Report: Penn State to Discontinue Singing of ‘Sweet Caroline’ at Games Due to ‘Touching Me, Touching You’ Lyrics

Changes are in the air at Penn State for this year’s upcoming football season, and one of them will be of unique interest to Red Sox fans.

The school is discontinuing its tradition of singing “Sweet Caroline” during games due to concerns raised by school officials in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky scandal, according to The Altoona Mirror. In particular, the school was worried that the “touching me, touching you” lyrics of the song would be pereceived as inappropriate in the wake of PSU’s child sex abuse scandal.

The Neil Diamond hit, sung at Fenway Park every game during the middle of the eighth inning, was written by Diamond about Caroline Kennedy in the 1960s, when she was then 11 years old.

Penn State is making several other changes in preparation for the upcoming season, beyond music choices. The team has announced that player uniforms will have last names on the back for the first time, and that the team will arrive to the stadium earlier and players will enter not wearing their pads already.