Deb Phillips, class of ’77, sees the impact of she and her classmates had on Penn State with every home football game she attends – which is every single one, now that her daughter just started her freshman year.
According to Phillips, one fateful home game during her last year in school, she and everyone else in the student section got creative when it came time to sing the Alma Mater.
“We sang a song that’s not fit for print,” Phillips laughed while tailgating with her family before Saturday’s homecoming game at the stadium. “We sang that ‘we don’t know the [expletive] words.’”
The lyrics to the Alma Mater are now displayed on the stadium’s big scoreboards.
Her family – one that’s deeply connected to the Penn State tradition – laughs at the story, half in disbelief and half in pride. Since then, Phillips has taught her own daughter, now in her first year, the (correct) words to the Alma Mater.
Much like the Alma Mater, Phillips says the song has remained the same for Penn State homecoming, which sees families reunite with their children and alumni reunite with dear old State each year.
Phillips says one of her earliest memories is riding into the stadium on her grandfather’s shoulders. He played football at the school.
Her daughter Sierra Phillips – who is no stranger to Penn State’s Homecoming celebrations, despite being a freshman – still has a photo of her great-grandfather, Jay Bossert, in his youth wearing a leather football helmet.
“Every time I watch the drum major come out on the field, I can’t help but cry,” Deb Phillips says. “There’s just such an overwhelming sense of family and pride.”
Sierra Phillips, says that sense of pride has been evident all over campus this week. Having attended Penn State games since she was young, she says the energy on display during homecoming was one of the main reasons she wanted to come to Penn State.
Deb Phillips says that some things (other than the lyrics on the jumbotron) may have changed over the years, but the traditions remain the same: the Berkey Creamery ice cream is still sweet, and so is the feeling of victory that only comes from Penn State games.
Though Penn State may have lost its homecoming game with Northwestern, she knows that the university can never lose its pride.
Andrew Shemansky, a junior studying kinesiology, knows that if ever Penn State’s pride were to suffer, it was the last few years. But he says the university’s sense of pride has only grown stronger as Penn State preserved through difficult times.
For him, homecoming week has demonstrated Penn State’s ability to overcome.
Shemansky says people were focused on “trying to rebuild Penn State” after the Jerry Sandusky sex abuse scandal broke – but he, and everyone else, slowly came to a realization: “Nothing has changed.”
The students are still proud, the professors still brilliant and the university still strong. Now, with a strong 4-1 start to the season and the NCAA’s sanctions lifted, homecoming week has invigorated the Penn State community.
“It’s been pretty intense. I can’t say that I’ve ever seen this town more alive than it has been this week,” Shemansky says. ”Things are back to normal, and we’re a closer unit for all that we’ve been through.”
