PSU Case Study Program

If you went to Penn State, you'll probably know what the Case Study was. If not, you probably had a similar "program" at your school. In a nutshell, the Case Study was an event sponsored by the Rathskellar, probably in the running for nastiest/best bar at Penn State. The bar would open at around 9:00 a.m. on the last Saturday in March. People who entered the bar would buy a case of Rolling Rock ponies (7 oz. bottles), and would try to drink all of them througout the course of the day. The money that the bar collected would go to some charity, although I never found out which it was - not that it mattered, but it was nice to know that I was abusing my liver for a good cause.

It became a rather large event in the early 1990's, with people beginning to wait outside the bar soon after it closed the night before, vying for the right to buy the first case of "Rock." We generally got in line sometime around 6:00 a.m., which practically guaranteed us entrance to the Skellar with the first batch of people (the bar could only fit so many, so if you could not get into the bar in the first wave, you might have to wait a few more hours). Rolling Rock has never been a favorite of mine, as it seems to have the same effect on my insides as swallowing shards of glass would. But, I couldn't even consider drinking anything else during this event, because it was tradition.

Many great occurrences took place during Case Study - probably too many to mention (I am sure I will share individual ones at some point). One of the crowning achievements for me was being able to down two cases of Rolling Rock ponies during one of these (one in the morning, and one at night), and being a part of the record-breaking night, when 1,155 cases of Rolling Rock were sold.

Unfortunately, Graham Spanier, the Dean of Penn State, felt it would be best to work on shutting this event down, claiming that it gave Penn State a bad reputation. I believe he was eventually successful in his plan in castrating an event that students and alumni cherished (of course, money talks, so if the alumni were that upset about it, they coud've always stopped giving to the University). Ah, so is life, I guess.