How State High football is keeping its focus, with the Beaver Stadium Classic ahead
Brady Dorner couldn’t hide his excitement. He smiled from ear-to-ear as he met with the media to discuss his team’s newly announced venue for his class’ Senior Night.
Dorner and the rest of the State College Little Lions football team will take on Cumberland Valley Oct. 26 — and celebrate its seniors —at Penn State’s Beaver Stadium.
The senior quarterback said he couldn’t wait for the opportunity to live out one of his childhood dreams — especially this season, as the Little Lions have been without Memorial Field, their home stadium, as it undergoes renovations.
“I think it’s crazy that we have the opportunity to play in Beaver Stadium,” Dorner said. “It’s going to be a pretty cool experience playing at Beaver Stadium. It’s just going to be unreal.”
Penn State offered the opportunity for two Mid Penn Conference football teams to play at the home of the Nittany Lions this summer. For State College, it didn’t take long to decide to submit a request for consideration, athletic director Chris Weakland said.
“This opportunity doesn’t come around too often, that’s for sure. And the fact that it’s in our backyard, we had to put in,” he said. “Even if we had Memorial Field accessible, we would want to put in because the opportunity we’re providing these kids is just phenomenal. To be able to run out of that tunnel, just like they’ve watched so many other athletes do before, it’s too good to pass up.”
But once the requests were submitted, a lot of behind-the-scenes work had to take place to make the Beaver Stadium Classic a reality. Weakland handled those discussions with Penn State and the Mid Penn Conference, and even he was unsure if the game would happen until Penn State officially announced its decision.
“There were a lot of rumors floating around,” Weakland said. “I did not hear anything official until probably last week. Until it really came out, until Penn State released it, I never knew. I wasn’t for sure convinced it was going to happen.”
Even now that the game is official, Weakland said he still has a long list of specifics to nail down.
While Dorner and the rest of the team found out Wednesday, State High head football coach Matt Lintal said he’d known for some time. But keeping it a secret from his team wasn’t an easy feat — even for a school counselor like himself.
“I found out a couple weeks back,” Lintal said. “Obviously, I’ve been bottling that in. Some rumors came out through various media sources, but we were really excited to, yesterday, let our kids know and share that moment with them was really special.”
Lintal broke the news to his team before practice on Wednesday, which was captured on a school district video posted to social media. He set it up by telling his team that they’d have to make another change, that they weren’t going to get to play their regular season finale at South Track, their temporary home for this season.
When he announced the reason why, he was met with thunderous applause and cheers from his players.
“We want this senior class to know that we are eternally grateful for the sacrifice they are making to not play at Memorial Field this year,” Lintal said. “And to be able to have such an opportunity to be the only class to go through and play in Beaver Stadium, is pretty special for sure.”
With all the excitement of the game at Beaver Stadium officially on the schedule, it would be easy for the team to get ahead of itself. However, one of Lintal’s senior captains, Kevin Kurzinger, made sure the team didn’t look ahead.
After the team found out about the game and had a small celebration, the senior defensive end immediately reset his focus, wanting to make sure his team had their minds on the right target — the road matchup against Central Dauphin East on Friday.
“The thing I’m probably most proud of,” Lintal said, “is after we got done with all of that excitement, we got back and ready to break it down. Then (Kurzinger) said ‘alright now it’s time to focus on this week.’”
The State High coach said that’s not out of the ordinary for this group of players. The team stays on top of its next opponent.
Before leaving reporters, Lintal took a line out of the usual Beaver Stadium occupant’s playbook.
“All you can control is right there where your feet are,” Lintal said. “That’s been our focus all year and that will continue to be our focus. To take a line from (Penn State head) coach (James) Franklin, CD East, CD East, CD East, that’s our focus.”
Lintal and his team may not be ready to prepare for the Beaver Stadium game yet, but fans can.
Tickets for the Beaver Stadium Classic can be purchased at the Bryce Jordan Center for $10 each starting Tuesday. Kickoff will be either noon or 5 p.m., depending upon the time of Penn State’s road contest with Michigan State. Parking is $10, and will be waived for those with university-issued parking passes.
This story was originally published September 26, 2019 at 7:53 PM.
