May: Philadelphia area Blue Room Huddle

Your Huddle

The Philadelphia Huddle is hosted by Dan Wallace. These agenda-free Huddles are beta tests for a way to connect local Penn State Lettermen to each other to build relationships and community.

Food and drink can be ordered off the menu and each attendee is responsible for his tab. We'll gather in the large back room.

Our Why

At the June 2018 Lettermen’s Golf Weekend, many of the film participants remarked about their widened circle of former player relationships which now extend well beyond their graduation class, due to their “The Joe We Know” project Green Room experience.

In an attempt to share what seventy former players experienced, we introduce the one-year experimental project titled, the “Blue Room Huddles.”

A brief history

In 2011, a spontaneous, fast-paced project titled “The Joe We Know” was initiated by a small group of lettermen to produce a surprise video for Coach Paterno. The plan was to show Coach the video at a belated birthday party once he felt well again. The film captured random comments by available players in five cities within twelve days, each expressing thanks and gratitude for their Grand Experiment experience at Penn State. Unfortunately, Coach Paterno passed away without seeing or knowing about the video. Players, managers, coaches, and the Paterno family were invited to the showing in February 2012 at the State Theatre in State College, PA.

During the filming, a “Green Room” was established at each site to prep each interviewee. The timing allowed for a 15-minute overlap between players, creating a small opportunity for two former players to meet and visit between filming slots.

State College was the first filming location. As the day progressed, men who had been filmed early in the morning stayed after their interviews to visit with other men as they arrived at their appointment time. By late afternoon, almost all the previous interviewees stayed and were visiting fellow lettermen. Due to the random selection process, many of the guys had never met each other. The youngest player was twenty-eight, and the oldest eighty, yet the affinity born from their shared experiences at Penn State was ageless.

As the project moved to Pittsburgh two days later, the same phenomenon occurred. Early interviewees called and cleared their calendars to stay to continue visiting. The effect of the “Green Room” became magical. The same Green Room behavior occurred in Baltimore, Philadelphia, and in New York.