With Penn State football student season ticket sales coming up in the summer, students will inevitably be asked if they’d like to join the Student Nittany Lion Club — via a checkbox on the screen — while purchasing their tickets. Many students will probably ignore the question completely and go about their summers without thinking about it again, but these students could be missing out on some neat opportunities.

The Student Nittany Lion Club (SNLC) provides the perfect platform to both support various athletics programs on campus and earn some great rewards. The SNLC is an organization that is an entity of both the Nittany Lion Club, which exists to support Penn State student athletes monetarily, and Penn State athletics. The SNLC’s goal is to educate current students on the impact that they can have on the sports programs that they love to cheer on. Of course, there are many perks to joining.

To join the club, students must pay a $35 membership fee when going through the early morning routine of purchasing football tickets.

“On that page, there’s always a checkbox that asks, ‘Would you like to join the Student Nittany Lion Club?'” Allison McCloy, an executive board member of the organization, explained. “A lot of students don’t know what it is or what it entails.”

It entails access to pre-sale tickets for every away football game, which can be extremely useful for highly anticipated road trips like Penn State’s upcoming visit to Heinz Field. Pre-sale tickets are also available for postseason games, like conference title matchups or bowl games.

Members of the SNLC also get access to several special events. For example, 100 club members were invited to sit in on a spring football practice with the opportunity to bring a guest, taking in three hours of preseason action. The SNLC also provides pregame sideline passes for members who show involvement and follow the club’s Facebook page.

One of the most exciting aspects of the SNLC is its points system, which rolls over into the Nittany Lion Club points system once students graduate.

“You get five Nittany Lion points every year that you’re in the club. That doesn’t always mean a lot to students, but it’s a $300 value. Once you’re in the Nittany Lion Club, that’s how you buy season tickets,” McCloy explained.

Joining the Nittany Lion Club with no points means that you would have almost no say in where you sit as a recent graduate. Going in with 20 points, McCloy said, means that you’re ahead of the game and could even land 50-yard line tickets.

“On an honest level, as a freshman, I signed up for the Student Nittany Lion Club because I was nervous while getting my season tickets and clicked every button on the screen,” McCloy said. “Now, I’ve been able to meet all of the people involved and it’s really cool.”

The SNLC will host an event from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Tuesday, April 17 in the HUB with a special guest visitor. Students interested in checking out the club can find more information about the event on the SNLC Facebook page.