Dear President-Elect Trump:
Central Pennsylvania is incredibly beautiful country. Nestled smack dab in the middle of Central Pennsylvania is State College, home to 42,000 residents. It’s the largest city for miles and is surrounded by a mixture of Amish farms and rural Pennsylvania towns.
It’s a bit of a shock to arrive in State College and see a football stadium that seats 107,282 people. It’s the second largest stadium in the United States. It’s so large that every resident of State College could fit between the 10-yard lines on one side of the stadium and still have 65,000 empty seats in the rest of the stadium.
The football stadium is home to the Penn State University football team. Penn State’s campus at State College has roughly 40,000 students. Put every resident and student in the stadium, and there are still 25,000 empty seats.
The stadium is filled nearly every game as alumni, and other fans flock to State College every home game weekend. It’s not hard to see that football defines State College.
Joe Paterno—the unassuming coach of Penn State football for 45 years—created the Penn State football dynasty.
And what a dynasty it was; until it wasn’t.
Jerry Sandusky’s sexual abuse of young boys brought the entire football program, university, and city of State College to its knees. Worse yet, it literally killed one of football’s greatest icons—JoePA, as he is known in State College.
What took decades to build, was reduced to rubble in a matter of days as the actions of one man—Jerry Sandusky—came to light.
The university’s treatment of Joe Paterno and the NCAA’s treatment of Paterno and the football program was devastating, and in my view extremely unjust. But that’s not the point of this letter.
Faced with staggering NCAA sanctions, a destroyed reputation, a football program, and a dead leader, things could not have looked worse in State College.
Yet rather than retreat, State College, the university, and individual fans pulled themselves up by their bootstraps and began again. Fueled by the pride of the past, a love of their coach, and confidence in the future, fans, residents, university officials, and football coaches and players made themselves great again.
I was an outsider living in State College during the rebuilding years. It was truly inspiring to see what a community can do when it is determined to succeed and to overcome.
This evening, Penn State represented the Big Ten in the Rose Bowl. They lost the game on the game’s last play. But the loss at the Rose Bowl demonstrates such an improbable return to football glory, that all hats should be off in respect to what Penn State has accomplished.
Ultimately, football is inconsequential. It’s a game. But if you want to make America great again, which I believe you do, you ought to study the playbook of State College residents, Penn State officials and coaches, and Penn State fans. They could teach Americans a thing or two about standing up, making necessary changes, and returning themselves to greatness.
We Are, Penn State!
Sincerely,
David O. Leavitt
