Final Four preview on MatchPint

April 5, 2013 1 Comment

March Madness has finally progressed to April Impatience! But the field has narrowed to four — Louisville, Wichita State, Michigan and Syracuse. To honor these teams,  the Empire State Building will shine its lights in each of the four colors of those teams on Saturday. I have also done something to honor those teams: I’ve written about them so people in the U.K. know that they exist!

My Final Four preview is up now at Mud, Sweat and Beers, the MatchPint blog.

Click here to check it out.

It may not have vibrant colors that illuminate the famous New York City skyline, but it’s short, sweet and you don’t have to book Megabus tickets to see it.

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SOLO IN ENEMY TERRITORY PROJECT PART 2: PENN STATE VS. ILLINOIS

October 5, 2012 Leave a comment

By Pat Combs

Driving across Indiana lends itself well to thinking. There’s not a lot out there to distract a driver; this shouldn’t surprise anyone.

 http://www.gourmet.com/images/gmtlive/2012/100312/impact-of-2012-drought_608.jpg

( I didn’t actually take the above picture, but you get the point.)

I drove from my place in Lafayette across the border to Champaign, Ill., last Saturday to see my first Penn State football game in nearly two years.  I hadn’t seen the Nittany Lions play in person since they beat Michigan in 2010.

It’s safe to say that things have changed since then.

That’s primarily what filled my mind as I made my way through metropolises like Wingate and Veedersburg.  As Pete’s story from earlier this week mentioned, he and I each took in a game – or, in his case, games – in “enemy” territory.  It’s always been a dream of mine to see as many different college football stadiums as possible, so at least Memorial Stadium could be checked off the list.

You’ll notice that I omit words like “hostile” from this piece.  There’s a reason for that – Memorial Stadium and its fans couldn’t have been any more welcoming.  Naturally, I was concerned about how Illinois fans would treat opposing fans (namely, me) of an embattled team, but Illini fans were extremely benign.

Almost sleepy.

The worst I saw was a woman sitting in front of me who constantly complained about her team’s play during the game, but she’s an Illinois football fan – how much could she expect?  There was also a couple sitting a few rows behind me who seemed like they were straight out of a terrible football-themed comedy.  The man yelled “BLITZ!!!” before every play of the first half.  Every.  Play.  His wife yelled “TOUCHDOWNS!!!” only slightly less frequently (her use of the plural form of the word went for naught; Illinois scored just seven points).  Other than observing their knowledge of two football words, they seemed to know nothing of the game.

The positive experiences far outnumbered the minor annoyances of BLITZ and TOUCHDOWNS.  To start with, I had a terrific seat.  A woman and her son had an extra ticket and sold it to me for a very reasonable price.  I had gone to the game without tickets, figuring I’d gamble an hour-and-a-half drive rather than pay $50 to see Illinois football (would you?).  I spent some time in the Penn State alumni tent and had a pretty good time…seven minutes in, I’d already secured a free Rice Krispies treat and orange juice.  Big Ten football demands hearty breakfasts.

Not a bad view for $20.

While in the tent, I saw an older Penn State fan named Walter.  I did not discuss the game with Walter, nor did I even talk to him.  I didn’t even introduce myself to him.  How did I know Walter’s identity?  He was wearing a knitted sweater that had to have been 30 years old with his name emblazoned down the sleeve.  If I weren’t a grad student living on a stipend, I would’ve offered him at least $40 for it.  Sadly, the lighting in the tent combined with the obvious creepiness of taking a cell phone picture of an old guy’s arm prevented me from obtaining photographic evidence.

Everyone in Champaign (and Urbana, technically the city in which I parked) was beyond friendly.  Even the Illini band waved to and cheered for the Blue Band.  The parking attendant who took my money wished me luck and told me that the parking lot was full of mostly Penn State fans (she was right).  As I walked into Memorial Stadium, I passed a guy selling programs who was more than accommodating with his sales pitch:

“Yinz wanna buy a program?”

