In front of thousands of fans gathered in Rec Hall Saturday, ready to welcome home the newly crowned Big Ten champion Penn State football team, senior quarterback Michael Robinson entered the gymnasium in the middle of the pack, championship trophy by his side.

Robinson and his teammates and coaches were fresh off the plane from East Lansing, Mich., where a 31-22 victory over Michigan State left the Nittany Lions at 10-1 and on top of the conference, for the first time since 1994.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you," Robinson reiterated to the screaming fans and supporters. His two co-captains, junior linebacker Paul Posluszny and senior cornerback Alan Zemaitis, would also say thank you when it was their turn with the microphone.

But instead of saying thank you to the fans, the more-deserved thank you would have been in the other direction -- a thank you to a core group of intense, scrappy and inspired football players who had a concept in their heads for how this season would go and never backed down.

On a campus built upon student groups, it's easy to see the football team as a separate and disparate example, as the coaches, staff, facilities and revenue generated make it seem different. But this 2005 team is the greatest example of students being the change they wish to see; of taking it upon themselves, to mandate the revival of a unit to which they have devoted their college careers and leave it better than they found it.

This Big Ten championship was won over the course of eight conference games, but it was built in the entire year that has elapsed since the Lions played the Spartans in the 2004 season finale. After that point, the student leaders on the team seized control of the squad and its destiny. The tri-captains were elected in May, but they had been molding the 2005 team long before that point.

The team's leaders were the ones who ensured that intensity was upped and that the entire team chanted "Focus" before practice and "Rose Bowl" after. And it was only the players who were able to let their actions back up their words, as Robinson's seemingly miraculous fourth-and-15 conversion in Evanston, Ill., and Zemaitis' three interceptions Saturday did. This kind of leadership not only shifted mindsets and rebuilt a team for this year, but also for years hereafter.

This season has been a gift to the Penn State student body, but what's most important is that it's a gift to the student body from other members of the student body. It might have seemed impossible at the outset, but one group of students in just one season has not only restored euphoria to a town, but also changed the history of an institution.