WHAT IS A NITTANY LION??
Why is it BEAVER stadium when the team nickname is NITTANY LIONS??
Why is it called HAPPY VALLEY??
Penn State sits in the valley at the base of Mount Nittany.. If you have never been there, it is beautiful...A NITTANY lion is a fictitious lion... Nittany is a transliteration of the Algonquin Indian terms NIT-A-NEE meaning SINGLE MOUNTAIN. The name Nittany was used for the mountain BEFORE it was adopted by Penn State...In the 1800's, Penn State played Princeton, whose nickname was the TIGERS.. Embarrassed that Penn State did not have a mascot, a Penn State leader had a LION knitted and jokingly told the press that a LION would destroy a TIGER... This is where the term NITTANY LIONS came to be today.
The stadium is called BEAVER STADIUM because it was named after James BEAVER, governor of Pennsylvania back in the late 1800's and acting president of Penn State in the early 1900s.. Lots of things in Pennsylvania are named after him. Just ironic that he had a last name of an animal and the nickname of the school is a different animal. The area is called HAPPY VALLEY because during the Depression, this area was one of the only areas of the state not hit hard economically because of the existence of Penn State.. A HAPPY area, if you will.
Penn State is a very good school and has consistently been touted as one of the top schools in the US for companies to recruit their graduates.
Just interesting history of how Penn State got those names
Why is it BEAVER stadium when the team nickname is NITTANY LIONS??
Why is it called HAPPY VALLEY??
Penn State sits in the valley at the base of Mount Nittany.. If you have never been there, it is beautiful...A NITTANY lion is a fictitious lion... Nittany is a transliteration of the Algonquin Indian terms NIT-A-NEE meaning SINGLE MOUNTAIN. The name Nittany was used for the mountain BEFORE it was adopted by Penn State...In the 1800's, Penn State played Princeton, whose nickname was the TIGERS.. Embarrassed that Penn State did not have a mascot, a Penn State leader had a LION knitted and jokingly told the press that a LION would destroy a TIGER... This is where the term NITTANY LIONS came to be today.
The stadium is called BEAVER STADIUM because it was named after James BEAVER, governor of Pennsylvania back in the late 1800's and acting president of Penn State in the early 1900s.. Lots of things in Pennsylvania are named after him. Just ironic that he had a last name of an animal and the nickname of the school is a different animal. The area is called HAPPY VALLEY because during the Depression, this area was one of the only areas of the state not hit hard economically because of the existence of Penn State.. A HAPPY area, if you will.
Penn State is a very good school and has consistently been touted as one of the top schools in the US for companies to recruit their graduates.
Just interesting history of how Penn State got those names
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