Beaver Stadium’s past:

Much of the steel still in the stadium today is from Beaver Field, which was originally constructed in 1909 near Rec Hall, and carted across campus when Beaver Stadium was built in spring 1960.

Beaver Stadium’s present:

From Sept. 12 to Oct. 10 this fall, the stadium’s resources will be strained to its limits when the Nittany Lions host five games and over a half-million people in 29 days.

Beaver Stadium’s future?

Good question. In many ways, Penn State football is at a crossroads – rebuild or build anew.

In a big way, that includes Beaver Stadium. Originally constructed in 1960 for $1.6 million, the stadium has undergone over a half-dozen major renovations, including one that included cutting the stadium in sections and jacking it up by eight feet.

In some ways, that’s hardly a strong foundation for a stadium that literally shakes or an entertainment world where high-def TV, beers in the frig and channel-surfing often win out over a slate of Buffalo, San Diego State and Army.

Now, as Beaver Stadium enters its 55th season in its present location, it comes with a host of problems and challenges that in number don’t quite match its capacity of 106,572. Still, for five straight weekends in September and October, the stadium will be tested. But that won’t be the end of it.

A TIME TO PLAN

There’s a lot on the line, next month and next year and next decade, as second-year athletic director Sandy Barbour said during the Coaches Caravan in May.

“It’s pretty clear to me that we need to put together a plan to address a whole lot of issues in Beaver Stadium,” she said. “Obviously, Beaver Stadium is historic. It’s a wonderful place where Penn State family gathers 107 strong on Saturday afternoons. But whether it be for working aspects of what we do -- like the press box -- or for fan amenities and the fan experience, there’s lots we need to address. And the only way to do that is systematically and to develop a master plan.”

The last major expansion project at Beaver Stadium came in the late 1990s, a $100 million project that added suites, 10,000 seats, a club level and the Mount Nittany Lounge in time for the start of the 2001 season.

That was 15 years and one legendary life ago. The world of live sports has changed – often more than even a victory, the fan experience is king. And in that regard, Beaver Stadium is admittedly lacking. And it’s a long list of shortages -- few concessions options, outdated plumbing, limited chairback seating, the constantly changing world of digital and WiFi, simple comfort…

What to do? These are decisions that cost millions of dollars and could cost Penn State thousands of loyal – and program-funding – fans.

“Any time you are renovating as opposed to starting anew from the ground up, there are challenges associated with that,” Barbour said in the spring. “And you just figure out the trade-offs.”

Renovating we get. “Starting anew from the ground up”? That sounds like building a new stadium.

No one is saying Penn State is considering razing Beaver Stadium and putting up a new stadium (although there’s plenty of acreage to the south, and I’d guess the outdoor track is expendable). But the dollars of intercollegiate athletics – Penn State’s annual athletic department budget is near $110 million, and growing – make giving it some deep and honest thought some sense. That $4,788 cost-of-attendance money that Penn State is paying per scholarship football player beginning this fall has to come from somewhere, and not just all that new Big Ten Network loot, either.

SANDY AND PHIL

Barbour and her right-hand man, Phil Esten, know the Fixer-Upper vs. New Home dilemma better than anyone. They’ve lived the equation from both sides. When it comes to the question of no or new stadium, there’s no 1-2 team like them in the country.

Esten is Penn State’s deputy athletic director and chief operating officer for intercollegiate athletics. As such, he oversees facilities – like Beaver Stadium. And athletics planning – for the future, as in the future of Beaver Stadium.

As an associate athletic director at the University of Minnesota, he oversaw the construction of the university’s on-campus $300 million football stadium, TCF Bank Stadium, which opened in 2009. (Its 52,525-seat capacity is 49.3% of Beaver Stadium’s.) Esten also played a key role in securing funding for about $90 million in individual and corporate support.

Esten left Minnesota in 2012 to work for Barbour, who was the athletic director at the University of California, Berkeley from 2004 until early 2014. Esten arrived just as Cal and Barbour finished a $321 million project to renovate the school’s Memorial Stadium. She faced plenty of massive hurdles: the Hayward Fault runs directly under the football field, which required a seismic retrofit that added tens of millions of dollars; tree-sitters protesting the project slowed it down for months and generated negative publicity; and, ultimately, funding was a nearly-insurmountable challenge.

STADIUM MAKEOVERS

Renovating isn’t cheap. Renovations to Husky Stadium at the University of Washington cost $280 million. At Texas A&M, Kyle Field was overhauled to the tune of $450 million. Arizona State’s Sun Devil Stadium is in the final stages of its $256 million renovation project. TCU’s football stadium expansion and upgrades were originally slated to cost about $105 million; they came in at $164 million. Renovating The Big House at Michigan cost a big $226 million.

At Texas A&M, the funding was broken down this way: $232 million in seat license revenue, $75 million in student ticket revenue and fees, $18 million in a facilities access agreement and $125 million in gifts from its 12th Man Foundation.

But big money can be slim pickins’ – unless you’re looking at oil money or are at Oklahoma State, where Boone Pickens gave the university $160 million, a decent chunk of which went to help fund the stadium’s $260 million renovation.

At Penn State, ice hockey got the big gift. And, as it is, Okie State still seats just about 60,000 for a home game. Penn State football is inching back to #100k, so going to #60k or #70k isn’t a possibility. Even if PSU does go with a new stadium down the road – or across Curtin Road – you have to figure it’ll still have to seat about 83,370 – which was exactly the capacity in 1986, when Penn State won its second national championship in four seasons.

Or, Penn State could retrofit Beaver Stadium with chairbacks by the tens of thousands, losing three seats or so per every 10 currently painted on the steel bleachers. Attendance would drop, but there would still be plenty of butts in seats. And at a higher price, no doubt. Either way, leaving the homefield at Beaver will still cost millions in simple upkeep given the stadium’s size, starkness and age, and lack of an up-to-date warranty.

What to do? As Churchill said about Russia in 1939, “It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.”

That could also be Sandy Barbour today, trying to explain – let alone decide upon – Beaver Stadium’s future.