A change is coming to Penn State's famed, traditional uniforms ahead of the 2020 season.
Announced Tuesday, the Nittany Lions will adopt an initiative called "Penn State United" for the 2020 season and will don a patch on their jerseys and helmet stickers representing the "journey for unity" of the program.
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At his weekly press conference Tuesday afternoon, Penn State head coach James Franklin announced the initiative and the thinking that went into it for the 2020 season.
"I'm just really proud of our players and our program," Franklin said. "We had a lot of conversations this offseason, a lot of discussions that I think were very, very important. The transparency that we had, the discussions that we had, the education and the learning that was taking place in those meetings from so many different perspectives has been great. And then obviously, our players watching other teams, other leagues, other conferences, as well as professional basketball, that we felt like we wanted to do something that showed our unity."
Attached with the release of the patch came also a statement indicating the purpose of the initiative, reading in full:
"Penn State football student-athletes will wear a logo in competition this year to symbolize our journey for unity. Our goal is to construct a culture of respect, appreciation and empathy for all differences. We are a country, state and institution rooted in diversity, shared experience and hope. We believe now, more than ever, we can help create a better society by publicly and peacefully acknowledging our pursuit to move beyond simply tolerating differences to recognizing these differences can enrich our commonwealth."
Continuing, Franklin indicated what he viewed the intended goals of the initiative to be in bringing the community together.
"I think that's the important thing for us is this is a topic that you have to be careful about because the last thing you want to do is take part in things that are divisive," he said. "So we've taken an approach that is about bringing everybody together. Bring everybody together at Penn State, bring everybody together in Centre County. Bringing everybody together in the state of Pennsylvania and hopefully being a leader in our country on this topic. Really excited about what our players and our program and staff came up with."
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