48 Fun Facts About Penn State

What name did Penn State's founders pick in 1855 to reassure rural families wary of colleges?

Farmers' High School of Pennsylvania granted college degrees from the start; the humble name was chosen to soothe distrust. It became the Agricultural College of Pennsylvania in 1862.

Which Penn State president won the school university status in 1953?

Milton Eisenhower, younger brother of the sitting U.S. president, then pushed to rename State College. Voters refused, so he got the campus its own postal address: University Park.

Which 1882 president pushed Penn State beyond agriculture and has a main road named for him?

George Atherton built an engineering program that by the early 1900s ranked among the ten largest in the nation. Atherton Hall is named for his wife, Frances.

Penn State's College of Medicine, which opened to students in 1967, is in which town?

Hershey won the school with money: in 1963 the M. S. Hershey Foundation, built on chocolate magnate Milton Hershey's fortune, offered Penn State $50 million to start a medical school there.

What were Penn State's original official colors before blue and white?

Black and dark pink, adopted in 1887, lasted barely three years. The pink bleached toward white in the sun, so the school switched to blue and white in 1890.

Old Coaly, whose skeleton Penn State still displays, hauled stone for Old Main as what kind of animal?

Mule. Coaly was never an official mascot, but students were so fond of him that his bones were kept after he died, and the skeleton now stands in the HUB-Robeson Center.

Joe Mason dreamed up the Nittany Lion in 1904 to outdo which baseball opponent's tiger mascot?

Princeton and its famous tiger left Mason embarrassed that Penn State had no mascot, so he made up the lion on the spot. He pressed the idea in a 1907 student magazine, and students took to it.

The "Nittany" in Nittany Lion comes from the name of what local landmark?

A mountain: Mount Nittany rises above campus, though what the word first meant is obscure. The romantic legends of a maiden named Nita-Nee were spun by writer Henry Shoemaker.

Why did sculptor Heinz Warneke return to his Nittany Lion Shrine in 1978?

To repair its ear: vandals smashed off the lion's right ear in 1978, and Warneke, by then in his eighties, came back to fix the stone himself.

Who paid for the Nittany Lion Shrine, unveiled in 1942?

A graduating class paid: the seniors of 1940 chose the shrine as their class gift. Seven decades on the class of 2012 paid again, funding the 2013 renovation.

Who dabbed washable orange paint on the Lion Shrine in 1966 to stir up Penn State's own students?

The coach's wife, Sue Paterno, wanted to fire up the campus before the Syracuse game. Soon after, Syracuse students arrived and painted the lion orange themselves.

Why was Penn State's aging original Old Main torn down in 1929?

Structural faults had already closed the upper floors by the 1920s. Its limestone blocks were reused in the new Old Main, which opened on the same spot in 1930.

Penn State's Berkey outlet, founded in 1865, is the largest university what in the U.S.?

Creamery rules forbid mixing flavors in one cone. Campus lore says the lone exception went to President Bill Clinton, who got two flavors together on a 1996 visit.

Which famous ice cream duo learned the trade from a Penn State correspondence course?

Ben and Jerry, in full Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, studied ice cream making by mail. In 1978 they opened their first shop in a converted gas station in Vermont.

THON, Penn State's dance marathon, is described as the world's largest what?

Student-run philanthropy on this scale started small, with 78 dancers at the first marathon in 1973. THON has since raised more than $200 million for families facing childhood cancer.

Which childhood cancer charity, its name drawn from a young patient's own story, is THON's sole beneficiary?

Four Diamonds are the courage, wisdom, honesty and strength a knight seeks in a tale Christopher Millard wrote shortly before he died at 14. His parents started the charity in his memory.

THON trimmed itself from 48 hours to 46 in 2007 when it moved into which campus venue?

Bryce Jordan Center is THON's fourth home, after the HUB ballroom, the White Building and, from 1999, Rec Hall. Dancers go all 46 hours without sitting or sleeping.

What is the name of Penn State's independent, student-run newspaper?

The Daily Collegian traces its roots to the Free Lance, a monthly begun in 1887, and took its current name in 1940. Despite that name, the print edition now comes out once a week.

The Penn State Alumni Association claims which distinction among alumni groups worldwide?

Largest dues-paying membership is the association's long-standing boast. Within six years of its 1870 founding, alumni were electing trustees to the school's board, and they still choose nine today.

What is Penn State's online campus, launched in the late 1990s, called?

World Campus is a new form of an old habit. Penn State began teaching at a distance in 1892, with correspondence courses for Pennsylvania farmers.

Penn State's law school still carries which name from its 1834 founding in Carlisle?

Dickinson Law was an independent school, older than Penn State itself, when the university's trustees voted in 1997 to absorb it. It bills itself as Pennsylvania's oldest law school.

State College and its surrounding townships are collectively known by what nickname?

Happy Valley, by one popular account, earned its name in the Great Depression, when Penn State's presence spared the area the worst of the slump.

State College, home of University Park, is Pennsylvania's largest what?

Borough it stays, and under its old name. When the college became a university in 1953, voters refused to rename the town, which is why campus mail goes to University Park instead.

Beaver Stadium is named after James A. Beaver, who held which office from 1887 to 1891?

Governor of Pennsylvania was one of several roles. Beaver was a Civil War general who lost a leg in battle, and he led Penn State's board of trustees.

Where did Beaver Stadium's first grandstands, opened in 1960, come from?

