In year of sanctions, school spirit efforts gaining ground
UNIVERSITY PARK – Penn State senior Maddy Pryor has a lot on her plate this year.
She is president of Nittany Nation, the official cheering section for men’s basketball. She is the student leader of the Code Blue game attendance rewards program. She meets weekly in the athletic department about Code Blue and with the basketball marketing team.
She has also camped at Nittanyville outside the Beaver Stadium gates for every home football game since her sophomore year.
In a year of NCAA sanctions and a damning Freeh report, Pryor wears her school pride on her sleeve.
Troy Weller does, too. The senior journalism major is president of Nittanyville. He has called Gate A his home for every home football game since the second game of his freshman year.
Nittany Nation and Nittanyville are the two main groups promoting the “One Team” theme created by the athletic department to improve connections between student-athletes and fans after the NCAA sanctions.
Beaver Stadium even has the Twitter hash tag #OneTeam painted on the top of an equipment box on the Penn State sideline.
Pryor was voted “most school-spirited” at Shore Regional High School in West Long Branch, N.J. “That's obviously carried on to what I do here with Nittany Nation and Nittanyville,” she said.
Like Pryor, Weller has had a passion about school spirit and football since attending Hatboro-Horsham High School in Horsham, Pa. He and his friends used to start tailgating at 5 a.m. every Thanksgiving for the rivalry game against Upper Moreland, Pa.
“I think I was more obnoxious in high school than I am now,” Weller said.
Despite the NCAA sanctions on Penn State’s football team, neither Pryor nor Weller said they felt any extra responsibility to boost morale this year.
“I just have a ridiculous amount of school pride and nothing will ever take that away,” Pryor said.
Pictures of an emotional Pryor have appeared on the home page of ESPN.com twice. Both times she was captured in a sad moment.
Weller was involved in the decision to change the name of Paternoville to Nittanyville after the Freeh report was released.
“Nittanyville’s mentality is a lot more than kids camping out for football games,” he said.
The “OneTeam” theme publicized throughout the athletic department is bringing Nittanyville together, he said, by encouraging campers to attend as many Penn State sports as they can and show support, just as they do at a football game.
“If another sports comes out to Nittanyville and brings pizza or spends 30 minutes with us, we make sure we are at their game,” Weller said.
To support the “One Team” idea, the athletic department has two reward programs for fans: Code Blue for students and One Team Rewards, a social media program for any fan. Code Blue is in its second year and One Team Rewards was announced Aug. 30.
With Code Blue, students swipe their ID cards at any game except football and receive one point. The students with the 10 highest point totals receive free student season tickets for football; the top 250 earn guaranteed football season tickets.
Nittany Lion Rewards lets fans use Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare and other social media outlets to support Penn State teams by “liking” posts from these teams, retweeting their tweets, or using the hash tags “OneTeam” or “WeAre.” The incentive is to collect points to get Penn State gear. Fans can sign up at NittanyLionRewards.com.
Nothing makes Pryor happier than leading cheers at a basketball game. This year, the Nittany Nation cheering section has more than 200 students on a list-serve and the number of season tickets sold is up, she said.
Pryor has been working for several years to lower the price of a student season ticket for basketball. This year she was successful; the price was dropped to $40 from $59 last year.
More than 1,000 tickets have been sold as of last week, a little ahead of last year’s final total, according to Jake Borer, men’s basketball marketing coordinator.
