Blue White Illustrated

Club keeps former Penn State players connected 2 0 1 5 P E N N S T A T E F O O T B A L L After many of the letters fell off the away game white jerseys during the rainy game at Virginia because of a heat-setting mistake by the outside company, Karen spent another two weeks re-sewing the individual letters back on the defaced jer- seys. It took Spider just a few minutes to take the names off the jerseys worn by the last six Paterno-era players and a few others. " [Equipment manger] Jay Takach saved those six jerseys for me to take off the names," Caldwell said, "and I took a few more off later while I was there to help Jay out. Jay let me know some of the names were on there pretty darn good, ha ha." As for that three-minute video Caldwell and other lettermen made before the of- ficial announcement, it was shown at the squad meeting and is now available to the public on gopsusports.com. "It's called 'Black Shoes, Basic Blues, No Names, All Game,' " Spider said. "That's what Penn State is all about. That's tradition." ■ T he Penn State Football Letterman's Club has come a long way from its wacky start in the back of a Win- nebago RV from Ohio in 1980. Some 800 former players now belong to the club, and since the 2001 season many of them have gathered at every home football game to socialize in the stylish Letterman's Lounge above the home team locker room in the southeast corner of Beaver Stadium. The lounge is large, spanning two rooms separated by a partial wall and filled with tall tables and chairs, couches and several mounted tel- evision sets. There's a food serving area that offers a buffet every game day at a reasonable price, and small baskets of assorted – and free – munchies are scat- tered on tables throughout the facility. Team photos dating back to 1887 are displayed, arranged by decade, on the walls near the rear entrance adjoining the Recruiting Lounge. Players are for- bidden to use this entrance on game day and are warned not to enter the Recruit- ing Lounge because of NCAA rules. The front door entrance is at the op- posite side of the lounge, just off the el- evator. A reception desk is manned on game day to sign in players and their families and help them with any re- quests or questions. On the wall at that end of the lounge is a large photo col- lage that includes six of Penn State's head coaches, from Hugo Bezdek in 1917 to James Franklin. The view out the windows that extend the length of the lounge is picturesque, with Mount Nittany in the background. It's a perfect spot for people-watching on game day as the current team pulls up in the blue buses that many of these let- termen once rode themselves and the fans stream back and forth along Curtin Road and tailgate in the parking lots across the street. The lettermen even have their own parking lot nearby, adja- cent to the Bryce Jordan Center in what is named the Founders Lot. The lounge opened in September 2001 in conjunction with the multimillion- dollar expansion of Beaver Stadium that included the private suites and the Mount Nittany Club. I have been in the lounge hundreds of times and have seen it both when it's been empty and when it's been filled. As the first director of the Penn State All-Sports Museum, I had an office nearby, inside the vast Recruiting Lounge. For years, my office and another for my assistant were the only ones there and occasionally I would eat my lunch in the solitude of the lounge. Nowadays, there are offices in the area not only for the museum's five-person staff but for others, including Wally Richardson, executive director of the Letterman's Club, Bob White, the direc- tor of the Mount Nittany Club and suites, and his three staffers, including his new right-hand man, former equip- ment manager Spider Caldwell. For years, I have been stopping by the lounge before games to kibitz with some of the players I have known since the late 1950s. The place is almost always a bee- hive of activity. "It's a high-volume area, especially when there's inclement weather," Richardson said with a laugh during my recent visit. "We have our regulars who come up here for just about every game, but we've also got guys who might live 600 miles away and get up here once a year. The guys enjoy coming back and talking to teammates and meeting other players they didn't know. We're like a big family." My favorite memory of the Letter- man's Lounge occurred when I was the museum director. It was out of season in the middle of the week and the lounge was empty. The athletic department brass were giving some of their peers from Michigan a tour of the stadium, and as they walked past my office I was asked to join them. I instantly recog- nized Bo Schembechler, the legendary retired head football coach. I told Bo about my Michigan football background as part of a Detroit radio broadcast team when he was coaching, and we quickly reminisced about mutual friends. When Bo walked into the Letterman's Lounge, his face lit up. And his excite-

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