Yes, even the fine people of central Illinois are at least proficient in Pittsburghese.  One woman responded that she felt at home.

Memorial Stadium itself is a venue more notable for its architecture and history than its atmosphere.  It’s a stadium that held many games in which the Illini were led by Red Grange and displays its age well.  It would probably be a pretty cool scene should its inhabitants begin holding more meaningful games; I think the fans would be there to provide a strong environment if the stakes were higher than in the current post-Zook era.  The stadium has 200 columns ringing its exterior, giving it a pretty cool look.  Inside, large banners hung from the rafters display famous former players such as Grange, Dick Butkus and former Steelers legend Matt Cushing.  It occurred to me that I was inside the stadium where my favorite Penn State player of all-time, Brian Milne, scored the biggest touchdown of his career to cap one of the great drives in Nittany Lion history.

The external walls of Memorial Stadium.

The game itself was a successful one for myself and other Penn State fans, but my time on the inside of Memorial Stadium wasn’t all that eventful.  Aside from a convincing 35-7 Penn State win and the several perplexing chants of “OSKEE-WOW-WOW,” it was actually a pretty dull game.

In some ways, my excursion to Illinois was a bit disappointing.  I went to a college football game – a Division I football game!  A Big Ten football game! – completely devoid of animosity or even mild fan-inspired intensity.  I obviously didn’t want to hear anything disrespectful directed at Penn State fans, but I was looking forward to at least some football-related chiding from the home fans.  I wanted competitive banter.  I wanted some jawing back and forth.  I wanted just a little well-placed, football-specific vitriol.

I found none.

But as a Penn State fan traveling to a foreign stadium, I know how fortunate this situation was.  The Illinois fans I encountered were nothing short of classy and I heard not one word from an Illini faithful regarding the events of the past 11 months.  Of course, I’m glad I didn’t, because, for at least a few hours, football was about football, even for Illinois fans.

Now all they need to do is have their offense work on making TOUCHDOWN plural.

The proof of Penn State’s dominant performance.

 

— Pat Combs is a contributing writer for the Keystone Sports Spot. He is a Penn State alum and current Purdue grad student.

 

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Coming Events: A closer look at the Solo in Enemy Territory Project

September 24, 2012 4 Comments

Earlier this week, I got a text from my buddy that said the following:

“Driving to Champaign this Saturday for PSU at Illinois. Alone. Guest blog post for Keystone Sports Spot?”

No one had ever asked to do this for me before so I jumped on the opportunity. After all, the more writers the better and I’d never say to an old college journalist friend. After I told him it should be a cool take, he replied:

“Especially since I’m the loser driving an hour and 45 minutes to see a game alone. Haha.”

To which I replied:

“I’m going to two Mets/Pirates games alone this week.”

My buddy didn’t hesitate to say, “Hahaha. You win!”

That’s when we came up with an editorial idea.

So what’s the point in my telling you about our little mobile exchange? Well first, if you didn’t realize it already, I’ll be having my close friend Pat on the Keystone Sports Spot to guest blog about the Penn State vs. Illinois football game this Saturday. Like myself, Pat graduated from Penn State in 2010 and he was also a journalism major.

Second, we’ll be putting together a 2-part series documenting our recent sports experiences from some pretty unique angles. Pat is venturing from Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind. to Champaign, Ill., alone. He, of course, will be going as a Penn State fan.

Penn State had a rough season before it even started. Up to this point, Penn State has been ordered to pay $60 million in sanctions, had a four-year football postseason ban enacted, and all of its wins before this season dating back to 1998 have been vacated. What’s more, Penn State cannot win the Big Ten Championship and has lost 17 scholarship players since March because of personal reasons, NCAA sanctions or dismissals. Essentially, Penn State isn’t playing for anything right now. What could make their next matchup fairly less relevant?  They’re playing against a 2-2 Fighting Illini team that lost at home last week to Louisiana Tech, 52-24. Illinois will be lucky to have a winning season, let alone contend for a Big Ten Championship or a decent bowl game.

