THON

THON.

Wow.

That’s really how I feel – speechless. I could easily ramble on for thousands of words attempting to explain how awesome it was, but it’s really not the same.

You need to experience it.

This blog is, of course, about my obsession with Penn State, how it defines me, makes me who I am. Naturally then, it’s fair to assume that this was one of my favorite experiences here if I’m saying that it still has me speechless.

It was one of my favorite experiences of my life.

THON weekend brought me a whole new level of respect and awe for this place. I mean, throughout the year I had been involved in my organization (unfortunately I hadn’t interviewed for a committee) and I saw the cause, and canned, and had fun, and was inspired, and everything that goes along with that. That is to say, I was excited for THON weekend even before I could fully appreciate it.

It only took forty-six hours to blow my mind (except I slept for about six of them... so let’s call it forty). I remember thinking after like the first seven or eight hours, “How are they going to keep this up until Sunday afternoon, how are they going to keep everyone hooked?” Needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised.

THON is one of those magical things. It seems like a once in a lifetime experience as you take it in – and then you leave getting the satisfaction that it all starts over again next year.

I love kids. Don’t get me wrong; I loved all of the baggage and fanfare that came with the weekend. Go Go Gadget during the last hour was one of the most incredible things ever, and the Pep Rally was beyond sweet – but to see the kids taking part in all of the excitement is one of the most incredible scenes to watch.

It is amazing to sit back and watch these kids forget about their cancer, forget about their pain, their doctors, the hospital, the tears – and just be kids.

Rambling on is easy when you get to write about something that you love. For me, THON weekend was incredibly moving and powerful, and certainly something that all Penn State students need to experience. 

not just football?

Staying true to the plan of alternating weeks, this week will be something about my childhood here in Happy Valley. In fact, it will be about wrestling in Happy Valley.

Penn State has always been a pretty good wrestling school. It makes sense. Pennsylvania is generally regarded by many to the be the best pipelane for premier wrestlers in the country. But although the Nittany Lions have been a regular in the Top 5 (in collegiate rankings) in the past several seasons or so, winning the NCAA championship last year, they weren’t always as dominant as they are now.

The university wasn’t maybe. But the area certainly was.

I wrestled a lot as a kid. That was my thing. So much so, in fact, that if I had wanted to wrestle in college, I could have gone to nearly any school in the country that I had wanted (but that’s neither here nor there, because I grew to hate wrestling and I’d never do that). But I wrestled, and traveled, a lot. Of the forty states that I have been to, I’ve wrestled in over half of them, in hundreds of tournament spanning over a decade.

Sure, there were national tournaments halfway across the country that were (understandably so) always pretty tough. But, as a general rule, some of my hardest competition would always be in State College.

Annually, Penn State runs one of the toughest youth wrestling tournaments around. Every year, hundreds of kids come from across the region to “duke it out” in Rec Hall. Of course, at that time, it was just another building to me. There was no history, it wasn’t aesthetically pleasing, it was just a gym. But, looking back – it’s pretty cool to think about.

That’s not my only experience of wrestling here though. That was just one weekend a year, maybe for six or seven years. But my memories extend far beyond that. Additionally, every summer I’d come up here for a week for a Penn State wrestling camp. The camp would be run inside the Ramada Inn, maybe to give the illusion of a vacation and intensive camp mixed together, I don’t know, but either way, I found myself there every summer for quite some time.

Maybe it was all just a way for my dad to spend more time up here (he came to all of it). Maybe it was nothing more than a way to connect our family life and my wrestling career. Whatever the reason, Penn State became what some could refer to as my “homefield advantage” because I was here so much. Not that I minded or anything, winning and Happy Valley were always a pretty good combo to grow up on.

the floor.

For every blog entry, my goal is to alternate posts between past experiences at Penn State and experiences from my freshman year

Though still personal, this post may be a little less unique than the rest from this blog will be, but if that’s the case, then hopefully more people can relate to it. Personally, I was terrified to come here. I mean, yeah, it was all I dreamed about as a kid, but when the time came – I was so unbelievably scared.

I knew that I was better off than some. My sister’s a junior here, and there were a handful of kids from my high school that came. But when it came down to it, I wouldn’t be able to survive off of just this small number. Like the ten thousand other incoming freshman, I needed to make some friends.

Everyone knows how the next part goes. Anyone and everyone is seen as a potential friend; the kid in the elevator is just as scared as you, as is the kid in the bathroom, and of course you’ve already tried to Facebook stalk your roommate. In a nutshell, it’s all simply a part of being a freshman.

I’ve always been wary to use a word like “best” to describe my own personal opinions, it kind of drives me nuts when I hear people do it. (Even though it may be hard for you to believe, it is extremely unlikely that you have the “nicest” or “cutest” or “best behaved” dog in the world.) That being said, I won’t do it here – not remotely – but I will say that my floor worked out perfectly for me.

A street sign hanging on my dorm wall

We clicked. The Mifflin Misfits we referred to ourselves a few times. In a building filled with athletes, it’s almost as if the Penn State Housing Department decided to stuff us in the top floor of Mifflin Hall. The sixth floor became the Miff Six. Silly, maybe, but it became our Greek – our own fraternity. 

The unique personalities and backgrounds of everyone is something that I wouldn’t trade. On any given night, it would be surprising if there weren’t at least nine of us eating dinner together. Sometimes there’s as many as fourteen. There’s the kids from small towns and cities, the former athletes and band stars, the singers, the dancers, the gamers, we’re all there. And it’s awesome.

I suppose everyone has their own Miff Six on their floor. It’s our own family here in State College, connected by the gene pool of Penn Staters. 

the beginning

The first chapter, like many stories, begins with family.  As kids, we learn far more in our households than the schooling system could ever dream of teaching. Not that there’s anything remotely wrong with that, that’s just the way it is.

My house was especially good with this.

Everyone’s family teaches them to walk, and talk, and use manners, to do well in school, try your best, and then, if you’re lucky, you also get to learn something special. I got to learn about passion – the unconditional love that takes place when you’re able to get lost in something greater than yourself.

To me, that passion has always been Penn State.  The fundamentals are easy: my grandfather went here, my dad did, my sister does, and now I do too. The pattern is easy to follow – though maybe not necessarily as easy to understand.

I was raised in a Penn State home; a white house with navy blue shutters, filled with Penn State memorabilia, season football tickets every fall, the alma mater memorized before I was ten. I grew up hating places like Notre Dame and Pitt before I even knew that they were prestigious universities, and I knew the full roster every fall before I knew the names of my new classmates in school.

That’s just how it was. A bad football loss meant a grumpy Monday and Tuesday from Dad (the early 2000’s were brutal). A holiday dinner was spent recapping the season, even to the point of breaking down individual plays. And whether I was at home or at my grandparents, every blanket was navy, and everywhere was framed with iconic images of Old Main or the Lion Shrine.

At a time in life when everything is a fairytale, my setting was Happy Valley, and the protagonist was Joe Paterno, with a supporting cast of Nittany Lions.

The Amish are raised in a certain lifestyle, and they live it for a long time. When Amish children become of age, they have the opportunity to leave the community for a year and explore the world that modern society considers them to be “missing out” on. Most of the time, they come back. They come back to what is familiar, what feels right, and they come back to their family.

I may have considered other schools, but it seemed only right that I come to Penn State. To what is familiar. And to my family.