Posts tagged ‘Rose Bowl’
Ty Burrell Shows Some Love For His Alma Mater
Modern Family had its predictably hilarious season premiere on Wednesday night, and our man Ty Burrell ’97g was his usual loopy self. Line of the night (at least for Nittany Lion fans) came when Burrell’s character, Phil Dunphy, was telling his son about having attended a long-ago Rose Bowl game. He doesn’t mention the year, but when his son asks what happened, Phil replies, ”We got our butts kicked by Penn State.”
Burrell was born and raised in Oregon, so we can only assume this is a sly reference to the 1995 Rose Bowl, in which the Lions knocked off the Oregon Ducks, 38-20.
You can watch the entire episode on the ABC website. The Rose Bowl reference comes about 3:45 into the show.
Ryan Jones, senior editor
Cool Aerial Shot from the Rose Bowl
I swore I wouldn’t have anything further to say about The Bowl Game That Ruined a Perfectly Good New Year’s Day. But then a friend and fellow alumnus, Brad Youtz ’96, sent along a link to some aerial photos taken just before the game by a photographer named Mark Holtzman. There are eight photos, some of them pretty standard, but No. 7 is kinda fun. It’s a view looking down on the B-2 stealth bomber that flew over the stadium before the game.
Tina Hay, editor
Coming Back From Cali
I was one of many Penn Staters who made the trip to California over New Year’s, though maybe the only one who didn’t go primarily for the Rose Bowl. I did go to the game — I had third-row seats directly behind the end zone, which didn’t offer much of a view, but did allow me to smell the grass, which was cool. Mostly, though, I went to visit family (my roots, not to mention a whole lot of relatives, remain in Southern California), eat some great fast food, and enjoy the weather.
Check, check, and check. A few highlights:
-Stopping for dinner at Pie N Burger, the neighborhood greasy spoon recommended by occasional Penn Stater contributor Paul Levine ’69 in his pre-Rose Bowl primer on PSU Live. Both the pie (banana cream) and burger (cheese-) were terrific — although, if I’d known the place was owned by an SC grad, I might have passed…
-Getting up early to attend the Rose Parade, where my four-year-old sat on my lap with a $7.00 program, keeping track of which floats were coming next (his favorite: the giant hat-tipping robot named Asimo), and waiting for the delayed B-2 bomber fly-over (it also flew over the stadium that afternoon — scary stuff). The let down, and another bad omen for the game, came when the Blue Band marched past without playing a note. I guess they were in between songs, but that didn’t make it any easier to rebut the SC fans nearby who mocked us for having a band that didn’t actually play.
Thanks to Brad Youtz '96 for the photo.
-Walking to the parade Thursday morning and seeing a couple of the Paternoville regulars, who I got to know while working on the feature in the magazine’s Jan/Feb 2009 issue. They’d apparently gotten a hotel near Disneyland, stayed up all night Wednesday, then taken a $100 cab ride to Pasadena early Thursday to catch the parade and the game. Between the lack of sleep and the game’s outcome, I imagine their Thursday night was not fun. Sorry guys.
-Most of the SC fans we encountered during the week were polite enough, but there were a few exchanges that, shall we say, reflected poorly on the broader Trojan fan base. A selection:
“Good luck Thursday. I’m predicting 52-0.” From some guy who felt compelled to slap me on the back while I had lunch with my family on Tuesday afternoon.
“You guys came all the way out here for nothing.” From a guy we passed walking through the pregame tailgates. A wasted trip? He obviously wasn’t aware of the weather back east.
“C’mon baby, check me out — I’m in a higher tax bracket!” My favorite, offered by a not-entirely-sober young man to my sister, with whom I was walking through the tailgates. Locals (particularly UCLA fans) like to joke that USC actually stands for University of Spoiled Children, a line that is itself sort of childish, though not entirely unfunny (nor, in this particular case, inaccurate).
For the record, my sister declined to check him out.
Yes, we booed the tunnel.
