This fall will mark my 35th consecutive season attending football games at Beaver Stadium. It’s by no means a record run—I’ve missed plenty of games in that stretch, to be clear—but still, it’s a pretty substantial streak that goes back to my freshman year and has continued through my time as a student, alum, and staff member. And at some point, it occurred to me that I’ve watched a game from every part of the stadium; not literally every section, of course, but the north, south, east, and west stands? Upper and lower decks? Press box, club level, suites, and, for a few memorable fourth quarters, field level on the home sideline? Yes, yes, yes, and yes.

Working on our feature package on the evolution of Beaver Stadium for this issue, I realized how many of those seats didn’t exist for much of the stadium’s history. When I was a freshman sitting in the packed south bleachers back in 1991, my visiting parents sat high up above the opposite end zone in the brand-new north upper deck, an addition that brought the stadium capacity up to nearly 94,000. When I came back to town as an alum for the 2001 home opener, I sat in the newly opened club level in the new south upper deck, the addition of which finally brought the stadium up to our famous #107K.

I’ve since had season tickets in both of those end zone upper decks; I’ve also watched dozens of games from the rickety steel rectangle that was the Beaver Stadium press box—a structure that, as of January, no longer exists. The point, as the ongoing revitalization of the iconic venue makes clear, is that Beaver Stadium has really never stopped evolving, in ways large and small.

It’ll be another two years before the current, massive stage of its evolution is complete, and like every Penn State fan, I can’t wait to experience that environment in the fall of 2027. Whether I’ll be watching from the shiny new press box, my family’s season tickets way up in section SBU, or somewhere else entirely, I’ll try to do what I always do when I walk into Beaver Stadium: appreciate the perspective.

Ryan Jones ’95 Com  |  Editor
ryanjones@psu.edu

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CHANGING TIMES: In 2014, more than a decade before Beaver Stadium's big overhaul, we highlighted how the Penn State Libraries had evolved to stay vital in a changing higher-ed landscape.