Posts Tagged ‘nostalgia’

The Way We Were, 1964

Monday, September 29th, 2008

Last year I published some photos I took of Beaver Stadium back in 1964, when I was a student at Penn State. At that time, Beaver Stadium had been in its present location for only about five years since it was moved piece-by-piece from its prior location north of Rec Hall, where it was called “New Beaver Field.” I’ll republish links to the photos here this year just in case anyone missed them.

The Blue Band at Beaver Stadium, 1964

The Blue Band at Beaver Stadium, 1964

The capacity of the stadium then was around 45,000. The south end was open, with only some rickety bleachers where the parking and traffic guys and the kids who chased field goals watched the game; that end is also where the antique scoreboard was located. There was no second deck, there were no luxury boxes, and there was no Mt. Nittany Club. In fact, you could still enjoy a perfect view of Mt. Nittany itself because of that open end. Pennants representing each scheduled PSU opponent flew from flagpoles at the very top of the east and west stands. Rip Engle was the head coach back then, and his feisty former quarterback at Brown University, Joe Paterno, was his number one assistant. There sure as hell was no Paterno statue behind the east stands or a Penn State All-Sports Museum and Gift Shop under the nonexistent south stands!

The photos, 35 mm slides long stashed away in a shoebox, have become a little bluish over the 44 years since they were taken as you can see above, and they might have some dust spots here and there. Most were taken from the freshman/sophomore section in the stadium, which were cheap end zone seats. (Cheap, hell. They were free. This was before I learned how to borrow an upperclassman’s matric card so I could get into the senior section on the 20 yard-line over in the east stands. It was an early form of condoned identity theft. But I digress…) Nevertheless, the photos will give you an idea of what Beaver Stadium was all about back then.

As those good old days are long gone, I wanted to make those photos and descriptions available to you again. For the photo gallery, click here. The original post is here. You’ll find another post about how things were at Penn State in 1964 here. Finally, an aerial photo of the pre-1959 New Beaver Field is here. This foul old fowl hopes you enjoy them!

Bookmark and Share this Post
[Ask] [del.icio.us] [Digg] [Facebook] [Google] [MySpace] [Newsvine] [Slashdot] [Technorati] [Windows Live] [Yahoo!] [Email] More »

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in General, Penn State Football | 2 Comments »

Footballistic Confessions of a Geezer

Friday, October 19th, 2007

The State of Things in 1964

In 1964, the year of my matriculation to Penn State, the following things were true:

  • Joe Paterno was an assistant to Rip Engle
  • Girls had to live in women-only dorms unless they were 21 or married
  • Jerry Sandusky was playing defensive end and also played offense
  • Girls had to be back in the dorm at 11:30 on weeknights and 1:00 on weekends
  • Pittsburgh still had operating street car lines
  • Dick Anderson was a graduate assistant who taught my phys ed class
  • The only State Store in Centre County was in Bellefonte
  • Galen Hall was already an ex-quarterback
  • The academic year was comprised of four quarters
  • Mike McQueary wasn’t born yet
  • Glenn Ressler was our only All-America team member
  • It was the Look All-America Team then, sponsored by a long defunct weekly picture magazine
  • We smoked cigarettes and pipes in class
  • Beaver Stadium held about 45,000 people
  • Players played both ways, offense and defense
  • In State College, bars served beer but not liquor
  • The Pitt game was the big rivalry, it was always the last game of the year, and I always froze my ass
  • A gallon of gas cost $0.29
  • The Nittany Lions played a 5-3 defense, because defending the run was what it was all about
  • Cornerbacks were called defensive halfbacks
  • Lyndon B. Johnson was the President of the United States
  • Since the run was the thing, the offense lined up with two halfbacks, a fullback, and two ends
  • The fullback was always the most productive runner.
  • The fullback in 1964 was Tommy Urbanik.
  • You could buy a new, fully equipped, full-sized car for $3000
  • Syracuse used to kick our ass regularly
  • Elizabeth Taylor was totally hot in Cleopatra
  • Freshmen were not allowed to play varsity football, so there was a freshman team
  • All freshmen except commuters had to live in the dorms
  • The unranked Nittany Lions trounced the #2 Buckeyes in Columbus, 27-0
  • There were no such things as co-ed dorms
  • Our quarterback was Gary Wydman, backed up by Jack White
  • The Steelers sucked
  • The Pirates were good
  • Jenny wasn’t born yet
  • Neither were some of the McCabe Sisters

We’re talking 43 years ago here, folks. Boy, am I old! But I hope these factoids were fun for you.

If anyone else is still alive from that period, please post your reminiscences in the comments below.

Thanks!

—TNT

Bookmark and Share this Post
[Ask] [del.icio.us] [Digg] [Facebook] [Google] [MySpace] [Newsvine] [Slashdot] [Technorati] [Windows Live] [Yahoo!] [Email] More »

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Penn State Football | 8 Comments »