The Penn State Weekend

Around 1pm on Friday Mark, James, Dave and I left Ann Arbor on a trip to see Michigan play Penn State. I had gotten the tickets this summer and was lucky because they sold out within 5 minutes of going on sale. I packed 6 shirts, 5 of them were Michigan shirts.

We made great time and got to the house where we were staying at around 7pm. The guy we were staying with had worked with Dave and James over the summer and lived right near downtown State College. It was a first floor apartment of a house, and was centerpieced by a 96 inch projection screen. Soon after we got there everyone else left to get a keg and I was alone when a girl came in who I could only describe as "loony". She had taken 3 Five Hour Energies and for some reason thought they were additive and she would be hopped up for 15 hours. I think she was on drugs. That night, the house had a party and we got to hang out with this kid's friends. We were amazed to find that they play "NBA Jams" rules in beer pong. I thought that was original to Ann Arbor. They had a pair of police grade handcuffs lying around and after a few drinks it seemed like a good idea to cuff one of Dave's wrists. I then found out that they didn't have a key, oops. We got a call from my buddy Rob saying that he was at a great party a few blocks away. We headed over to the house he was staying at, and Dave headed off to find a police officer to undo his handcuffs. At the other party were severely accosted by Penn State fans, in much they same way we would accost them, verbally not physically. We went back to our house and found that Dave had quite the time explaining to the cops why he was semi-handcuffed.

After getting back, it was pretty late and I had told my cousin Mike that I would meet him for breakfast at 10 on Saturday. Unfortunately, there was still a party going on, and I was exhausted. So I decided to go out and sleep in the car. At 5:19 in the morning I woke up in the front seat of a Dodge Stratus and couldn't feel my extremities. I headed back inside and found a piece of flooring. During the party they had the door open, so even inside it was around 50 degrees. It was the worst night of sleep I have gotten in a long time.

On gameday we woke up and headed to meet up with my cousin and his wife Lynne and their friends Jeff and Melissa. Breakfast consisted of Long Island Iced Tea's and Nachos. We then said hi to my Aunt and Uncle for a minute and then headed over to the stadium with is all the way across campus from downtown. Surrounding the stadium are a bunch of large fields where most of the tailgating takes place. Mike took us to a few tailgates where we were either welcomed or despised. The ones that despised us made us drink heavily. In the 50 minutes before game time Mark and I drank between 7 - 8 beers and I slapped the bag. Heading towards the stadium I tried to jump a wire fence and failed miserably and landed on my head. Like most reasonable schools, open intox laws are relaxed on gamedays, so we stood outside the stadium and chugged beers.

Our seats were in the Michigan section of the upper bowl of the stadium. Having been to a good number of college stadiums I must say that Beaver Stadium is one of my favorites. It really felt like a pro stadium, complete with a sound system and advertising (boo!). It reminded me a little bit of Ben-Hill-Griffin stadium at Florida in terms of intimidation factor. The first quarter and a half was great. The last 40 minutes was a painful hope-shattering, realization of our destitute.

After the game we wen't to get some slices of pizza that I still have heartburn from 24 hours later. Then we went to the bar to drink away the pain. We got some personal pitchers and after kicking our ass, most of the PSU fans were pretty nice. We talked to one alumni who was impressed at the amount of football games that we go to. He then bought us a pitcher and split it with us. That's right, we had a Penn State fan buying us drinks at the bar.

Mark and I then met back up with Mike and Melissa because I had bet a pitcher that Michigan would cover the 23.5 point spread. We went to a basement bar that had a huge number of beers on tap. I just drank Yeungling because I rarely get to order it in Michigan. We were pretty tired at this point and after a couple of pitchers we decided to pack it in. We staggered home and found some space on the floor to sleep. I think that night there were 15 people in a three bedroom apartment.

This morning I felt like complete garbage. My two roommates Brick and Andy had come out with a kid who was continuing on to Philly on Sunday so we told Brick we would give him a ride home if he sat bitch the entire way. Andy on the other hand, had to find his own way home from Happy Valley, and somehow managed to make it back to Ann Arbor with some random kids he met. We found my roommate brick at the Hooters in State College at 11 am on Sunday. The drive back went pretty well.

The trip wasn't nearly as crazy as the UT weekend but it was still fun. We kept running into other Michigan fans we know, and there was a good showing of Michigan fans at the game. The Penn State fans were as expected, hostile but not terribly bad. Downtown State College is great, with a good college town feel and lots to do. The loudness of the Beaver Stadium makes me wonder why our 110,000 fans are so quiet. Overall it was a really fun trip and one that I would definitely go again.