By Chris Buchignani
Spectacle is coming to Happy Valley.
The weekend long awaited by college football fans, not just Penn State and Oregon, but all those who love the unique trappings of the sport, is nearly upon us. An NBC national broadcast and ESPN’s flagship pregame show College GameDay will be back on campus to soak up the vibes from one of the game’s greatest traditions: The Beaver Stadium White Out.
As befits a matchup between top 5 opponents (or top 6 according to the Associated Press), Penn State’s game against Oregon will see the White Out’s always-intimidating atmosphere at its very best, under the lights for a 7:30pm kickoff. The stakes for both participants could not be higher. A lot of words will be written and shared this week about possible outcomes and their implications for the Nittany Lions’ playoff hopes, the legacies of James Franklin and Drew Allar, and even the long-term outlook for Penn State’s football program and all its many downstream concerns (not the least of which being the Happy Valley economy). But let’s not rush the climax. Why skip ahead to the third act and miss all the fun of the buildup?
Before the Lions’ white-clad loyalists stream through the gates of Beaver Stadium to exhort their team to victory over Oregon, they will fill the surrounding fields for as far the eye can see with tents, tables, parked cars, and RVs for another of Autum’s greatest rituals: The Penn State tailgate. Both the White Out’s one-of-a-kind aesthetic – 107,000+ joined as one, all in white – and the hours of tailgating to be enjoyed before it, share a common connection back to a very special Penn State football season celebrating its 20th anniversary this Fall.
Last week, I wrote about the University’s recognition of the 2005 Big Ten champion Nittany Lions, a team of legends whose love and loyalty for Old State ultimately restored the program to its rightful place among the nation’s best. The season’s highpoint, a prime time upset win over #6 Ohio State, marked America’s introduction to the White Out, a phenomenon then confined to a student section Kirk Herbstreit branded the nation’s best (thus giving us all a reputation to live up to) that soon spread to the entire stadium. Another fun aspect that made the program’s return from the college football wilderness so memorable was Penn State’s steamroller run Sports Illustrated’s tailgating bracket challenge – a nationwide contest that pitted the very best tailgating venues to pro and college football in pitched competition that ultimately saw Happy Valley emerge victorious over Buffalo and Bills Mafia (though that nickname for Bill enthusiasts was still several years away).
The face of SI’s national contest was a New Orleans native and culinary enthusiast named Joe Cahn, the self-proclaimed “Commissioner of Tailgating.”
After selling a cooking school he founded in his hometown of the Big Easy in 1996, Cahn found himself drawn to seeking out the gastronomic and social delights found only in American tailgate culture and began touring nationwide to experience and chronicle the tailgating experience. He remembered: “As I was traveling around the first year, people would always say, ‘If you think NFL tailgating is good, then you need to go to college games.’ And in 1997, I started doing college and pros. It is really what America is about. I call it the last great American neighborhood. It is a way of seeing America through thousands of backyards with no privacy fences.”
Before his passing in 2018, I had a chance to talk with Joe about his life and times experiencing tailgate culture in Happy Valley and beyond. As we prepare to welcome in some of the biggest and most enthusiastic crowds Penn State has seen in some time, before what might be the program’s most consequential game since the 1987 Fiesta Bowl, I’d like to share some of his wisdom as a means of reflecting on what we have, how fortunate we are to possess it, all as a reminder to pause and appreciate these fleeting moments before they become memories.
Joe told me:
I always say that the tailgate is the last great American neighborhood because it is the ideal neighborhood. You are not judged by your ethnic background, how much money you have, what kind of car you drive. You are judged by one criterion, and that’s what color jersey you have on. And even if you have a different color jersey in the parking lot, you’re a visitor. In the stadium, you’re an opponent, but outside, you’re a visitor. And so, as we walk along the parking lot, it’s like walking through thousands of backyards with no privacy fences.
People walk around, and you’re offered things, offered things from the heart. When you travel, the greatest compliment one can get when one travels for a living, is not to try all the new trends and all the new restaurants in a particular town, but to be invited to someone’s home and to break bread with that someone. That’s the greatest compliment you can get, and that’s what tailgating is about. You’re invited into people’s backyards, and that people are offering you this food as an extension of themselves.
You know, we’re happy just to be there, to be part of this, being inside of a stadium, and on one side, ‘We Are,’ on the other side, ‘Penn State.’ We Are Penn State. That’s one of the greatest chants in the world, and to be part of that ‘we are.’ ‘We are 3-0.’ Penn State is 3-0? No, no, we are. We are Penn State. It is not about the record. It’s about who we are. We’re proud to be where we are and who we are. And I think that’s the great thing maybe about a college town that is not in a big city.
Disney, I think, trademarked the term ‘the happiest place on earth,’ and I would debate that the happiest place on earth is a tailgate, because everybody out there is optimistic, and it’s not, ‘I am going to win,’ it’s, ‘we are going to win today.’ No matter what the record, no matter anything else, there is that optimism that everybody has and that individuals become this part of a greater group, collective. So, it’s a very fascinating psychology study.
And that’s why Penn State, in the midst of its magical 2005 revival, bested all comers and won Joe’s tailgating contest. From the White Out under the lights to the days and hours leading to it, very few places on Earth get to experience this brand of pageantry and even fewer do it as well as consistently as we do here in Happy Valley.
If you’re a Penn State football fan, you will inevitably experience some stress in the lead up to Saturday night’s main event. Can’t be helped, I’m afraid. But as these days and hours pass by, don’t ever lose sight of how blessed we all are to bond through that shared experience as the fortunate few residents of the last great American neighborhood.
Chris Buchignani is cohost of The Obligatory PSU Podcast and The Obligatory PSU Pregame Show, entering its 10th season this Fall. He teaches a course on Penn State Football History for Penn State OLLI.
