Blue White Illustrated

Bonfires were saved for upsets or sig- nificant victories. The bigger the win, the bigger the bonfire. Usually, the bonfire ceremony was on the Monday or Tuesday following the game. Most bonfires were held on the drill field adjacent to the Ar- mory, but others were in front of the main gate, at the intersection of College Av- enue and Allen Street near the front of the venerable Corner Room Hotel. The size of the bonfires also varied, depending on how much wood the stu- dents could gather. That frequently caused friction in the perennially trou- blesome town-and-gown relationship, because the students often took the wood from private property. There were two infamous bonfires. The students were so happy following a 5-0 upset of Cornell on Oct. 14, 1911, they didn't wait for the team to return to start the bonfire. When they began to run out of wood that evening, the stu- dents went on a rampage all over town, breaking up boardwalks, fences and any- thing else made of wood that they could find. Fistfights broke out all over as peo- ple defended their property. Some stu- dents were hit by shotgun pellets during a melee that lasted for hours. The other noteworthy bonfire occurred on Oct. 26, 1914, two days after a 13-13 tie with Harvard, considered the best team in the country. A photo from that day shows dozens of students standing on a finished wood pile about 25 yards wide and at least three stories high. About 3,500 fans were there in the candlelight when team captain Yeggs Tobin threw the torch into the pile. Two instant explosions sent Tobin and soph- omore class president George Sauerhoff into the air. The ground shook, shatter- ing windows in several buildings as far away as the Beta Theta Pi fraternity house, and plaster fell from the wall at the president's home (now known as the Hintz Alumni Center). Several students were hurt in the stampede and some were hit by burning wood. Tobin and a few others suffered serious burn injuries but fortunately no one died and every- one recovered. Later, it was discovered the students had poured gasoline on the wood pile instead of the usual kerosene. Some traditions simply disappear be- cause others take their place. The recently-altered ritual in which a mass of fans would greet the buses' ar- rival at the entrance to the south tunnel was relatively new. It didn't start until 14 years ago when a new team locker room and media room with a tunnel in be- tween was built as part of the massive 2001 stadium expansion project. Go back to New Beaver Field, the home playing site from 1909 to '59 located near where the Lion shrine is today, and the players' grand entrance varied. In the 1940s and '50s, the locker room was ac- tually outside the gates in the water tow- er, which is now the Biomechanics Labo- ratory. The players ran onto the field af- ter entering from the water tower gate and passed between two lines of students from Penn State's honorary hat societies (Skull and Bones, Parmi Nous, etc.) in the southwest corner near grandstand sec- tion WA and the temporary bleacher seats in the south end zone. When Beaver Stadium opened in 1960, the players used a small locker room lo- cated underneath the press box in the west grandstand. Back then, the fabled blue buses transported players from the football facility, now known as the East Area Locker Room, to the stadium and back without any pregame fanfare. And from 1960 until 1979, the players ran onto the field from the tunnel at Section NA near the north end zone. That's where the visiting team now makes its entrance. With the stadium expansion in 1979, a locker room was constructed in a separate building that straddled the sta- dium fence at the south gate, and the buses unceremoniously dropped the players off there. One of the favorite pregame traditions at Beaver Stadium is when the long line of players and coaches led by the Nittany Lion mascot and the cheerleaders run onto the field from the south end zone tunnel all the way to midfield with the Blue Band flanking them on both sides. Seems like it's been that way forever, right? Actually, it's only been since 1979, when the stadium was transformed from a horseshoe into an enclosed bowl with the installation of permanent seats on the lower level. However, before that the Blue Band was not involved in the team's entrance, and it marched into the stadi- um at the opposite end from a tunnel at Section NF that was eliminated in the 1979 reconstruction. As for the popular drum major flip, which brings the crowd to its feet when the band initially march- es onto the field, it didn't start until 1971. There are also traditions that end for one reason or another and then are res- urrected years later in a different format. Band Day was a fall tradition from 1950 to '74 with dozens of high school bands performing at one special game during the season. It ended when the athletic department could no longer afford to give away all those tickets to the partici- pating bands. In the spring of 1984, Band Day returned for the annual Blue-White Game, but after five years it went away again because most of the high school marching bands in the state were no longer active after the football season. Yet, on Sept. 20, Band Day was back, at least for this year, as part of the cere- monies during the Massachusetts foot- ball game honoring the 50th anniversary of women's varsity sports at Penn State. Perhaps Band Day will surface again, particularly if it helps fill a stadium when an inferior team like UMass is the opponent. The Victory Bell is another tradition that has changed considerably since it first started in 1964 and for years was completely forgotten. The custom has been much more visible since 2009 when the head coach and captains began stopping as they came off the field to ring the 87-pound bell located near the locker room tunnel entrance. However, the original Victory Bell wasn't even in the stadium, and the first time it rang after a win, only two people were present. That bell, which is from the old battle- ship Pennsylvania, was – and still is – located in front of Wagner Building, along Curtin Road, just west of Univer- sity Drive, and home of the university's military science program. Before the

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