Why does Penn State say 'We Are'? Explaining history of the Nittany Lions' chant

On the outskirts of Miami on Thursday night, two of college football’s most historically decorated programs will meet with an appearance in the national championship game on the line.

Penn State’s College Football Playoff matchup against Notre Dame in the Orange Bowl, however, will be more than just two iconically understated helmets lining up against one another.

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For the tens of thousands crammed inside Hard Rock Stadium and the millions of television viewers across the country, cries of “We Are … Penn State” from the Nittany Lions’ faithful will be audible.

The cheer has been a part of the program’s identity for decades and has been a central element of the gameday experience in State College. It goes beyond a handful of football Saturdays in the fall, too. Penn State graduates and fans often greet each other with the mantra if they spot someone wearing the school’s apparel, with one saying, “We Are” and the other finishing off the statement.

But how did that four-word combination come to be?

As the Nittany Lions prepare for their appearance in the College Football Playoff semifinals, one of their biggest games in the program’s modern history, here’s what you need to know about the origin of their “We Are” chant:

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Why does Penn State chant 'We Are'?

Though there are various explanations for how Penn State’s “We Are” chant came to be, the most commonly agreed-upon one dates back to a seminal, ground-breaking moment in the program’s history.

At a time when much of college football and large portions of the country were racially segregated, Penn State had two Black players, Wally Triplett and Dennie Hoggard, on its 1946 team.

Triplett and Hoggard, both Pennsylvania natives, dealt with the debilitating effects of the pervasive racism of that era, including in the town where they ultimately played football and attended college. As a high-school standout in the Philadelphia area, Triplett received a letter from Miami offering him a scholarship. He responded to the school, which had no Black players on its team and was located in segregated south Florida, to inform it that he was Black. His scholarship offer was immediately rescinded.

During the 1946 season, the Nittany Lions were scheduled to face off on the road against that same Miami program. Given the Jim Crow laws of the state, Miami requested that Penn State not bring Triplett and Hoggard with it for the game. Dr. Carl B. Schott, Penn State’s dean of physical education and athletics, told the Associated Press in 1946 that Miami officials advised him that “it would be difficult to carry out arrangements” if Triplett and Hoggard made the trip. At the time, it was also reported that Miami leadership warned that there might be "unfortunate incidents" if the Nittany Lions’ two Black players suited up.

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Faced with a decision, Penn State’s players convened on campus for a players-only meeting. They came away from it unified: They wouldn’t play the game without all their teammates, including Triplett and Hoggard, leading to the matchup’s ultimate cancellation.

Schott said to the Associated Press that the move was in keeping with “the policy of the college to compete only under circumstances which will permit the playing of any or all members of its athletic teams.”

At the end of the following season, and with Penn State at 9-0, the Nittany Lions had been invited to play against SMU in the Cotton Bowl. Like Miami, Dallas was segregated, with restaurants, hotels and other establishments not allowing Black patrons in places occupied by white customers. When asked about the possibility of leaving Triplett and Hoggard behind, Steve Suhey, a team captain and All-American, responded decisively, referring back to Penn State’s decision from the previous season.

“We are Penn State,” he said. “There will be no meetings.”

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Penn State 'We Are' chant

Though the phrase became famous, it wasn’t immediately immortalized as a rallying cry.

For years, Penn State had a pair of popular cheers, “The Nittany Lion” and "Short Yell State.” In the mid-1970s, according to Penn State historian Lou Prato, the Nittany Lions’ cheerleaders were awed when making road trips with the team to Ohio State and USC, both of which used call-and-response cheers among fans to liven the in-stadium atmosphere.

In 1976, they tried getting fans at Beaver Stadium to shout, “We are Penn State” with no pauses between the first part of the phrase and the second. It came with underwhelming results and failed to gain much enthusiasm.

Later that season, however, the Nittany Lions played a night game at Kentucky, whose fans did back-and-forth cheers. One side of the stadium yelled “Blue” while the other responded with “White.” Penn State chose to follow that model, inserting a pause between “We Are” and “Penn State.”

"We had to work section by section," Tom Twardzik, a Penn State cheerleader during that time, said to Prato, "and the Blue Band drummers tried to help with a 'boom, boom' in the pause between the two sides screaming 'We are' and 'Penn State!'"

This time, the cheer gained traction and in the years that followed, it only grew in popularity.

Today, it’s a staple of Penn State home games, with the chant reverberating in a stadium in which it was originally met with confusion and apathy. Near the stadium, there’s a 12-foot, 8,000-pound stainless steel sculpture of the words “We Are,” a gift from Penn State’s 2013 graduating class.

To one of the men who is part of the chant’s lore, its enduring popularity is particularly meaningful.

“Just those few words … it’s always the case, where it’s just a couple of words and you say to somebody with pride ‘We Are Penn State,'” Triplett said to ESPN for a feature it did on the origins of the phrase.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Penn State 'We Are' chant, explained: History of Nittany Lions' chant