Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1545675
A U G U S T 2 0 2 6 17 W W W . B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M FIVE YEARS AGO, 2021 Former Penn State wrestler David Taylor was trailing Iran's Hassan Yaz- dani Charati 3-2 in the final minute of their gold-medal match on Aug. 5 at the COVID-delayed 2020 Summer Olym- pics in Tokyo. With 20 seconds left, the two-time PSU national champ pulled ahead on a takedown. It proved to be the decisive move, giving Taylor a 4-3 victory and a spot at the top of the po- dium in the 86-kilogram (190-pound) weight class. "There's no way I wasn't going to find a way," said Taylor, who went 134-3 at Penn State from 2009-13. "It's the gold medal. I was going to rip my arms off if I had to." A newcomer to the Olympic stage, Taylor won his first three matches by a combined margin of 33-2, including a 10-0 victory over India's Deepak Punia in the semifinal round. The final was an entirely different kind of match, but Taylor wasn't bothered that it took a late comeback to secure the title he had long sought. "I like to win 10-0," he told reporters in Tokyo, "but getting it done in the last seconds feels pretty good, too." 10 YEARS AGO, 2016 Opening its season on the road for the first time in six years, the Penn State men's soccer team traveled to Palo Alto, Calif., where it fought defending na- tional champion Stanford to a 0-0 draw on Aug. 26. The top-ranked Cardinal attempted 17 shots to Penn State's 8. Stanford finished with 6 shots on goal to the Nittany Lions' 1, yet goalkeeper Evan Finney saved them all over the game's 110 minutes. The last of those saves came with less than a min- ute left in the second overtime period, allowing the unranked Nittany Lions to leave The Farm with a tie. While Penn State wasn't able to pull off an upset, it did extend its unbeaten streak in season openers to 10 matches. The last time the Nittany Lions lost on opening day was a 2-0 shutout against Furman in 2006. They improved to 7-0-2 in openers under coach Bob Warming. 25 YEARS AGO, 2001 Penn State's game-day experience was about to change forever with the completion of a Beaver Stadium ex- pansion project that added more than 12,000 seats to its capacity by enclosing the south end zone. The new upper deck, which included 60 suites and 4,000 club level seats, raised the stadium's official capacity to 107,282, making it the sec- ond-largest facility in the country. The $93 million project was approved by the board of trustees in 1999 and completed a few weeks ahead of the Nit- tany Lions' 2001 season opener on Sept. 1 against Miami. More than some of the other projects that had been undertaken since it opened in 1960 with a capacity of 46,284, the enclosure of the south end zone changed the character of the stadium. The new seats blocked the v i ew o f Mo u n t N i t ta ny, much to the chagrin of some fans who enjoyed the daz- zling fall foliage as much as the game. But they also helped trans- form a stadium that had long been known for its sedate atmosphere into one of the loudest and most intimidat- ing environments in all of college foot- ball. The Hurricanes weren't particularly bothered by the noise; they thrashed Penn State, 33-7. But after its early- 2000s swoon, the program would re- gain its place among the nation's best, and the stadium's expansive-yet-claus- trophobic dynamics were a part of that resurgence. — Matt Herb This Month In Penn State Athletics History TixManJim@gmail.com www.TixManJim.com at Former Penn State national champion David Taylor rallied to defeat Iran's Hassan Yazdani Charati, 4-3, in the 86-kilo- gram final at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. PHOTO BY KADIR CALISKAN/UNITED WORLD WRESTLING