Looking ahead, looking back

Kirsten and Dave Frazier

Addison Frazier attended her first Penn State football game when she was just nine weeks old. She doesn’t remember that one. Now, at age 9, she is enjoying her 10th season at Beaver Stadium.

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Nine-year-old Addison Frazier has been a regular in the stands since she was 9 weeks old.

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Having attended more Penn State games before fourth grade than many students do during four years of college, Addison easily recounts her favorite memories. “Night games — when it’s dark and everyone is screaming and yelling and everything is just crazy.”

She also loves the fans, especially those wearing JoePa masks. And then there was the time she got a lesson in how to dress for a whiteout from a group of students equipped with white wigs, white shirts, white shorts and lots of white body paint.

Game day for Addison usually begins at the Bryce Jordan Center watching the Blue Band and dance team, the cheerleaders, and, of course, the Nittany Lion rev up the crowd. Although too grown up for such pursuits now, Addison fondly remembers dressing in her own junior cheerleading outfit and joining the Lion on the floor during those pregame pep rallies.

For Addison, a Penn State football game is also a family outing. Her grandparents, Sandy and Jim Sorensen, rarely miss a home game. Penn State became their adopted alma mater after sending all three of their children to college in Happy Valley. Unable to give up Penn State after the last graduation, they bought a home in Boalsburg and have been regulars at Beaver Stadium ever since.

When Addison arrived as the first grandchild, it was only natural to bring her to the games and introduce her to the Penn State tradition. Sandy remembers a game when Addison was only a year old. She couldn’t get comfortable. First Jim would hold her, then Sandy. Finally realizing that what the young Penn State fan really wanted was a nap, they wrapped her in a blanket and propped up her head with a stuffed Nittany Lion purchased under the stadium.

No longer the only grandchild, Addison is joined at games now by her brother Christian and, from time to time, by cousins Sadie and Juliet. Sandy and Jim oversee the whole crew (with occasional backup from the children’s Penn Stater parents).

We met at Penn State and hope Addison’s many football Saturdays will someday lead her back to Happy Valley for an education. But for now it’s enough that she loves the game, the team and the coach, not just because someone takes her to the games.

Kirsten, Dave, Addison and Christian live in Wayne, and Addison is in fourth grade at Wayne Elementary School. Kirsten attended Penn State from 1986 to ’90 and Dave attended from 1984 to ’88.