My voice or lack thereof is a result of Saturday’s Penn State-Rutgers football game.If you listen to this segment with any regularity you know that I bleed blue and white and will never apologize for that. I was a fan long before my two children graduated from Penn State.  Having the opportunity to watch my favorite school play close to home was on

Kevin tailgates with his wife Jane and daughter Alex tailgate before the Rutgers-Penn State game at High Point Solutions Stadium
Kevin tailgates with his wife Jane and daughter Alex tailgate before the Rutgers-Penn State game at High Point Solutions Stadium (Townsquare Media NJ)
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e my family had been looking forward to for months and for the most part Saturday was a truly enjoyable day.  

However I have to be honest when I say the Scarlet Knights football team might be ready for the Big Ten but other parts of the program are not, including many fans wearing the red and white.

Clearly this was a Rutgers home game and I never bought in to the thought that half the fans would be rooting for Penn State, a school which has many alumni in New Jersey.  So when we parked our three cars I was not surprised that we were surrounded by Rutgers tailgaters with a sprinkle of PSU fans around.  For the most part we got along with our parking lot neighbors and the kidding was good natured.

However as the day wore on we found that quite a few took exception when PSU fans would go into their “We Are” chant. The response in our section from a large student contingent was simply “F___ Penn State” and it seemed to spread .  We also noticed signs and shirts which made mention of the child sex-abuse scandal and frankly that was very disappointing. 

Tailgating before the Rutgers-Penn State game at High Point Solutions Stadium
Tailgating before the Rutgers-Penn State game at High Point Solutions Stadium (Townsquare Media NJ)
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Even long-time Big Ten opponents like Ohio State & Michigan have rarely if ever played that card but some Rutgers fans thought it was quite funny and more rationale ones did nothing to discourage the subject.

As you might expect with an 8pm kickoff and a long day of alcohol consumption the behavior, like the weather in the afternoon, would get worse.  I have been too many tailgates at Penn State and witnessed drunken students acting like idiots but this was different.  There was a nastiness that is not often associated with Big Ten football and I was glad when it was time to enter the stadium for the game. 

Tailgating before the Rutgers-Penn State game at High Point Solutions Stadium
Tailgating before the Rutgers-Penn State game at High Point Solutions Stadium (Townsquare Media NJ)
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Give Rutgers credit in that the energy and the atmosphere inside High Point Solutions Stadium was electric and Scarlet Knight fans enjoyed playing most of the game with the lead but as I said Friday in the end the chants you heard were “We Are” and not “RU.”  While most Rutgers fans were silent as we left the stadium we got into a bit of an exchange with a man in his 40’s who went into an “F bomb” laced tirade about Penn State including pedophile comments. 


Nobody joined him but again nobody discouraged him either.  We heard similar comments from other adults in the parking lot afterwards and to tell you the truth I can only imagine what it would have been like if Rutgers won.  Fortunately that was not the case.

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