Week 6 fan: Lory Fullington and Sparky Vandzura

Mike Joseph

Lory Fullington listens and Sparky Vandzura tells the story -- about a Penn State classmate he had in the autumn of 1986.

Catrina Rawson

Lory Fullington of State College and Sparky Vandzura of Alexandria, Va., talk at a tailgate prior to the start of the Penn State game against Ohio State, Saturday, October 27, 2007. CDT/Catrina Rawson

Who should be the Penn State fan of the year, as featured in the CDT?

It was the Penn State football moment of Vandzura's life. He was there in the stands at the Fiesta Bowl on Jan. 2, 1987 -- 18 second left -- when his classmate, linebacker Pete Giftopoulos, intercepted Miami's Vinny Testaverde, and Penn State had stopped the unstoppable.

Standing outside Beaver Stadium on Saturday, waiting for the clash with Ohio State to start, Vandzura, now a U.S. Navy lieutenant commander in the Pentagon, recalled the moment.

His fist raised and his index finger pumping down toward an imagined Fiesta Bowl in front of him, recalled the feeling, how he yelled something just as everyone else around him was yelling something. "I was like: 'That dude's in my English class,' " Vandzura said.

The Fullington family has the buses. Lory's husband Mike -- when the Penn State football team traveled by bus to play Pittsburgh, Syracuse, West Virginia -- would make the trip alone a day or two ahead of time to make sure he knew the way and to make sure there were no surprises on the roads.

"My husband would always make two trips," Lory said.