-The game itself didn’t offer much worth remembering (although the crowds trying to squeeze through the antiquated tunnels were hard to forget), but it was cool seeing Ki-Jana Carter ’95 waving a towel on the sidelines to rouse the crowd just before kick-off. Like anyone who was a Penn State fan back then, I’ll never forget Carter busting a huge touchdown run to open the scoring in the ’95 Rose Bowl. That game left Penn Staters frustrated at the injustice done by the pollsters. This game just left us humbled.
Ryan Jones, senior editor
And Now for Something Completely Different…
…a recipe for sticky buns!
You can see they're a little crowded, which is why you might want to use slightly bigger pans than the 12x9 and the 8x8.
When I had some folks over to my house on New Year’s Day to watch that stupid, stupid, stupid Rose Bowl game, I made homemade sticky buns for the occasion. A friend suggested that I post the recipe to the magazine blog. So here it is.
It’s not really a Penn State-related recipe, I must admit; I got it from my mom, who most likely got it from her mother. It may be that sticky buns generally are a Pennsylvania Dutch kind of thing. Whatever the case, they’re easy to make, and if you miss Penn State, these might well remind you of the Diner.
Hay Family Sticky Buns
2 packages dry yeast
1 t. sugar
1/2 C. warm water
Mix the above ingredients together and let stand for 10 minutes.
1/2 C. vegetable oil
2 C. warm water
1/2 C. sugar
1-1/2 t. salt
7 to 7-1/2 C. flour
Combine these ingredients with the yeast mixture. Spread vegetable oil on the inside of a large bowl and place the dough in the bowl. Add vegetable oil to the top of the dough. Cover and let stand until doubled in bulk, about 60 to 90 minutes.
Next, mix up the sticky-bun goop:
4 T. margarine, melted
1/2 C. light brown sugar
2/3 C. dark Karo
chopped nuts (optional)
Pour the goop into two baking pans, one about 13×9 and one about 8×8, or a little bigger.
Preheat oven to 350˚.
Roll the dough on a lightly floured board. Dot with margarine; sprinkle with brown sugar and cinnamon. Roll the dough into a log shape and cut into slices (buns) about 1/2” to 3/4” thick. Place buns into baking pans on top of the goop. Bake at 350˚ for 15 minutes or until golden brown. Makes about 3 dozen.
Click here and here to see two early stages of the sticky-making process, and here to see a shot of the finished stickies after they’ve been flipped out of the pan.
Tina Hay, editor
Let’s Not Even Talk About That Game
I don’t wanna talk about that Rose Bowl thing, OK?
But in catching up on some e-mails from the past week, I did come across this column from Neil Rudel ’78, of the Altoona Mirror. It’s called “Peeking into Penn State’s ’09 fortunes” and it’s a tongue-in-cheek list of predictions for Penn State sports in 2009. My favorites:
“Dr. Wayne Sebastanielli is seen screaming at JoePa after the latter tries an onside kick in an August practice.”
And:
“JoePa makes more national news by coaching the entire game against Eastern Illinois from his back porch.”
One last note about the Bowl Game of Which We Will Not Speak: My 23-year-old nephew, Hunter, lives in L.A. and managed to get tickets to yesterday’s game. (Though he’s a Pitt grad, I’m pretty sure he was rooting for Penn State yesterday.) I told him that he had to promise to go up to at least one Penn State fan and ask if they were familiar with The Penn Stater magazine. He e-mailed me this morning to report: “I sat by a guy that said he reads The Penn Stater front to back. He did not stay the entire game.”
Tina Hay, editor
Jealous? Me?
I’ve been keeping an eye on the live.psu.edu site, vicariously experiencing the activities of the Penn Staters who are out in Pasadena for the Rose Bowl. Today there was a video interview with our Alumni Association colleague John Black, who has written The Football Letter for a bazillion years, along with a slide show of a behind-the-scenes tour of the making of the Rose Bowl Parade floats.
