DUBLIN, Ireland — This morning, Penn State fans will tune into ESPN2 to watch a football game. Their team will be playing in it.
It’s that time of year again. This is a day for college football, and a day for beginnings, and they’ll see what the Nittany Lions are all about in the dawn of the James Franklin era.
They’ll also see a football stadium rarely used for this type of football.
They’ll see Croke Park, the third-largest stadium in Europe. They may be able to tell how large it is, too, by the fact that more than 50,000 fans are expected to file into
it. Many of them flew across an ocean to do so.
Christian Hackenberg is the star quarterback in the game, and Central Florida standout wide receivers Breshad Perriman, Rannell Hall and J.J. Worton can steal the show for the fans. But the main attraction even on the rare day American football takes center stage is Croke Park itself.
In America, they’ll see a college football game, a scoreboard and the bottom line when they tune in this morning. But so much of Croke Park is about what you don’t see.
“This is a cathedral,” Croke Park stadium director Peter McKenna said. “It’s probably one of the most iconic places in Dublin. Everything about here is reverent of what our identity is, what our culture is. This is the most important building in the city.
“It’s hallowed ground.”
All hyped up
Hundreds of Penn State fans lined up at the intersection of Essex and Parliament Streets in Dublin’s Temple Bar for the team’s pep rally Friday, a huge crowd considering the rally was still more than 90 minutes from starting.
By the time it did, just after 4 p.m., an estimated 10,000 fans had gathered, bopping to the beat of the Penn State Blue Band and chanting along with the cheerleaders.
“We came here to get a great education and play in front of the best fans in the world,” wide receiver Matt Zanellato said. “This is what we were talking about. This is Penn State.”
University president Dr. Eric Barron and athletic director Sandy Babour were among the speakers at the event. Conspicuous by his absence was head coach James Franklin, who allowed the team to be spoken for by Zanellato and linebacker Ben Kline.
Quite a tour
The Nittany Lions boarded red double-decker tour buses Friday afternoon for their final team event before today’s game, a look around at some of the most famous sites in Dublin.
They drew cheers from passersby and Nittany Lions fans alike as the buses stopped for lunch on the campus of the historic Trinity College, where one fan caught the attention of offensive tackle Donovan Smith by telling him his son was in his Spanish class.
“A big 6-foot-5 kid,” the gentleman yelled. “Kyle?” Smith smiled. “Kyle’s my man!”
Ties that bind
In Dublin, they don’t throw anything away. Not if it still has use. Not if it has ever meant anything.
Croke Park is a hulking stadium used for the annual Gaelic Games, the All-Ireland championships in Gaelic football and hurling, a sport described lovingly here as “a combination between hockey and murder.” The stadium seats 82,000 fans, and while it likely won’t threaten that number today for the Nittany Lions and Golden Knights, it will Sunday, when Dublin meets Donegal in the All-Ireland semifinal in Gaelic football.
McKenna urges anybody sticking around town after the Croke Park Classic to watch that one on television. You’ll never see anything like it again, he said.
Perhaps no stadium on the planet better represents a community than Croke Park does Dublin. It’s to the Gaelic sports what Yankee Stadium was to baseball. But they tore Yankee Stadium down to build a newer one. Try as some might have, it has proven impossible to tear down Croke Park, as it has proven impossible to tear down Dublin.
In the end zone where the video scoreboard hangs, fans can congregate on what is known as Hill 16. It is named after the 1916 Easter Rising in Ireland, and rubble from buildings destroyed in downtown Dublin was later brought to the site of Croke Park to begin building the terrace.
In Dublin, they don’t throw anything away. Not if it has ever meant something. Today, though the terrace has been reconstructed time and again, that rubble still stands as the foundation.
The stadium has stood for more than 100 years, serving as host to Ireland’s brightest times and darkest moments. It’s the current home base of the Gaelic Athletic Association, which at its core is the soul of Ireland.
November 21, 1920. The stadium’s darkest day. And, maybe, Ireland’s too.
Fourteen people were killed when British soldiers entered the stadium during a football match between Dublin and Tipperary. One was Tipperary captain Michael Hogan, whose name adorns the stands on the press box side.
Another was a woman named Jane Boyle, who was five days away from her wedding. A 10-year-old boy also perished, and from that day forward, the stadium has stood as a symbol of Irish freedom.
“Queen Elizabeth came to visit us here in 2011, to learn more about the GAA and what it means to us,” said Siobhan Doyle, an assistant at the GAA museum inside Croke Park. “That was a really, really significant event, not just for the GAA, but for the whole of Ireland.”
Sense of self
Boyle is a Wexford fan. No matter the sport, be it football or hurling, the teams from Wexford are the ones she cheers on.
“That never changes here,” she said. “In sickness or health, that’s my team. Wexford. We hadn’t won anything in 20 years. But I wouldn’t dream of rooting for anybody else.”
That’s what Croke Park means. There are 32 counties in Ireland and 2,500 GAA clubs there and 355 more internationally. The goal for every one of them is to get to Croke Park. When they get there, they don’t just represent themselves anymore. When they win, their county does.
GAA players are amateurs. They aren’t paid to play, although they may be sponsored. There is no free agency. A hurling player from Cork has to play for a team in Cork. When that team from Cork plays in Dublin, the entire county makes the journey.
That’s why Croke Park, in Dublin, has always been the sporting ideal, and not just another venue. Many are still reticent to allow sports other than Gaelic football or hurling to even use the place.
That’s why, as they open 2014 there today, Penn State knows it can’t be just another football game to its players.
“We had some really interesting conversations with some people about the history and how they wouldn’t let anyone play soccer there,” coach James Franklin said. “Sports are very, very important in this country, and that’s a national treasure to them.”