Members of Penn State clubs and organizations worked with staff through the week to clear snow from Beaver Stadium after a major snowstorm hit State College on Sunday, preparing the venue for the Nittany Lion hockey teams to play inside the stadium for the first time on Friday and Saturday.
Penn State Athletics enlisted students, staff and contractors to shovel seating areas and concourses so operations could continue ahead of the game. Cleanup began Monday, a snow day for Penn State, and continued through Wednesday.
Students from multiple club sports answered the call, including members of club track and field.
“They just gave us the offer and gave the incentive, and then we just reached out to all of our members and said, if you come and shovel, you’ll get a free ticket and voucher,” said Emma Neskie, a junior marketing major and club track and field member.
“They had a duct on every other staircase, and we would just throw the snow in there, and then it would slide down onto the field, and then from there, they would use the trucks to move it then out of the stadium.” Neskie added.
Neskie said volunteers followed a process similar to postgame stadium cleanups, which occur the Sunday after every home game, offering club members the opportunity to work and raise funding for their respective clubs.
“In the fall, we do the stadium cleanups after football games, so I think it was a very similar process to that…It was just like a stadium cleanup, but winter style,” she said. “We were lucky, and we got the earlier shift, so then we were not doing it dark, so it wasn’t as cold.”
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Michael Rohosky, club track and field president and a senior economics major, said his club mobilized nearly 100 volunteers on short notice.
“I got an email from club sports, more specifically, our club sports advisor, just saying [Penn State] Athletics was reaching out looking for clubs that are willing to help shovel snow in Beaver Stadium,” Rohosky said. “I looked into it a little bit more, and it looked like a great opportunity for our club. So we were able to mobilize a lot of people, to be exact, 99 people, to get it done. It was kind of just a last minute thing and ended up being a great time and a great opportunity for us.”
Rohosky said the work was steady but time-consuming.
“We did a fair amount, but, I mean, relative to the rest of the stadium, I felt like we hardly made a dent just looking around, and that was with 99 people,” he said. “It wasn’t like back-breaking labor or anything, but it was very tedious. I mean, in between those stands and bleachers, there’s a lot of snow and each row took one person probably 10 to 15 minutes to completely clear out, if they were moving the whole time.
“Even with all those people, there was still a lot of work to be done… Just seeing all the snow that was still left, all the stadium that hadn’t even been touched yet, it was like, ‘Wow. I, I don’t know how they’re going to get this done by Saturday.”
Rohosky compared his club’s four-hour snow removal shift to their postgame cleanup shifts, saying he preferred shoveling snow over picking up leftover trash. He thought it was a great opportunity for his club and his team’s fundraising efforts.
“As terrible as it sounds, shoveling snow in Beaver Stadium, it was pretty enjoyable.They had music playing for us, it was a good time,” he said. “They had a suite, a warm room where we could get hot chocolate, coffee. They fed us after that. I mean, it was a great fundraising opportunity. In my opinion, a lot better than doing a standard stadium cleanup in the fall. It’s a great experience…If we could trade doing that for stadium cleanup, that would be much more preferred.
“I hope they continue to do Beaver Stadium events during the winter. We also got a pretty once-in-a-decade snowstorm, so, I mean, circumstances just weren’t in the stadium’s favor. If we can do this every year, I don’t see why not.”
Penn State Athletics said about 500 people contributed overall between the three days of snow removal.
“We had a combination of around 500 folks help navigate clearing of the stadium. Students from various club sports programs, ICA Golf Course and Grounds staff, OPP custodial and landscape department, Barton Malow Alexander Laborers, along with Triple D Enterprise Staff,” assistant director of facilities and operations Herb Combs said.
With all the hard work done by hundreds of students, Beaver Stadium was ready-to-go for a weekend of hockey games.
After youth and high school games and public skating during the week, the women’s team opened the weekend with the first NCAA Division I hockey game in Beaver Stadium, defeating Robert Morris 3-0 on Friday afternoon.
The Nittany Lion men will face Michigan State at 1 p.m. on Saturday in the stadium. The game will also air on the Big Ten Network.
