '70s and we've had many memorable games against the Midshipmen," PSU athletic director Tim Curley said.

Greg Webb went to two Penn State football games last season. He didn't see signs of scandal or a program in disarray. He saw 110,000 spectators in Beaver Stadium, a college town in full bloom and his future. "Penn State is the pinnacle of college football up north," said Webb, a junior defensive tackle at Timber Creek High School in Erial, Camden County who committed to attend Penn State on a football scholarship on Thursday. The 6-foot-2, 295-pound Webb is one of New Jersey's most highly recruited players in the class of 2013.

Nearly half of the state's voters support renaming Pennsylvania State University's football stadium to honor longtime coach Joe Paterno, according to a poll released Friday. The Quinnipiac University survey found 46 percent of respondents favored changing Beaver Stadium's name, while 40 percent said they were opposed. Thirteen percent said they did not have an opinion or had not made up their minds. The survey included responses from nearly 1,300 registered voters polled during six days earlier this month.

For Joseph Vincent Paterno, it ended just like he feared it would. As soon as he let go of his vise grip on the job - or when someone relieved him of it - his purpose for living would be gone. He had seen his friend, the great Alabama coach Bear Bryant, pass on just weeks after retirement. Bear had been ravaged by failing health and maybe a failing mind. But what Paterno knew, more than probably anyone else, was that there is no better medicine than a purpose. Bryant had lost it, and thus, in his body, death was allowed entry.

STATE COLLEGE - A sea of blue and white overflowed on the grassy hill just outside the players' entrance to Beaver Stadium. It wrapped around the street, onto the sidewalks in front of tailgating tents and down the block. This was a scene that greets the Penn State team every football Saturday. Marc Stocum has been wearing a white hard hat with two Penn State flags poking out of the top and eliciting chants from the crowd with his megaphone for the past 10 years. Never before, he said, was there as much enthusiasm and noise in support of the team.

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. - The day most Penn Staters hoped would never come arrived with a tragic twist they could never have imagined. On a sparkling autumn Saturday that temporarily pierced Happy Valley's ongoing darkness, the post-Joe Paterno era dawned with a 17-14 loss to Nebraska before a surprisingly calm and upbeat sellout crowd at Beaver Stadium. The bizarre, difficult day highlighted this beleaguered program's glorious past, gloomy present and uncertain future. It was tinged with nostalgia, emotion and the same mix of disillusion and disbelief that has beset Penn State nation since news of the child sexual abuse scandal landed like a meteor on Central Pennsylvania a week ago. "It's really strange here today," Dan Smarsh, a 20-year season-ticket holder from Elmira, N.Y., said before the game.

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. - Two teams gathered to play a football game at Beaver Stadium on a crisp fall afternoon, but at times, that seemed beside the point. The sex abuse scandal that rocked Happy Valley loomed large - from the moment of silence for victims of child abuse to the Penn State squad walking onto the field arm-in-arm, a marked departure from their former entrances, running behind now-former coach Joe Paterno. More than 100 former Penn State players gathered to support the team, which kneeled with the Nebraska squad at midfield before kickoff.

Trustees did right and honorable thing In a state and in a culture that venerates football, it is possible to look at an event like this and feel conflicted about the decision to fire Penn State president Graham Spanier and coach Joe Paterno. Putting the veneration aside, the trustees' actions are right and honorable and a teaching moment if ever there was one. I believe that all those associated with pushing aside these perverse violations of human welfare didn't want to face up to the ugly reality that confronted them and the difficult and embarrassing road toward pursuing the proper legal actions.

STATE COLLEGE - The quiet neighborhood had seen this happen before, students - hundreds of them - swarming Joe Paterno's driveway, stomping his bushes to stick their nose up against his window and chant his name. One neighbor, who had lived in his house across the street from Paterno since 1969, recalled one instance when students carried goal posts across campus and set them down on his lawn when Penn State was crowned national champion. But that was when they celebrated football glory, when Penn State, Paterno and his football program were sparkling representations of what a higher-ed institution looked like.