The first all-stadium White Out came three years later in 2007 against Notre Dame. 9 Purdue in a game Penn State lost 20-13.
"They didn’t want to overplay it, overdo it, they wanted to keep it special, and rare, and once per season and reserve it for a big game."
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I love the way that it kind organically grew from a student-only thing and then the full stadium, as the story goes, the fans sort of demanded it and then they made it happen in a really kind of restrained way," Fowler said. Originally meant for just students, it eventually grew into a full stadium affair, with Fowler's friend D'Elia's help. So one day in 2004, during the throes of the gridiron doldrums in State College, Penn State's former director of communications and branding for football, Guido D'Elia approached Joe Paterno about the idea of a White Out. In the early 2000s, Penn State was struggling.įrom 2000-05, the Nittany Lions posted just two winning seasons and the fan base was in need of being invigorated. How did Penn State's White Out tradition start? Sporting News has everything you need to know about the tradition, which has become one of college football's marquee events every year. The Nittany Lions are 2-0 on the season and didn't host a White Out last year due to the coronavirus pandemic.
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"As the stadium grew, as the student section grew and the students I think over the years that sort of taught the regular fans, how to be involved in the game every play and how to play a part in the outcome by making it a very tough environment. That’s what I think the White Out has been partly responsible for." "I don't think you would have said Penn State was one of the toughest environments for a road team back in the day back when I was there, but I think it is now," Fowler said. That's changed in recent years, though, and it's in large part due to the White Out. "It wasn't one of the more raucous college crowds back in the 70s. "Even though Beaver Stadium has changed a lot since when I went there as a kid, I still get a special feeling going back in that place," Fowler told the media Thursday ahead of this year's iteration of the White Out against Auburn. Penn State Football September 17, 2021īut the atmosphere that now envelopes the central Pennsylvania cathedral of college football is a far cry from what Fowler saw growing up. Nearly 50 years later, Beaver Stadium is home to one of the top experiences in college football - Penn State's White Out game, slated to take place this weekend - wherein all roughly 110,000 fans wear white in Beaver Stadium for a bout of "monochromatic mayhem," as Fowler described it.Ģ⃣ more sleeps /7piGfpcgdT MORE: An oral history of Auburn legend Bo Jackson So coming to Penn State was an eye opening thing for me, and sort of sparked my passion in this sport." We got $6 season tickets - that was a total price for the season - and got to go in and see college football," Fowler said "If I hadn't had that experience I don't know if I'd be on this path, because I grew up in Illinois and didn't see college sports in person.
"My first taste of college football was as the son of a faculty member. ESPN's Chris Fowler's viewing of Penn State football has run the gamut.įrom rooting for "some of Joe Paterno's dullest teams" in the 70s, to returning to the place where grew up watching college football this weekend for his "favorite annual event," the longtime college football announcer has seen it all.Īnd yet, despite the poor quality of the teams and the less than dynamic offenses that often took the field at Beaver Stadium on Saturdays in the mid-70s, seeing those games is what got Fowler hooked on the sport.
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