Wednesday, August 30, 2006

New Feature

I wanted to take some time and space to point out a new Feature link. The Penn State Football Story is one of my favorite programs about Penn State football. I grew up watching this on Sunday mornings after Nittany Lion football games. At the time I watched on WNEP channel 16 in Scranton, PA. I believe at the time that may have been one of the few places you could watch it. However, today it has kind of taken on a life of its own. I was very surprised to see that it was on out here in the Midwest about a year ago. If I remember correctly, Comcast Sports had it on. I checked into some other TV listings, and it is now available in most parts of the country and as part of Penn State's Offical Football Web Site. It is a great way to recap the week's action and I highly recommend checking it out. Here is a list of times and channels that carry the show on a weekly basis.

EDIT: I must be psychic. Right after putting this post and link up, there was an announcemeent with a little more information about this topic.

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I'm often asked, “What the heck is a NITTANY Lion? Why not just the Lions? What are you Penn State fans trying to pull?” Well, with a little help from the Official Penn State Football Site I offer the following:

Penn State's athletic symbol, chosen by the student body in 1906, is the mountain lion which once roamed central Pennsylvania. H.D. “Joe” Mason, a member of the Class of 1907, conducted a one-man campaign to choose a school mascot after seeing the Princeton tiger on a trip with the Penn State baseball team to that New Jersey campus. A student publication sponsored the campaign to select a mascot and Penn State is believed to be the first college to adopt the lion as a mascot.

Since Penn State is located in the Nittany Valley at the foot of Mount Nittany, the lion was designated as a Nittany Lion. In regional folklore, Nittany (or Nita-Nee) was a valorous Indian princess in whose honor the Great Spirit caused Mount Nittany to be formed. A later namesake, daughter of chief O-Ko-Cho, who lived near the mouth of Penn's Creek, fell in love with Malachi Boyer, a trader. The tearful maiden and her lost lover became legend and her name was given to the stately mountain.

And no, Penn State didn't always have those plain blue and white uniforms. The school's original colors were dark pink and black. However in 1890, as a result of the pink portions of school uniforms fading to white from exposure to the elements, the black was changed to blue and the rest is history.