Penn State's previous football field, New Beaver Field, was taken apart after the 1959 season, moved and reassembled as Beaver Stadium. Even its press box made the trip, and stood until it was demolished in 2025.

Which Pennsylvania company put its name on the field at Beaver Stadium in a 2025 deal?

West Shore Home, a home remodeling company based in Mechanicsburg, pledged $50 million over 15 years. Penn State's trustees approved the field name by a 22-8 vote.

Before its 1993 Big Ten debut, what was Penn State football's affiliation?

As an independent, Penn State football answered to no conference for about a century. The school accepted an invitation in 1990 and became the eleventh member of a league that kept calling itself the Big Ten.

Penn State's 1986 national title came by upsetting which top-ranked team in the Fiesta Bowl?

Miami outgained Penn State 445 yards to 162 but threw five interceptions, all by Heisman winner Vinny Testaverde. The last came at the goal line in the final seconds.

Penn State and Michigan State play football for which trophy?

Land Grant Trophy honors two schools that were both founded in 1855 and became pioneer land-grant colleges. It dates to 1993, when coaches George Perles and Joe Paterno made the game a trophy rivalry.

Who wore white at Penn State's first White Out, in 2004?

Only the student section dressed in white for that 2004 loss to Purdue, and the same held in 2005 and 2006. The whole stadium first joined in 2007, when Notre Dame came to town.

The home-game student camp-out, renamed Nittanyville in 2012, was first called what?

Paternoville got its name in 2005, when a student coined it for a camp-out that had gone unnamed since the 1990s. The students who run it voted in July 2012 to rename it.

Penn State football's nickname for producing great defenders at one position is what?

Linebacker U traces to the late 1960s, when Dennis Onkotz and Jack Ham anchored back-to-back unbeaten teams. Ham went on to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Penn State football first wore jersey names in 2012 to honor whom?

Players who stayed through the scandal wore the first names in program history. James Franklin took them back off in 2015, restoring the plain look.

Joe Paterno played college football at which Ivy League school?

Brown played Paterno at quarterback and cornerback, and his 14 career interceptions tied the school record. In 1950 he followed his college coach to Penn State as an assistant.

Joe Paterno was born in which part of New York City?

Brooklyn-raised Paterno meant to follow his father into the law and had been accepted to law school in Boston. A call from his old college coach, newly hired at Penn State, changed his mind.

Joe Paterno succeeded which retiring Penn State head coach in 1966?

Rip Engle was the coach who brought Paterno to Penn State, hiring him as a 23-year-old assistant in 1950. Paterno waited 16 seasons on his staff for the top job.

Whose Division I record of 408 wins did Joe Paterno break in 2011?

Eddie Robinson's 408 wins fell when Paterno won his 409th on October 29, 2011, in what proved his final victory. The NCAA struck 111 of them in 2012, then restored them in a 2015 settlement.

Whose record of 41 seasons as head coach at one major college did Joe Paterno pass in 2007?

Amos Alonzo Stagg spent 41 seasons at Chicago. The Big Ten named its title trophy for both men in 2010, then dropped Paterno's name in November 2011.

Which NFL team tried to hire Joe Paterno in the 1970s?

New England Patriots courted him hard in the early 1970s. Paterno had already turned down the Pittsburgh Steelers in 1969, and he stayed at Penn State until 2011.

Which former FBI director's 2012 report on Penn State preceded the NCAA's sanctions?

Louis Freeh released his findings on July 12, 2012. Eleven days later the NCAA imposed a $60 million fine, a four-year bowl ban and scholarship cuts.

James Franklin was hired as Penn State's 16th head coach in 2014 from which school?

Vanderbilt lost him to Penn State in January 2014. He went 104–45 in 12 seasons before being fired in October 2025, after a loss to Northwestern.

Which coach did Penn State hire from Iowa State in December 2025?

Matt Campbell agreed to the job on December 5, 2025, after ten seasons at Iowa State. That ended a 54-day search that began when Penn State fired James Franklin in October.

Penn State capped its 2022 season with a Rose Bowl win over which Pac-12 champion?

Utah fell 35-21 on January 2, 2023, Penn State's first Rose Bowl win since 1995. Sean Clifford's 88-yard touchdown pass to KeAndre Lambert-Smith set a Rose Bowl record for the longest pass play.

Which coach, 159–0 as a college wrestler, took over Penn State wrestling in 2009?

Cael Sanderson was 29 when he left Iowa State, his alma mater, after three seasons as its head coach. In 2011, his second year, Penn State won its first national team title since 1953.

In which sport did Penn State win a record 13 combined men's and women's NCAA titles between 1990 and 2014?

Fencing crowned one combined champion from 1990 through 2025, and Penn State won 13 of them. The NCAA split the title by gender in 2026, which leaves that record out of reach.

Which Penn State varsity team plays under a name other than the Nittany Lions?

Women's basketball plays as the Lady Lions. They reached the 2000 Final Four by beating Louisiana Tech, the team that had knocked them out a year earlier.

Penn State's varsity ice hockey teams moved into which new building in October 2013?

Pegula Ice Arena opened on October 11, 2013. Alumnus Terry Pegula paid for it with an $88 million gift, later raised to $102 million, the largest Penn State had received.

Which Penn State team won 109 straight matches and four straight NCAA titles?

Women's volleyball saw the run end against Stanford in September 2010. Coach Russ Rose's team still won that season's NCAA title, its fourth in a row.