Beaver Stadium

Beaver Stadium is an outdoor college football stadium in University Park, Pennsylvania, United States, on the campus of The Pennsylvania State University. It is home to the Penn State Nittany Lions of the Big Ten Conference since 1960, though some parts of the stadium date back to 1909. The stadium is named after James A. Beaver, a former governor of Pennsylvania (1887–91) and president of the university's board of trustees.

Beaver Stadium has an official seating capacity of 106,572, making it currently the second largest stadium in the Western Hemisphere and the third largest in the world.

Beaver Stadium is widely known as one of the toughest venues for opposing teams in collegiate athletics. In 2008, Beaver Stadium was recognized as having the best student section in the country for the second consecutive year.

The stadium is the first to have its interior included in Google Street View.

History

Predecessors

Until 1893, Penn State teams participated in sporting events on Old Main lawn, a large grassy area in front of the primary classroom building of the time. Beaver Field, a 500-seat structure located behind the current site of the Osmond Building, was the first permanent home for Penn State's football team, and the first game played there was a Penn State victory over Western University of Pennsylvania (now the University of Pittsburgh) on November 6, 1893. In 1909, New Beaver Field opened just northeast of Rec Hall, roughly in the current location of the Nittany Parking deck. It served as Penn State's stadium until 1960, when the entire 30,000 seat stadium was dismantled and moved to the east end of campus, reassembled and expanded to 46,284 seats—the lower half of the current facility—and dubbed Beaver Stadium.

Pennsylvania State University

The Pennsylvania State University (commonly referred to as Penn State or PSU) is a public, Flagship, state-related, Land-grant, Sea-grant, Space-grant, Sun-grant, research-intensive university with campuses and facilities throughout Pennsylvania. Founded in 1855, the university has a stated threefold mission of teaching, research, and public service. Its instructional mission includes undergraduate, graduate, professional and continuing education offered through resident instruction and online delivery. Its University Park campus, the flagship campus, lies within the Borough of State College and College Township. It has two law schools, Penn State Law, on the school's University Park campus, and Dickinson Law, located in Carlisle, 90 miles South of State College. The College of Medicine is located in Hershey. Penn State has another 19 commonwealth campuses and 5 special-mission campuses located across the state. Penn State has been labeled a candidate for being one of the "Public Ivies," a publicly funded university considered as providing a quality of education comparable to those of the Ivy League.

Ohio State University

The Ohio State University, commonly referred to as Ohio State or OSU, is a public research university in Columbus, Ohio. Founded in 1870, as a land-grant university and ninth university in Ohio with the Morrill Act of 1862, the university was originally known as the Ohio Agricultural and Mechanical College. The college began with a focus on training students in various agricultural and mechanical disciplines but was developed into a comprehensive university under the direction of Governor Rutherford B. Hayes and in 1878 the Ohio General Assembly passed a law changing the name to "The Ohio State University". It has since grown into the third largest university campus in the United States. Along with its main campus in Columbus, Ohio State also operates a regional campus system with regional campuses in Lima, Mansfield, Marion, Newark, and Wooster.

The university is also home to an extensive student life program, with over 1,000 student organizations; intercollegiate, club and recreational sports programs; student media organizations and publications, fraternities and sororities; and three active student governments. Ohio State athletic teams compete in Division I (Football Bowl Subdivision for football) of the NCAA and are known as the Ohio State Buckeyes. The university is a member of the Big Ten Conference for the majority of sports. The Ohio State Buckeyes men's ice hockey program competes in the Big Ten Conference, while its women's hockey program competes in the Western Collegiate Hockey Association. In addition, the OSU men's volleyball team is a member of the Midwestern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association (MIVA). OSU is one of only fourteen universities in the nation that plays Division I FBS football and Division I ice hockey. Alumni and former students have gone on to prominent careers in government, business, science, medicine, education, sports, and entertainment.

Penn State Nittany Lions football

The Penn State Nittany Lions football team represents the Pennsylvania State University in college football. The Nittany Lions compete in the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision as a member of the Big Ten Conference, which they joined in 1994 after playing as an Independent from their founding through 1993.

Established in 1887, the Nittany Lions have achieved numerous on-field successes, the most notable of which include four consensus national championships (in 1911, 1912, 1982 and 1986), three Big Ten Conference Championships (in 1994, 2005 and 2008), and 45 appearances in college bowl games, with a postseason bowl record of 28–15–2. The team is also #8 all-time in total-wins, one game behind Oklahoma and Alabama. The Nittany Lions play their home games at Beaver Stadium, located on-campus in University Park, Pennsylvania. With an official seating capacity of 106,572, Beaver Stadium is the second-largest stadium in the western hemisphere, behind only Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The team is currently coached by James Franklin.

Beaver

The beaver (genus Castor) is a primarily nocturnal, large, semiaquatic rodent. Castor includes two extant species, the North American beaver (Castor canadensis) (native to North America) and Eurasian beaver (Castor fiber) (Eurasia). Beavers are known for building dams, canals, and lodges (homes). They are the second-largest rodent in the world (after the capybara). Their colonies create one or more dams to provide still, deep water to protect against predators, and to float food and building material. The North American beaver population was once more than 60 million, but as of 1988 was 6–12 million. This population decline is the result of extensive hunting for fur, for glands used as medicine and perfume, and because the beavers' harvesting of trees and flooding of waterways may interfere with other land uses.

General

Beavers, along with pocket gophers and kangaroo rats, are castorimorph rodents, a suborder of rodents mostly restricted to North America. Although just two closely related species exist today, beavers have a long fossil history in the Northern Hemisphere beginning in the Eocene, and many species of giant beaver existed until quite recently, such as Trogontherium in Europe, and Castoroides in North America.