UNIVERSITY PARK– The sun gleams down, illuminating Old Main. It is a bright spring day at Penn State. Trees and flowers are beginning to bloom. Students eagerly scurry by on their way to class. 

Suddenly, a voice calls out across the campus, imploring students to stop and listen. Most avoid eye contact altogether. However, some choose to redirect their attention, and on occasion, ask a question or two. 

“For some reason when this generation is told they can’t know who God is… they say okay and move on. Certainly that is the easier way to go,” said Gary Cattell, “but what possible defense of that idea could be given?”

Gary Cattell is a Penn State icon known for preaching to students between noon and 5 p.m. at the Willard steps. He hopes to challenge the secularity he sees in our culture today by informing students that they can personally know God. 

Cattell took over for the former Willard Preacher, Bro Cope, in the early ‘80s. He found his calling delivering lectures to college students, first as a Protestant and now an Orthodox Christian.

“If you want to know God, you have to ask him who he is and be persistent with it. You have to ask him to show you the truth,” said Cattell.

The Willard Preacher is something students are introduced to without even having to step foot on campus. Just take one look at Penn State Barstool, and you can see a flood of content featuring the iconic preacher. 

Cattell has been the subject of many Tik Tok interviews as well as the face of countless memes on Instagram, such as one that states “You just lost to the Willard Preacher”.

Though most Penn State students just think of him as the man lecturing them on topics such as premarital sex, drinking, abortion, and same-sex relationships.

“When I walk by, I avoid eye contact with him, but always try to hear what he is saying,” said sophomore accounting major Emily Messerle.

            Penn State culture has made Cattell larger than life, but in his eyes, he is just another ordinary guy.

“It's not particularly healthy to see yourself (as a celebrity) so I resist seeing myself that way. Somebody came up to me a few days ago, and they said I've never met a celebrity before. I said you still haven't… the celebrity is only the one you don't know,” said Cattell.

            Cattell was born in Harrisburg and moved to State College at age 4. Religion was not a subject that was brought up much in his household, and by high school, he found himself questioning why he existed.

            “If there is a God, he’s the reason I exist, so then the question became is there a God or not,” said Cattell.

            He referred to himself at this time being agnostic, but curious. When he would look at the world, he thought to himself, “Well I'm gonna die one day, and that could mean I just cease to exist… I couldn’t figure out a reason why I just wanted to work 9-5 at a desk somewhere.”

            He took a somewhat different path though, choosing to fill the gap with partying. If there was no meaning to anything, then he decided he would have some fun.

            “A little bit of partying is fun, more must be more fun, but it didn't work out that way. It wasn't more fun, just more self destructive,” said Cattell.

            Cattell remembers these days as a time he felt the most lost. He was drinking, getting into drugs, and partying almost daily, a cycle that continued for years.

            With no hope left, he turned to God, “asking him” to enlighten him with the truth; he wanted to know if God was real. According to Cattell, that is exactly what happened. First, he says, he was shown that God is real, and second that it was the Christian God.

            “You don't know how he does it but he just makes it so abundantly clear to you that you can't question it anymore,” said Cattell.

            At the time Cattell was searching for answers, Bro Kope was already preaching at the Willard Building. In November of 1982, after listening to Kope speak and even conversing with him from time to time, Cattell came to believe God wanted him to do what Kope was doing.

            While Kope left to travel, Cattell took his preaching debut. Before this, he worked at a camp for people with disabilities.

Today, Cattell is married with four grown children, whom he likes to believe are still practicing their Orthodox Christian faith.

Before he gets to the Willard Building at noon, Cattell answers emails, gets in a full workout, and prays twice.

            His main focus these days is addressing secularity in our culture. He believes people today are “brainwashed” with the idea they cannot know who God is. 

“Between social media, the rest of the media, and the education system… (they are) so immersed in this idea that it is very difficult for anyone to break through,”  said Cattell.

Cattell draws upon ideas that come to him throughout the day, as well as conversations he has with students, before he starts preaching to the whole of the campus.

“These days I’m just trying to talk to people as they walk by, so I have about 10 seconds. I try to find something I can cycle every 10 seconds or so,” said Cattell.

One of these conversations actually caused Cattell to convert his religion when two graduate students studying Orthodox Christianity presented him with scriptures disproving the Protestant church.

“All christians disagree more than the church disagrees. When I went back to the earliest writings on the subject… they were consistent, they were right” said Cattell.

As for the red sweatshirt, Cattell puts it pretty plainly. For the same reason as preaching at the same location every day; if people need to ask him a question, they know where to go and what to look for.

            “The end goal is to try to show that Orthodox Christianity is the true religion. Since most people don't believe they can know who God is, we have to start way before that,” said Cattell.

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