Little Town In
Upstate NY
There's a new era at Penn State and our visit there on
September 7-9 truly showed that a statement about a "I'm from a little town in
upstate NY" can give you the surprise of a lifetime.
While having lunch between two "Showcase" 18u baseball games
Sunday afternoon at State College, Pa (Penn State) a very friendly waitress at
TGI Friday's told us her name as "Tess" and that she would be serving us our
lunch.
I asked Tess if you was a Penn State Student and she
replied that she was in her senior year majoring in elementary education. Tess's
last name is Beecher and her home town is Matamoras, Pa. She is a graduate of Delaware Valley High School in
Matamoras.
Having already been told that there are 44,000 students on
the main campus I decided to ask Tess if she played sports which she
acknowledged that prior to the school years she had played but could not play
college sports because she had to work.
I said to Tess that we were from a small town in upstate NY
and the first two words out of Tess's mouth were "Marissa Diescher." She gave me
a high five and said she knew Marissa well having played travel baseball with
her with the Tri-State Angel's girls travel softball team and that she knew
Marissa's parents and grand parents.
Tess acknowledged she had limited access to see Marissa but
added that "she comes in here every once in a while."
One has to stretch that all familiar statement "that it's a
small world" that out of 44,000 students we had one of them answer that simple
statement we made with Marissa's name.
Having had some time to kill Saturday since all games were
rained out we talked to residents and students from the State College, Pa. area
who almost in unison spoke about the new era at Penn State and that Lions
faithful have united to show their support for Penn State
football.
We heard statements like "maybe we can stop talking about
the scandal now," "we don't care about the sanctions lets support the team," and
one strong Joe Paterno supporter said, "JoePa is in heaven, he does not care
what you think, we love JoePa and he's here in spirit." A number of students and
folks in that area also are wearing anti NCAA t-shirts as a result of the NCAA
sanctions placed against Penn State.
The 44,000 student population campus is like a small city
and one look at Penn State's Beaver Stadium football complex shows why over
100,000 fans can fit in this huge stadium.
The big time atmosphere that overshadows this educational
system will have to take a back page to our experience of "we are from a small
town in upstate NY."
IDENTIFICATION OF THE BELOW PHOTO
State College Pa TGI Friday's waitress
Tess Beecher knew the correct answer to "we're from a small town in upstate
NY."
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