University Park, Pa. -- It’s tough to be blue and white in a sea of Orangemen or red Buckeyes or yellow Hawkeyes. So when the Penn State football team is on the road this fall, the Nittany Lion faithful can gather together at game-day pep rallies organized by the Penn State Alumni Association.
The first pep rally will be in Syracuse, N.Y., on Sept. 13 in a tent on Hendricks Field, across Forestry Drive from the Carrier Dome. Like all Penn State Alumni Association pep rallies, the Syracuse pep rally will feature the Pep Band, the Nittany Lion, cheerleaders and some rallying words from Penn State President Graham B. Spanier and Alumni Association Executive Director Roger Williams. At Syracuse, the Lionettes dance team also will perform. The pep rally tent will open at 12:30 p.m., with the rally beginning at 1:30 p.m.
The other four Penn State pep rallies also will be in tents close to the football stadiums. The Saturday pep rallies, their start times and locations are:
-- Oct. 4, time TBA, Purdue. Location: Tent City at Rankin Track and Field, southwest of the stadium near Lambert Field, West Lafayette, Ind.;
-- Oct. 11, 3 p.m. Central time, Wisconsin. Location: Lot 60, west end of campus under a tent near Lake Mendota, Madison, Wis.;
-- Oct. 25, 5 p.m. Eastern time, Ohio State. Location: Southeast corner of Fawcett Conference Center under a tent, 2400 Olentangy Road, Columbus, Ohio; and
-- Nov. 8, time TBA, Iowa. Location: Hawkeye Village on the original Grant Field, adjacent to the Kenyon Practice Facility, Iowa City, Iowa.
All pep rally tents open three hours prior to kickoff, and the pep rally program begins two hours before kickoff. Pep rallies are free and open to all Penn State alumni and Nittany Lion fans. The away-game pep rallies are sponsored in part by the Alumni Association's business partner Bank of America. For more information on pep rallies, visit the Alumni Association’s Web site at http://www.alumni.psu.edu/events/pep/ or call (800) 546-LION (5488).
The Penn State Alumni Association is the largest dues-paying alumni association in the world with more than 160,000 members. Established in 1870, the Alumni Association strives to inform, involve and inspire alumni worldwide. For more information on the Alumni Association, go to http://www.alumni.psu.edu online.