The Penn Stater Magazine

A Brush With Greatness at Jeffrey Field

October 5, 2011 at 4:10 pm Ryan Jones Leave a comment

Here’s what happens when I take my kids to Jeffrey Field to watch a soccer game, as I did Tuesday night for Penn State’s 2-0 victory over Penn: I try to pay attention to the action on the field while keeping one eye on my 6-year-old son and 3-year-old daughter, who spend most of the time climbing the bleacher steps and hanging on the railings in an apparent effort to hurt themselves. They’re pretty good at it.

It was during one of my son’s forays up and over the rows of bleachers that an older gentlemen asked him if he was a soccer player. My son’s very 6-year-old response: “Well, I play on a soccer team.”

The conversation went on like this for another minute before the man said, “You know, I used to play goalkeeper on this field.”

Right then, I knew who he was. I couldn’t remember his name, but I was sure enough that I turned to my son and said, “This man was a national champion.”

When I got to the office Wednesday, my colleague Julie Nelson and I dug through some back issues of The Penn Stater before finding the ad that gave it away. The man talking to my son was Ron Coder ’51, the star goalkeeper on Bill Jeffrey’s 1950 and ’51 national title teams and an eventual U.S. Olympian. Coder and his wife Hope ’54 live at The Village at Penn State, and it was Coder’s appearance in an ad for The Village that I remembered. (And yes, at 83, he still looks like he could get out there and stop shots.)

My son is too young to appreciate stuff like this. But for me—as a soccer fan and an alum—it was a really cool moment. One of the great things about living here is the chance to soak up more of Penn State’s history. All the better when you encounter that history thriving in the present.

Ryan Jones, senior editor

Entry filed under: Other Penn State sports, The Penn Stater magazine. Tags: Jeffrey Field, Men's soccer, Ron Coder, The Village at Penn State.