page_title: Penn State Nittany Lions men's soccer
section_title: Team Formation (1910–1925)
hierarchical_section_title: Penn State Nittany Lions men's soccer / History / Team Formation (1910–1925)
caption_attribution_description: English: A photograph of the 1911 Penn State Men's soccer team, the first year of the teams existence.
context_page_description: The Penn State Nittany Lions men's soccer team is an intercollegiate varsity sports team of Pennsylvania State University. The team is a member of the Big Ten Conference of the National Collegiate Athletic Association. Penn State's intercollegiate soccer program began in 1911 and has won or shared 11 national championships and 6 conference tournament championships. In 1959, the team joined the National Collegiate Athletic Association when it added men's soccer to its program and in 1987 joined the Atlantic 10 Conference as a charter member. At the conclusion of its 1990 season the Nittany Lions left the conference to join the Big Ten Conference where it now plays today.
context_section_description: The first soccer match played at Penn State took place at the spring 1910 commencement between two teams made up of male students. Teams made up of members of the classes of 1910 and 1912 played against the classes of 1911 and 1913. The game ended in a 0-0 draw but helped lead the way for the formation of a formal school team. As soccer grew in popularity at Penn State the freshman class of 1914 established soccer practices to train for a proposed match between them and the sophomore class of 1913 which was planned for June 12. In May of 1911 Penn State athletic director and head football coach Pop Golden announced a plan for the addition of soccer to the athletics program after supporting the June match between the freshman and sophomore classes as well as the past commencement match. After a baseball game against the University of Virginia failed to be scheduled in spring of 1911 another commencement soccer game was planned instead, it was again an interclass match.
  In December of 1911 Penn State formally set a schedule of games. The team would go on the road from December 19 to 21 to face intercollegiate champion Haverford College, West Town School, and the University of Pennsylvania. The team finished the road series drawing its matches against Westtown School and University of Pennsylvania 1-1 and 0-0 respectively, and losing its match against Haverford College 3-2.
  In December of 1911 Penn State formally set a schedule of games. The team would go on the road from December 19 to 21 to face Haverford College, West Town School, and the University of Pennsylvania. The team returned to Penn State drawing two of its matches against West Town School and the University of Pennsylvania and losing its match against the University of Pennsylvania 3-2. The varsity team again slated a round of road matches in December of 1912. The team faced Franklin & Marshall College, Haverford College and Westtown School. The team attempted to schedule a match against the University of Pennsylvania but negotiations between the teams fell though. The Nittany Lions defeated Franklin & Marshall College 4-1, drew Haverford College 1-1, and defeated Westtown College 2-0. Penn State alumnus James G. White who was noted as having an interest in the development of a soccer program at Penn State donated $100 (equivalent to $2,649 in 2019) to fund the travel and equipment for both of these road trips.
caption: A photograph of the 1911 Penn State Men's soccer team.
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop 21.1 (Macintosh)", "Image DateTime": "2020:06:19 12:23:13", "Image ExifOffset": "168", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "334", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "6839", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1091", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "727"}