In my last blog, I briefly stated how all football games in State College would be very similar for me, aside from my first game and the White Out game. The homecoming weekend, however, exceeded my expectations and was probably the most fun weekend I’ve had thus far. With everything from going to Nittany-Ville, to the parade, to the actual game itself, everything was just as exciting, with a little extra something else mixed in.

The homecoming festivities began for the cheerleaders on Thursday. Thursday is typically a regular practice day for us, and we go over everything we are going to do at the game. This Thursday was a little different. We were instructed by our coach to meet at the stadium fully dressed in our uniforms. It was absolutely freezing that night and all we had on were skirts- not a good combination. After standing outside the stadium for about 10 minutes waiting for my coach to arrive, he finally walked up and gave us further instructions.

As I am sure you have heard, Penn State is being premiered on the HBO show coming up this fall and little did we know we were about to be a part of it. Nittany-Ville is a tradition at Penn State where people stay in tents for a week outside of the stadium in order to have the chance to sit first row at the football game. The HBO team wanted to film the cheerleaders and football players at Nittany-Ville surprising the students with pizza and music. When we ran over, energy was soaring, as people were so excited to receive free food- as any right-minded college student would be. The HBO crew wanted a show, and boy did they get one, as it started pouring down freezing rain. For some reason, this only added to the excitement and chaos that this event turned out to be, and HBO must’ve gotten great shots of students dancing in the freezing rain eating pizza- a true representation of the Penn State school spirit.

After the music had stopped and the pizza was all gone, us cheerleaders made our way to practice soaking wet. The mixture of the cold and the rain would provide all of us with obstacles regarding our health later on in the weekend.

The next day, we had our second major homecoming event- the parade. All sniffling and still cold from the night before, we reported to the Natatorium to walk in yet another event that we were ill-prepared for regarding our attire. Since we were the end of the parade, we waited for as little as 2 hours to begin actually walking in the parade. In the meantime, we warmed up, ate some dinner, and did some team bonding as we stood waiting for our turn. Once it was finally our turn, we walked all through campus, stopping periodically to stunt. This was by far my favorite event of homecoming weekend. One of the things I enjoy most about cheering for a large university is the crowd involvement. We got to take pictures with kids and say cheers with the crowd.

When the parade finally came to an end, we all rushed home to get as much sleep as possible, as kickoff tomorrow was at 12:30, meaning our assignments began at 8:30, and we were all as sick as can be from the night before.

Usually on gamedays I get assigned to team arrival, but this game I got assigned Presidents Tailgate. After getting picked up by a mysterious man driving a white van, my 5 teammates and I were driven out past all of the tailgating fields to a building I had never heard of before. We were welcomed by men and women formally dressed and taken to a room full of food. After going through the buffet line, we returned to our table with plates full of delicious fruit, pastries, and other breakfast foods (You may be sensing a theme by now, yes, we get free food a lot). After scarfing down everything we could possibly hold, we were welcomed to the stage to perform. A quick 10-minute performance and we were out the door on the way to the game.

While the game itself was very similar in respect to what we do and how we do it, it was also very different because there was approximately 500 additional people (alumni) on the field for the game. We continued to do everything usually did, but with half the space and double the sound.

Overall, homecoming weekend was a blast and I love going to new events and experiencing new things as a team. While many people (including myself until now) may think we do the same things over and over each gameday, they are all a little different and a little special in their own way.