A memorable bumper sticker from my childhood: “If God isn’t a Penn State fan, then why is the sky blue and white?” For me, growing up in central Pennsylvania, Penn State football was the universe while the team’s head coach, Joe Paterno, was the center around which it rotated. His likeness appeared on coffee mugs and Halloween masks, TV-dinner trays and cereal boxes. Since 1987, “Peachy Paterno” has been one of the most beloved ice cream flavors produced by the University Creamery. “JoePa” was basically a member of our family.

Then, as an undergraduate in Happy Valley myself, I became part of his family—a family with more living alumni (over 645,000) than any other school in the nation. On the days the Nittany Lions take the field, State College—home of Penn State’s main campus, a town with an official population of around 42,000—becomes the third-largest city in Pennsylvania, with a temporary population of over 230,000, as more than 107,000 fans regularly pack Beaver Stadium and thousands of tailgaters gather in its shadow.