A number of Penn State football fans were seen wearing Charlie Kirk’s “FREEDOM” T-shirts at Saturday night’s game against Oregon.
Footage and photos of the students in the shirts went viral across social media.
Oregon, which was Kirk’s favorite college football team, went on to win the game in a 30-24 thriller. Oregon defensive back Dylan Thieneman pulled in a game-sealing interception in overtime, ensuring Kirk’s favorite team won in front of thousands of supporters wearing his signature shirt.
Conservative influencer Benny Johnson organized an event that handed out 5,000 of the shirts to fans ahead of Saturday’s game in the Beaver Stadium parking lot.
Johnson shared footage earlier on Saturday that showed a line of people waiting for the shirts. The line wrapped around multiple sections of the parking lot, with the crowd cheering as he bragged about the length.
Eventually, a loud “USA!” chant broke out.
Turning Point USA (TPUSA) announced its event to give away 5,000 of the T-shirts to fans who attend the at the Oregon vs. Penn State game at Beaver Stadium in University Park, Pa., Saturday.
Kirk wore the now-iconic shirt on Sept. 10 as he spoke at a Utah Valley University event when a single shot was fired from the roof of a nearby building, which killed the 31-year-old husband and father of two. The assassination has devastated the nation, and TPUSA has vowed to continue the mission that Kirk worked so passionately for.
“In the vein, and in honor of Charlie Kirk, we are going to fight cultural battles, and we are going to win them in an arena that Charlie loved so very much — college football,” Johnson announced Thursday on “Will Cain Country.”
“Turning Point USA, at the game of the week, Penn State versus the Oregon Ducks, this is going to be a massive game. This was a game that Charlie Kirk was going to attend. Charlie Kirk loves Oregon, but he also has a bunch of fans at Penn State and has done huge events there,” Johnson continued. “Turning Point USA is going to be handing out 5,000 Charlie Kirk freedom shirts at that game.”
Johnson, who held up a “freedom” shirt identical to the one Kirk was wearing when he was killed, said it was going to be a whiteout game, which is a Penn State tradition where fans dress in all white.
Kirk has been frequently honored at major football events since his assassination earlier in September.
Oregon football head coach Dan Lanning previously offered his condolences to Kirk’s wife, Erika, and their two children following his team’s 34-14 victory over Northwestern earlier this month.
But in a prolonged answer regarding the current culture of the United States, Lanning implored Americans to look at his own locker room, saying, “The people in this world can learn a lot from [it].”
“You walk in that locker room, you’ve got guys of different races, guys of different backgrounds, different religions and you got a team that loves each other. Tons of differences. Where they come from, what they deal with and, ultimately, you’ve got a team that loves each other, and I think we’re missing some of that in our country,” Lanning said.
“I recently found out Charlie Kirk was an Oregon fan, right? I didn’t know that. I hurt for his wife, Erika, and their kids. That sort of evil should never exist in our country, and that’s what it is — evil. I remember having to explain that to my family, right? I remember sitting down with my kids and explaining what happened, and they’re talking about people talking about it at school. And it’s just sad, right?” Lanning said.
“But it’s just as sad every day it seems like we deal with some sort of violence that’s going on in our country, whether it’s school kids in Colorado or kids in Minnesota at churches. I mean, life matters, and I think we’ve lost sight of that. But I just wish the world could learn a little bit of something from our locker room because we’ve got a bunch of people with differences, and what you’ve got in there is a bunch people there.”
