Blue White Illustrated

P E N N S T A T E F O O T B A L L >> t his introductory news confer- ence a little over six years ago, James Franklin was asked about transitioning from Vanderbilt, where he had to work to drum up interest in his team, to Penn State, where he could ex- pect at least 90,000 to show up for every home game. It sounded like an innocuous query, but Franklin took issue with the re- porter's math, immediately turning the question around. "Is there a reason you said 90,000?" he asked. "That's when it's at its worst," the re- porter replied. Franklin wasn't having it. "One hun- dred and seven thousand from here on out," he said. "That stadium will be sold out every single game from here on out." To no one's great surprise, including probably his own, the Nittany Lions' new coach was wrong about that pre- diction. In their 2014 home opener, the Lions drew 97,354 to Beaver Stadium to watch a 21-3 victory over Akron. They only sold out one of their seven home games that year, a White Out matchup with Ohio State. But the point of Franklin's brash guar- antee of endless sellouts wasn't to set a numerical benchmark; the point was to state a priority. Building a sense of con- nection around his program was of crucial importance, and one highly visible way of showing the solidarity of the Penn State community, especially with the Sandusky scandal still fresh in many minds, was to have a roaring stadium behind the Nit- tany Lions every home Saturday. In the years since, Franklin has fre- quently extolled the power of the Penn State community as a force that can help lift his football program. He's talked, too, about the inverse – how football can serve as a focal point that brings people closer together. Nowhere have those two phenomena been more evident than on Penn State game days, especially on White Out nights. Even with programs throughout the Power Five conferences lavishing mil- lions on their football facilities, few can match the sheer immensity of the Nit- tany Lions' game day spectacle. Beaver Stadium is the fourth-largest stadium in the world with an official capacity of 106,572, and it's the second-largest fa- cility in college football, trailing only Michigan Stadium (107,601). Now, though, with the COVID-19 pan- demic forcing school closures, shuttering restaurants and bars, and bringing public gatherings of all kinds to a halt, there are questions as to whether the crisis will re- sult in long-term changes in the way Americans go about their lives. Because spectator sports have been a significant part of that lifestyle for more than a cen- tury, it's only natural to wonder what will happen once the threat has passed. That fans make sports better is an in- controvertible fact. When the NBA briefly considered playing in empty are- nas before suspending its season indefi- nitely, LeBron James balked. "If I show up to an arena and there ain't no fans in there, I ain't playing," he said. James later walked that back, but his initial impulse was entirely understandable. In our own small way, we've all been there. At one time or another, we've all been so desperate for sports that we've clicked on some mid-December bowl game sponsored by a website we've never used or an auto parts chain we've never stepped foot in. We've seen the camera sweep over the stadium, only to reveal that the stands are empty save for a handful of hardcore fans huddled behind the benches. Even though we don't have a big emotional investment in the out- come, it's still kind of a buzzkill. Now we're being told that this may be the future of sports. The immediate fu- ture, at any rate. A recent poll by the Still- man School of Business at Seton Hall found that 72 percent of Americans would not attend sporting events until there is a COVID-19 vaccine. Even among sports fans, 61 percent said they would not at- tend. The poll had a 3.6 percent margin of error, so even if those numbers are over- stated, it appears that a majority of prospective attendees won't be back until they feel as safe as they did previously. That's a problem, because the consensus of the scientific community seems to be that a vaccine is 12 to 18 months away, al- though it's possible that there are existing COMMUNITY COLLEGE A The pandemic may have left Americans feeling isolated, but PSU is eyeing a future in which its athletic gatherings help bring people back together

• Cover