Photo courtesy of TATE FAMILY
Max Tate, 11, of Lewistown, poses for a photo with the iconic Penn State Nittany Lion mascot.

LEWISTOWN — Imagining Penn State without its iconic Nittany Lion mascot? Say it ain’t so, Joe. (Hail to the late great football coach Joe Paterno.)

Eleven-year-old Max Tate, of Lewistown, certainly couldn’t fathom the blue and white without its courageous Lion. Two years ago, the young Penn State fan got the Nittany Lion’s prized autograph on a football helmet.

“He’s very energetic,” said Max, the son of Mindy Tate and the late Mike Tate. “He cheers lots of people up and makes lots of people scream. I was happy when I got him on my helmet.”

The Nittany Lion isn’t the only one to sign Max’s helmet as it is now filled with about 50 signatures of current and former Penn State players.

While the Nittany Lion signed the back of it, other players had to fight for room, like running back Nicholas Singleton trying to bust through a defensive line.

“The players had to ask where I wanted them to sign it because there was no room,” Max laughed. (The Lion’s signature) fit with all the players, so I have the mascot and the players.”

Max keeps his prized helmet in his bedroom.

“The first time I met him was like two years ago, so I was a little nervous,” he recalled.

Before the Nittany Lion, a mule named Old Coaly was held in high esteem by students, figuring into many colorful tales. While never an official mascot, Old Coaly was so beloved by students that his skeleton was preserved as a relic of Penn State’s past.

In the early 1900s, the Lion wasn’t the fiercest beast of them all in Happy Valley. In fact, a former student H.D. “Joe” Mason wrote an editorial campaigning for a mascot in a student publication.

It read, “Every college the world over of any consequence has a college emblem of some kind – all but the Pennsylvania State College … why not select for ours the king of beasts – the Lion! Dignified, courageous, magnificent, the Lion allegorically represents all that our college spirit should be, so why not ‘the Nittany Mountain Lion?’

Mason played baseball at Penn State and had been advocating for the Lion since spring 1904 when the team traveled to Princeton University. When Princeton’s famous Tiger mascot appeared at the game, Mason was embarrassed Penn State didn’t have a counterpart and invented one on the spot.

Inspired by the mountain lions that once roamed the region, Penn State’s Nittany Lion mascot takes its name from a landmark near the University Park campus, Mount Nittany.

The student body at Penn State supported Mason’s idea and eventually two alabaster African lion statues, left over from the Pennsylvania exhibit at the 1904 St. Louis Exposition, were placed atop the columns at the main campus entrance on College and Allen streets in 1907.

These were the first tangible lion symbols, which students affectionately named “Pa” and “Ma.” In the 1920s, a pair of stuffed mountain lions were placed in Rec Hall to watch over athletic events. About that same time, the tradition began of having a student dressed in a furry lion outfit appear at football games.

To date, more than 50 students have donned the Nittany Lion costume.

In the 1930s, students launched a campaign for the lion shrine, a place where they could gather to hold pep rallies and celebrate sports victories (and have their picture taken with family and friends). The Class of 1940 sprang for the $5,400 to pay for the construction of such a shrine.

Since then, the Nittany Lion shrine has come to be one of the most visited, photographed and talked about places on campus. And the image of the Nittany Lion has been etched not only in stone, but in the memories of tens of thousands of Penn State fans, including young Max.

‘An Illustrated Tale’ or tail?

Photographed more than all of the university’s presidents combined, the Nittany Lion went to great lengths in history to become the heart and soul – and image – of Penn State.

“It is the symbol of school spirit, good academics and hard work, something that students, alumni, faculty and staff all strive for,” author and former Penn State Archivist Jackie Esposito said. “The Nittany Lion has embodied all of those into one symbol that, when represented, represents Penn State.”

Esposito authored the book “The Nittany Lion: An Illustrated Tale,” which she wrote with Education Librarian Dr. Steven Herb in 1997. The two dedicated hours into uncovering the history of the Nittany Lion.

Penn State launches new Lion logo

In an effort to modernize the beloved mascot, Penn State rolled out new logos and a signature mark for the beloved mascot as it celebrates its 120th birthday.

Merchandise featuring the new marks, including a full body, head and signature mark, will be launched this weekend as Penn State hosts UCLA at Beaver Stadium.

“The Nittany Lion mascot has been a mainstay to the image of Penn State for 120 years, embodying the ‘We Are’ spirit and cultivating pride from the classroom to the athletics fields,” said Rachel Pell, vice president for Strategic Communications. “I’m excited to introduce to the Penn State community a fresh take on our beloved Nittany Lion, especially the highly requested signature.”