Canzano: Shutting the gate on Penn State
The power of sports on display.
I spoke to the elderly woman beside me in the boarding line at Harrisburg International Airport on the way home from the Oregon-Penn State game. I didn’t get her name. But she wore a yellow Ducks baseball cap, and her feet were barely touching the ground after UO’s double-overtime victory.
“WHAT… A… GAME,” she said.
It was an ungodly hour, even for the airport. So early that some of the shops had the lights off and the cages still down. The line at Starbucks was deep and quiet. There were only two gates with outbound flights in the 6 a.m. hour — American Airlines and United Airlines — and the boarding areas were jammed with football fans with smiles on their faces and bags beneath their eyes.
I received an email on Monday from a reader named Mary who donated a subscription to a senior citizen. It’s a gift-giving program I started when I launched this independent publication. I didn’t want aging readers on fixed budgets to be shut out and feel disconnected.
Wrote Mary: “It is absolutely my pleasure to have the opportunity to do this.”
Don wrote this week to tell me he is on Medicaid and his disposable income is limited to $75 a month. He wrote, “Unfortunately, I have joined the low-income seniors and am not able to afford a subscription.”
No worries, Don.
Mary has you covered.
Older adults are at greater risk of social isolation. Studies show that as many as 40 percent of the elderly experience loneliness. Lost loved ones. Disability. Lack of access to transportation. Worsening quality of life. There isn’t a week that goes by that I don’t receive a note from a senior who tells me this publication is a connection point for them to the outside world.
Elizabeth, 93, resides in an assisted living center. She lost her husband last year. She sent me a handwritten note indicating the subscription was no longer in her budget. She now receives a donated subscription and reads this column daily to other residents in her facility.
Debbie, 67, lives off her social security check. The budget is tight. She follows both the Ducks and Beavers, and wrote before Christmas last year, to say her paid subscription had expired and she couldn’t afford to renew.
“I find that I really miss your columns about both life and sports,” she wrote.
Thanks to other readers, she’s not missing a thing.
I’m grateful for the readers of this publication and their giant hearts. We’ve formed a community here that is unlike anything I imagined. I love to write, report, and give readers content they can’t get anywhere else. That readers have pulled together in the last few years to share my work with others is humbling.
Also, sports are glue.
No missing that.
The woman I spoke with at the airport was in her 80s. She needed assistance from airport personnel when we changed planes in Chicago. They wheeled her down the jetway in a red chair, then helped her onto the plane home. We’d talked in line about my rush to get home. My youngest daughter, 9, had a soccer game that afternoon.
I passed the woman’s seat as I boarded the plane. The pilot had just announced on the PA system that we were scheduled for an on-time departure. The woman craned her neck as I went by and said, “You’re going to make that soccer game.”
Dante Moore was outstanding on Saturday. Gary Bryant Jr.’s 25-yard TD reception was thrilling. Oregon safety Dillon Thieneman punctuated the night by picking off a Drew Allar pass and sealing the win. Decide for yourself if beating Penn State was the greatest road victory in UO football history, but here we were on the plane, sharing another sports-related thread.
Who among us can’t relate to the parental drive to get to that field, stand on the sideline, be present, and watch your own kid play?
The “best win ever” question got me thinking about other teams. Washington State’s best victory in history? The 2003 Holiday Bowl over No. 5 Texas? The 1997 Apple Cup win that sent the program to the Rose Bowl? Mike Leach declaring, “It’s like Woodstock, except everybody’s got their clothes on,” after upsetting top-five-ranked USC in 2017?
Something else?
How about Washington’s biggest win? The 1991 Rose Bowl over Michigan, maybe? Or beating Texas in the College Football Playoff semifinal two seasons ago?
I’m going to miss something big, and that’s sort of the point. This debate is wildly subjective and nuanced. So I guess what I’m really asking is, what’s the biggest moment you’ve seen?
Oregon State’s biggest football win? The Fiesta Bowl 41-9 drubbing of Notre Dame? The ‘Giant Killers’ beating USC? Or maybe one of those 49 Civil War victories?
Boise State? San Diego State? Stanford?
Cal? Fresno State? Utah State? Texas State?
Tell me in the comments section what the biggest football win in history was for your team.
Getting to State College, Pa., is a slog. It involves connecting flights, with a minimum 90-mile airport commute. 111,000 fans in the stadium, except for the traffic leaving the stadium and the bathroom lines.
One reader who attended a Penn State football game in Happy Valley years ago wrote to me and said he was happy to watch from home.
“Hellish trip,” he wrote. “Worst post-game drive ever. I’d never do it again.”
I’m not telling you this to belabor a first-world problem. I’m telling you because that woman on the plane could have easily stayed home and watched on TV. She was delighted that she was there to see Oregon beat Penn State.
Every time I see Phil Knight, 87, I wonder how many more games he’ll get to see in person. I wonder that for myself, too. There are only so many games in all of our lives. I don’t take it for granted that I’ve been to some amazing venues, watched epic finishes, and I get to bring readers with me.
So, thanks.
For being here with me. For sharing this publication. For donating subscriptions and pulling others along for the ride. For tolerating my conversational tone and wandering mind. I’m in a mood today because I’ve been thinking about that aging woman who needed a wheelchair to get up the jetway.
It was the wee hours.
Everyone was sleep-deprived.
She was so blasted happy to be there.
If you’re not already a subscriber, please consider one. You may also buy a gift subscription for a friend or family member, or donate a paid subscription to a senior on a fixed budget here:
It is an overdue pleasure to finally get off the dime and donate subscriptions for this great service you provide. And I cannot thank you enough for being the decent person, good father and great writer you are. Most of all, I am really glad you made that soccer game. There is nothing more important! Thanks John.
Great read. I’m 55 now. My bio dad and his friend stopped going to Duck games a few years ago, because of age, so I take my friends now. I’ll keep going until the wheels fall off. It’s that important. 👍