On pride

The following originally appeared on Facebook. I think I wrote it because I needed to remind myself.

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In a comment elsewhere on Facebook, a stranger wrote:

So no I do not understand having pride in being a penn stater right now when the rest of the nation is quite frankly disgusted by your school.

Let me help.

I'm proud to be a Penn Stater because I received an excellent education that I would have had to pay much more for anywhere else. I did meaningful research throughout my undergraduate career. My advisor and the other faculty in my department were world-class, and so many of them went out of their way to improve my education. I went on to the best graduate program in my field, and my preparation was second to none. The people at Penn State who made this possible have nothing to do with the travesty now unfolding.

I'm proud of Penn State because it was the kind of place where you could skip Art History (yet again) to sneak off to the Creamery and have a cone with Whit Diffie. Or find yourself standing at a urinal next to Sir Roger Penrose.

I'm proud of Penn State for the elms and the cow fields and capture-the-flag on the golf courses at midnight, and the grilled stickies afterward. And the friends who were there through all of it.

I'm proud of Penn State for the guy in my dorm who took down a murderer on the HUB lawn. Because when you see violence happening in front of you, that's the right thing to do.

I'm proud of Penn State because, even though I now live a couple of hours from campus, there's "canners" at my local grocery store every year, standing in the cold, raising money for kids with cancer.

I like Penn State football, but my pride and love for Penn State were never based on that. And I sure as hell never loved the administration (does any faculty, staff, or student anywhere?). They were not the foundation of my pride, and their failures will bruise, but not destroy, that pride. The university is more than them, and what they did will not erase the achievements of hundreds of thousands of good and decent faculty, students, and alumni.

Word of the day: Vomitory

Penn State Live details some improvements at Beaver Stadium:

Penn State fans will see several significant upgrades at Beaver Stadium that have taken place during the off-season when they attend the season-opener against Indiana State on Sept. 3 (noon kick).

The most significant changes to the venerable facility include:

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- Improved drainage in seating areas

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Also in the East and West stands, vomitory ramps have been improved to allow for increased and easier access by ADA patrons to the new seating areas.
Fans will also notice significant changes on the North side of the stadium. The Section NF vomitory ramp has been modified with a gentler slope to permit ADA spectators to enter the North field level seats from Section NF, rather than the visiting team tunnel.

Now, I know that a lot of people drink too much at the games, and that has consequences. At last year’s Michigan State game, the guy next to me was removed because we were afraid he’d lose his lunch on our shoes.

But it never occurred to me that the stadium required special drainage channels for vomit.

It turns out that vomitory has a specialized meaning in stadium architecture.

GeograFAIL: It’s college football time!

BowlBus provides charter bus service from various cities to college football games. But you may want to double-check that the driver knows where he’s going.

(Admittedly, last year’s Penn State @ Indiana game was played in Washington, DC, so maybe their planners just gave up after that.)

Who can argue with that?

Sarah Keefer, in the Penn State Daily Collegian:

Keefer added that even [though] cookies may not seem to fit in with the healthy theme, she can eat more of them guilt-free because they’re smaller.

Yes, that is less than 50%

The Penn State Daily Collegian, “State's tobacco prevention receives 'F' grade”:

Pennsylvania spends less than 50 percent of what the Center for Disease Control and Prevention recommends it spend on tobacco prevention, said Deborah Brown, CEO of ALA of the Mid-Atlantic.

The CDC recommends Pennsylvania spend $155.5 million on prevention and cessation, she said.

Currently, the commonwealth only spends about $14.7 million, she said.

A Tale of Two Almae Matres

Congratulations to the Penn State women's volleyball team, who defeated Texas in straight sets in the NCAA semifinals, and will try for their fourth consecutive national championship on Saturday.

And then there's Caltech men's basketball.

Conference play in the N.C.A.A. Division III Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference begins after the holiday break. Caltech’s losing streak sits at 297, according to the athletic department.

...

A basketball in [Coach] Eslinger’s office is covered in autographs—not from players, but from the five Nobel laureates currently on the faculty. Pointing to a photograph of the team he inherited, Eslinger counted 5 among the 17 players who had played high school basketball. There were more valedictorians than starters.

GO STATE BEAT SPARTANS!

To the guy sitting in front of me at the Penn State game yesterday

I share your enthusiasm for the skills of backup quarterback Matt McGloin, who beat Michigan last week while starter Rob Bolden was injured. And McGloin sure turned the game around yesterday, scoring 35 unanswered points to bring Penn State out of a 21-0 hole against Northwestern, and get career win #400 for Joe Paterno.

However, your chant of “We want the white quarterback!” recalls Bill Maher’s 2008 comment:

A black president? Half of Pennsylvania isn't ready for black quarterbacks.

And your other chant of “WE ARE… PENNSYLTUCKY” pretty much nails down which half.

Stay classy, drunk rednecks. May no act of ours bring shame…

My neutrons bring all the boys to the yard

Sometimes I miss Atherton Hall. Schreyer Honors College to auction off dates for charity:

Roommates Hannah Spece (freshman-nuclear engineering) and Uma Pattarkine (freshman-finance) will be auctioned off together.

“I like that all the proceeds are going to the Susan G. Komen foundation,” Spece said. “It’s also cool because we plan on walking in to the song ‘Milkshake’ by Kelis.”

That’s the most authentically Athertonian quote I’ve seen in the Daily Collegian since 1994, when Stan Briczinski (freshman-physics) said:

The fate of the ENTIRE UNIVERSE rests on tonight’s Penn State game.

That is all.

1. 
   seanmcarroll @plutokiller, a friendly wager? Penn State wins today, Pluto is a planet again. Alabama wins, I admit there's only one universe. 11 Sep 2010 from web
2. 
   plutokiller @seanmcarroll I'm in. If its a tie, neither Pluto nor the Universe exist. 11 Sep 2010 from Seesmic for Android in reply to seanmcarroll
3. 
   seanmcarroll @plutokiller If it's a tie, Pluto is ITS OWN UNIVERSE. 11 Sep 2010 from Twitterrific in reply to plutokiller

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