Sitting on the runway at Dulles, about to fly up to State College on one of United’s Dash-8s, I found myself behind two rows of university students, one on each side of the plane. It was the day of the Penn State-Ohio State football game and as we backed away from the terminal, the young people began a familiar cheer: They shouted, “WE ARE,” and waited for the response, for the small plane to rock with a matching-in-pitch-and-intensity, “PENN STATE!” The response didn’t come—a few passengers mumbled the school’s name but the cabin was, for the greatest part, silent, and the students—one of whom wore a PSU cheerleader T-shirt—did not try again.
It was a gray day in State College. It was a game day and the traffic was bad and my friend and I drove through groups of people heading for the stadium. I’d not been in town for a couple of years and noted the many signs…