Penn State’s athletic programs have consistently been top-notch for decades, and players from across the 31 varsity teams have gone on to become big-time names. From wrestling and football to track and field, Penn State athletics knows how to produce champions.  

Shouldn’t we celebrate all of our successful athletes and coaches? Penn State alumni Darian Somers and the Director of Strategic Communications at the Bellisario School of Communications, Steve Sampsell, certainly think so. This led to them creating the first ever Penn State Sports Hall of Fame. 

The Inspiration & Mission

Somers and Sampsell host an all-things Penn State athletics podcast on their website. One day, while filming an episode of their podcast, Somers and Sampsell were inspired to create a sports hall of fame for Penn State after a similar idea successfully worked as a final project in one of Sampsell’s public relations classes. 

Somers and Sampsell realized that while Penn State has its All-Sports Museum on campus, there has never been a Penn State Sports Hall of Fame opened to all 31 varsity teams. 

“We wanted to create a way to celebrate Penn State sports and reminisce of some great athletes and coaches,” said Sampsell. 

The Nomination & Selection Process

The first round of nominations came from their podcast listeners.

“We opened it up to anyone who had played or coached a varsity sport here. It also had to have been at least four years since they last suited up for a game,” said Somers. 

Somers and Sampsell decided to exclude currently active coaches so that the award would only reflect previous players and coaches’ successes.

A final list for their listeners to vote on was selected and posted to their website early this March.

How You Can Get Involved

The Hall of Fame has recently released its finalists list, where you are able to vote for your favorite 15 athletes and coaches to be the first inaugural class. 

To vote, head to their webpage, select your favorite 15 people, and press submit. Voting closes Monday, March 31, so be sure to get those votes in now. Somers and Samspell plan to reveal the winners on their blog and podcast in early April.

“As of right now, this will just be a blog and podcast thing we do, but if this continues to build, maybe we’ll look into some possibilities for the future…maybe some guest appearances on the podcast of some winners!” Somers shared.