Note: i finished this article around 12:30 last night, but decided not to post because PSU fans were rioting at the time. Since, Dan Wetzel has penned an eerily similar column at yahoo. Peep it here, after you finish this of course.
Last Friday November 4th here were some of the storylines for PSU football.
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The season-long narrative was filled with the typical Joe Paterno talk of retirement, how much is he actually coaching the team, etc. Then late Friday, the Altoona Mirror amongst other media outlets broke the Jerry Sandusky Story. Last night, Joe Paterno after sixty-one years and five tumultous days Joe Paterno was fired.
The things that always hurt the most in life are the ones you don't see coming. When people die in accidents, friends lose a baby they were getting ready to meet, the truly unexpected. Joe Paterno was a man who won in an exemplary fashion at Penn State, donated millions to both Penn State and the Special Olympics and coached over 1500 men at Penn State. He has done good works for the people of his community and the community of College Football. No one would have expected that ole Joe could have turned a blind-eye to what Sandusky was up to.
Yet, it's become increasingly apparent that's what's happened here. The Grand Jury Report indicates Paterno was notified explicitly of the situation and reported it to his superiors. Legally, he appears to have covered his ass, but in the court of public opinion that doesn't mean squat. He didn't follow-up, he didn't do anything and Jerry Sandusky was working out on campus as recently as last week. Joe didn't do enough and neither did any of the other key decision makers at Penn State and for that they had to go. As they should.
Tonight the mob got it's justice and the key decision makers at Penn State have been removed except maybe Curley, but he'll get fired too. There will be other firings as time goes by and more details come out, more victims will come forward. The magnitude of awful attached to this story might not grow more, it might grow a lot more, we don't know.
A college buddy of mine was attending Virginia Tech when those shootings happened a few years ago. I had e-mailed to see if he was ok and luckily he was, but he had acquaintances who were killed that day. Within two days, he wrote that the only thing that would let that community heal is for them to be left alone. This is true at Penn State as well.
The mob justice has been served. It's time for the national focus to leave Penn State be so they can start focusing on the people who really matter in this: the victims. There are a number of children who will need lots of care and love in the next few months as their very intensely private matters become very public. As people living 500 miles away there's not much we can do for those victims, but perhaps we can all become a bit more vigilant in our neighborhoods.
It's time for us non Penn Staters to leave so the community can start putting itself back together and trusting each other again. When your Big Ten brethren see you on the field again, we'll be ready for a tough game of football. Hell, we might even commit some unsportsmanlike conduct penalties so you don't feel left out. Take your time, we'll be here for you.
The conference needs to remind PSU that this is an intolerable stain on the conference's reputation, first by removing the Paterno name from the title game trophy and giving PSU and least a conference probation - but I don't think we should penalize the PSU players. Maybe TV restrictions should be added if needed.
ReplyDeleteThere were some hints from the Big Ten this week that the Paterno-Stagg Trophy will be renamed in the offseason. I believe the paraphrased quote was something to the effect of "We revisit these things in the offseason."
ReplyDeleteMore importantly however is that the punishment of PSU needs to be very harsh. I kind of look at this like a serious bodily injury. The initial injury has been stopped from getting worse. Currently, they're in the triage stage, then treatment. I'm content to wait for serious punishments until the criminal trial of Sandusky and it's fallout is complete. If Sandusky is guilty and those perjury charges stick, I feel that very severe NCAA punishments are a must.
Criminals and one off acts exist and will happen, that doesn't make it right, but I at least understand it. Systemic and sustained cover-up of something like this to protect PSU football over some of the most gross violations mankind can commit to one another, cannot be allowed.