What gives with the white benches on the gopher sideline...

[sec105]

Hey what gives with our guys sitting on "heated benches" and wearing little white hoodies on the side line. I thought we were suppose to embrace the cold like in the old days. Bud Grant never allowed heaters. We shouldn't either.

Aha...maybe we were making the poor Purdue players feel deprived because they didn't have those nice white benches....Brewster is pretty sneaky.

 

[BilldGopher]

Home Bench

Loved today and the weather. Apparently this is the most snow the Twin Cities of Minnesota has seen this early in 24 years. Since I've been here only 20.5 years...no wonder this seemed early o me. A couple of things though in line with this post...

First, Mrs. Billd and I did the Victory Walk this AM for the first time. It was not well attended for whatever reason. However, the kids looked like they thought it was cold as they walked by. Now...many of them were actually plugged in to their Ipods or CD-players...which I found kind of funny...but still, they were not relishing the 28 degrees at 9 AM this AM.

Second, I realized late in the first quarter today that Purdue was getting the benefit of the sun...when not blocked by clouds...but not the Gopher Bench. Although I dressed well today, it is a fact that the sun felt GOOD today and it was appreciably cooler when it was behind the clouds.

The kids will have to toughen up to play in The Bank. I think the coaches will do well to embrace the elements rather than facilitate them with heaters.

Go Gophers! What's a Nittany anyway?

 

[Gophers507]

Many are from TX and FL what do you expect lol

 

[BilldGopher]

Coach had a look too...

During the Victory Walk Coach had a "cold" look too. Not pronounced, but there nonetheless.

Because he played at Illinois, I know he knows the Midwest and the weather. I still think though that today was a wakeup call of the good sort...at least climate-wise until global warming actually kicks in.

BTW, as a native Southerner transplant to Minneeessooootttaaa...and lovin' it... I know very well that Southerners can adapt. Cold is a state of mind...at least in the State of Cold...

Go Gophers! Beat the Nittanys!

 

[Rick Mons]

I loved today's weather and just realized why

... when I was a kid, football was generally played during the day (both high school and college). Today's weather and game was a trip down memory lane.

I went to both Illini and Northwestern games in cold weather, wrapped in blankets, stomping our feet to keep the feeling, sipped hot chocolate out of a thermos (no restrictions on bringing in a thermos back then), bundling up in low-tech sweaters and stadium coats, but never (never) wearing a wool cap.

And our high school didn't have a lighted field -- all our home games were in the daytime and I can only recall a couple of schools that had lighted fields where we played on Friday nights. I know we played when it was warm ... but I really remember the games when it was brisk and there was a nip in the air.

So, today's game and the weather was just like coming home ... appropriate given it was "Homecoming."

 

[MilitaryGopher]

I say good

I would rather have the players able to get warm then take the risk for injury. I would just make sure they get used to cold wx in practice. As long they are not letting the cold get into their heads they will be fine. However not freezing your butt off saves energy as the game goes on.

 

[highwayman]

Hey what gives with our guys sitting on "heated benches" and wearing little white hoodies on the side line. I thought we were suppose to embrace the cold like in the old days. Bud Grant never allowed heaters. We shouldn't either.

Aha...maybe we were making the poor Purdue players feel deprived because they didn't have those nice white benches....Brewster is pretty sneaky.

The white hoodies were cold weather "skull caps" that cover the ears and head to retain heat. Most players had them on under their helmets. It prevents frostbite. You can't psych-out frostbite.

Every player had to wear those stick-on toe heatpads in their shoes as well.

There were also ground-level blowers that were pushing hot air across the turf along the sideline area.

The little chimneys sticking up behind the seats were helmet heaters.

It seemed to work. We won. Purdue was on their own.

I'd take warm winners over cold losers.

 

[SoMplsHawkI]

What's a Nittany anyway?

Nittany is a mountain:

The origins of "Nittany" are a bit obscure, but most likely the word comes from a Native American term meaning, "single mountain." (Since a number of Algonquian-speaking tribes inhabited central Pennsylvania, the term can’t be traced to one single group.) The description applied to the mountain that separates what is today Penns Valley and Nittany Valley, with its western end overlooking the community of State College and Penn Sate's University Park campus. The first colonial settlers in the 1700s adopted this term, or a variation of it, in formally naming Nittany Mountain.

Thus by the time Penn State admitted its first students in 1859, the word "Nittany" was already in use. Following the emergence of the Nittany Lion mascot in the early 1900s, Nittany gained even more public prominence. Today, the word helps to define a host of places, services, and other entities in the Nittany Valley. Some of those most closely related to Penn State are included here.