Description
Book SynopsisDescribes the evolution of Penn State's Beaver Stadium (originally Beaver Field) and its iconic status for the Penn State community. Traces the history of the stadium within the context of the university’s history and explores how fans have experienced football games from 1887 to the present.
Trade Review“One could not find better, more authoritative authors to collaborate on [this] book than Lee Stout and Harry West.”
—Lou Prato Blue White Illustrated
“Fans of PSU sports as well as the university in total should find this volume impressive and a worthwhile history and reference text in keeping with the overall significance of a Big Ten university. Highly recommended.”
—Al Holliday Pennsylvania Magazine
“Lair of the Lion is the seminal work on the beginnings of Beaver Stadium, on the west side of campus, to its modern-day state on the opposite end.”
—Wally Richardson,Director, PSU Football Letterman’s Club, and former PSU quarterback (1992-1996)
“Stout and West’s narrative offers insights into the Penn State character that extend far beyond the gridiron. They present a wonderfully entertaining story that’s likely to interest even those University alumni and friends who have never attended a football game at Beaver Stadium.”
—Michael Bezilla,author of Penn State: An Illustrated History
“Sport teams often inspire a kind of devotion in their fans and their communities that, to the disinterested, can be difficult to comprehend. The fervor can approach the religious, and if the team itself represents the religion (or the god, if you prefer), then the stadium they play in is the church. In Lair of the Lion, authors Lee Stout and Harry H. West throw open wide the doors of one such church to look at its history, its engineering, and its construction: Beaver Stadium, home of the Penn State Nittany Lions, for decades one of the marquee teams in college football.”
—Ray Bert Civil Engineering
Table of ContentsContents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1 Old Beaver Field
2 “Wish-Wack, Pink and Black, Go State Go”
3 New Beaver Field: The Wooden Era
4 New Beaver Field: The Steel Era
5 Football Games at New Beaver Field
6 Beaver Field Becomes Beaver Stadium
7 “The Big Lift”
8 The North-End Upper Deck
9 Beaver Stadium Becomes a Building
10 A New Era: Heritage Recognized
11 Continuity and Change on Game Day
12 Beaver Stadium’s Importance and Future
Afterword: The Power of Place
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index
Credits