Never mind that here in State College, the temperature is supposed to drop to a low of 13 degrees tonight! I’m sure that my Alumni Association colleagues who are staffing the Rose Bowl tour and associated events are working very, very hard out there in Southern California. :-)
The game airs tomorrow on ABC-TV at 5:00 p.m. Eastern time. I’ll be hosting the magazine staff and a few others to watch the game in my living room, on my brand-new 40″ TV.
(I wonder if it’s important to wear white, even if you’re just watching the game on TV?)
Go Lions!
Tina Hay, editor
Joe Paterno = “A Bag of Nails”?
Mark Johnston / Associated Press
The news media in southern California are writing a lot of stories in the run-up to Thursday’s Rose Bowl game, and yesterday’s Los Angeles Times had a highly complimentary story about Joe Paterno—in particular about his toughness in the face of the physical challenges he’s faced the past few seasons. The writer at one point calls him “the steeliest bag of nails on Penn State’s roster.”
I saw two minor inaccuracies in the piece. In talking about the three games Joe has missed in his 59 years at Penn State, it made mention of the trampoline accident that seriously injured “his son, Daniel.” I’m pretty sure Joe doesn’t have a kid named Daniel—it was David, if my memory serves me. And, in talking about the recent announcement that Joe will coach another three years, the story says, “Paterno might opt out sooner, but at least now there seems to be an end game.” I’m not sure that the Penn State announcement created an end game at all. In fact, it said that “…the parties might … alter the arrangement by either shortening or extending its length as necessary.” Who knows—Joe could well end up coaching beyond the 2011 season.
Still, the L.A. Times piece is a good read.
Tina Hay, editor
Gary Eberle’s Funky Truck
My friend Elaine Keller ’68, who is rapidly becoming my top source of blog fodder, passes along this photo from friends who are currently vacationing in California’s wine country. One of the spots they visited is a respected winery owned by former Penn State football player Gary Eberle ’67. The friends report:
“We are in Paso Robles heading into our third winery—Eberle—and see this funky truck painted blue and white with ‘Penn State Forever’ painted on the front. After a few glasses of wine, Gary Eberle comes out from back and we start asking him about the truck. He played defensive tackle for Papa Joe, and is going to the Rose Bowl. We had to buy a few bottles of vino from him!!!”
As a side note, you may remember that The Penn Stater won the Sibley Award as the best alumni magazine in the country in 2007. It’s customary for the editor of the Sibley-winning magazine to send a bottle of wine to the editor of the following year’s Sibley winner, so when the Dartmouth Alumni Magazine won the 2008 Sibley, I sent editor Sean Plottner a bottle of 2007 Estate Chardonnay from the Eberle winery. Sean reported that it was excellent.
Tina Hay, editor
A “Curious” Rose Bowl Primer
Last weekend’s college football results—particularly USC’s Pac-10-clinching win over rival UCLA—finally confirmed what most of us had been counting on since Penn State beat Michigan State a few weeks ago to clinch the Big Ten title: The Trojans and Nittany Lions will meet Jan. 1 in the Rose Bowl. Most national college football writers seem to agree that, after the 1 v. 2 matchup between Florida and Oklahoma in the BCS title game, the Rose Bowl offers the most compelling viewing. That’s largely because of how good these teams are this year, but there’s some little-known history between the schools that makes it even more interesting.
Yesterday, I stumbled across this L.A. Times blog that talks about some of the schools’ shared mottos—not that we’re the only two schools that can claim some variation of “We Are…” and “Fight On!”—and recounts the near-brawl that apparently erupted between the teams’ coaches when USC and Penn State met in the 1923 Rose Bowl.
Courtesy L.A. Times
But the highlight has to be this exchange between Joe Paterno and Trojans coach Pete Carroll, from their Sunday conference call:
CARROLL: “I heard that in 1923, SC played Penn State. I don’t think you were there, but there was a fight between the coaches in the pregame. I know that you’re a little under the weather recovering, but I’m sure you still got a good left hand.”
PATERNO: “If you got to worry about my left hand, you’re in real trouble.”
I expect we’ll be reading more of this sort of thing before the teams line up on New Year’s Day. Should be fun.
Ryan Jones, Senior Editor
Subscribe
