Oh and did I mention that his Lego stadium is on display at Penn State’s All-Sports Museum for hundreds of thousands of Penn State fans to see?

“Everyone still has an imagination,” said the 32-year-old Gourley, a 2015 Penn State graduate. “It just takes a second to think about it. With a pile of (Lego) bricks, you can build a billion things out of it.”

It’s the same with any hobby or craft, he contends, such as woodworking or making pottery. “Whatever you can think of, you can build,” he added.

Gourley’s replica of Beaver Stadium is built entirely out of Legos — including 7,647 pieces — and is based on the stadium’s layout from 2001 until today.

The Lego stadium was unveiled on Saturday, July 27, at the Penn State All-Sports Museum, and it will remain on permanent display in the museum’s lobby.

Thanks to a $2,500 donation to the museum, Gourley was able to build the Lego model of the football stadium. In 2022, he founded his own design and content creation company, called Back 2 Brick.

Gourley came up with the idea of creating a Lego-version of Beaver Stadium after the brick maker came out with a series of soccer stadiums. He had also seen a version of Ohio State’s Ohio Stadium built from bricks.

When Gourley started working on the project, he broke down the stadium into sections and created a digital design. Once that was completed, he constructed a test model of the stadium to check the stability of the design.

Even though Gourley has been a Lego fan since a young age, don’t believe for a second that this is your average build.

Unlike most Lego model kits, Gourley glued his bricks together so it needed to be on point. And it was, according to him, “I did the test build then I glued it,” he recalled. “Ninety-five percent of it was perfect.”

Gourley focused a lot of his efforts on architecture and engineering when constructing the stadium. And when he finished — about 98 hours later — he had a cool replica of Beaver Stadium. The actual computer design stage took about 200 hours, he said.

“I’ve had a love for Legos my entire life,” Gourley explained. “I just love creating a building with Lego. It’s a daily thing that I do, and I just think that it gives people an outlet for their creativity.”

With Beaver Stadium about to undergo a renovation, Gourley decided to build his replica from the current version of Beaver Stadium.

“It’s life changing,” added Gourley of having his Lego stadium on display at the museum. “I’ve always wanted to have my name in this stadium with Penn State and knowing that people are going to come enjoy it, see the little, little hints and tricks that I’ve hidden in the model and have their memories brought back from the time that they were here. It’s just truly amazing.”

The project took so long to build because Gourley tried to get every last detail correct — down to the last brick.

“I took a lot of photos when I was here for football games, a lot of Google Earth and a lot of just my own history with it,” Gourley said. “You’ll see the rock that is outside the student section and the cars with the tents for tailgating. And I just thought it has to be as detailed as possible because the whole point is so that people can see it and remember that exact moment that they were there.”

He has been overwhelmed by the fans’ response.

“It’s been so positive,” Gourley said. “I’m really proud of my accomplishment. I’ve had friends go in and say, ‘I can’t believe you’ve done this.'”

He and most of his immediate relatives — father, sister, uncle, cousin and wife — are Penn State grads, so there’s a lot of Lion pride running through the family. “We’re all big Penn State fans,” Gourley added.

Penn State All Sports Museum Executive Director Lew Lazarow loves to add unique items and he couldn’t wait to add Gourley’s Lego stadium to the museum’s collection.

“Beaver Stadium is iconic. It’s a place that we as Penn Staters all love,” Lazarow explained. “It’s a place that we feel at home. So, for people to be able to come in and see it sort of rendered in that way and especially to have it rendered in Legos and that it’s completely unique there’s not another one like it in the entire world.”

The Penn State All-Sports Museum is located in the southwest corner of Beaver Stadium and is open Tuesdays through Saturdays from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. and Sundays from noon until 4 p.m.