Not the greatest matchup.

Similarly, I will be attending two Pirates vs. Mets game at Citi Field this week, also by myself. This situation threatens to be more agonizing than the Penn State game. It’s September and neither the Mets nor the Pirates are even close to making the playoffs.

Before the Pirates series started, the Mets had a record of 69-83. They were the fourth-worst team in the National League and were 23 games back of the division lead. Fan apathy is at a season high.

The Pirates were faring only slightly better. Before they met the Mets, the Buccos had a record of 75-77 and were 16.5 games back of the division leading Reds. More noticeable, however, was the Pirates’ epic collapse this season the second year in a row. Only a few months ago, the Pirates were leading the NL Central and were 16 games over .500. Not only did it appear that they would finish with their first winning season in 19 years (yes, with a 1 and a 9), they appeared to be a possible playoff team. At the beginning of this season, a second wild-card spot was added to both leagues, further enhancing the Pirates shot at the post season. Their odds increased by 12 percent, in fact. But somehow, the Pirates blew it and are on the verge of completing the most epic collapse in the history of baseball.

Essentially, we will be documenting the irrelevance of four teams – two early in their season and two late in theirs – and chronicling our experiences of going solo into enemy territory. If you have no idea what to expect, don’t worry. Neither do we.

Enjoy.

– Pete Dombrosky

Editor-in-chief, Keystone Sports Spot

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Death Penalty May Have Hurt Penn State Less

July 24, 2012 25 Comments

When the Joe Paterno statue was taken down outside Beaver Stadium on Penn State’s campus Sunday, a small portion of the recent scandal’s visibility was also removed. No longer would people be able to gaze upon a symbol whose new meaning is deception and human indecency.

But sanctions handed out to Penn State this morning ensured that the football program will continue to serve as a public reminder of those horrible acts conducted by Jerry Sandusky and the subsequent cover up by Penn State officials.

NCAA President Mark Emmert announced that Penn State will be penalized with a $60 million fine, a four-year football postseason ban and vacation of all wins since 1998. The school also must reduce its number of scholarships from 25 to 15 per year for four years.

It was a harsh penalty, but it wasn’t the death penalty. That would have meant football at Penn State would have been suspended completely for up to four years.

During the announcement this morning, Emmert said that the death penalty would have hurt too many innocent people. “Suspension of the football program would bring with it significant unintended harm to many who had nothing to do with this case. The sanctions we have crafted are more focused and impactful than that blanket penalty.”

Many believe that Penn State got lucky in not receiving the death penalty. But I’m not so sure. These sanctions may actually be more impactful than the death penalty when it comes to the football program and public perception of the university. Penn State must now endure the “living-death penalty.”

With these actions, the NCAA is doing more than just keeping the football program from playing in the postseason and limiting recruiting and finances. These sanctions will keep the football program in full view of public scrutiny as it carries out its sentence. It is a public shaming stemming from the infamy that Penn State officials brought on themselves. The Nittany Lion will be shut into the stockade and the world will decide whether or not to let the tomatoes fly.

If the football program was completely shut down for a few years, the talk of Penn State football in any media capacity would die off quickly. There would be no football to speak of. Beaver stadium would be empty every Saturday and no one would feel the usual buzz in the air of a fall day in Happy Valley. Maybe this scenario of talking about nothing would work in a plot line of Seinfeld, but not for the national media. It would be an unsettling quietness, but it would be quiet nonetheless.

Then in a few years, Penn State would return to playing football and recruiting players like it always has. It would be a rebirth of football in State College, rising from the ashes and establishing a new identity forged in the absence of football. Their difficult sentence would be over and a new page would turn, helping people to forget about the previous chapters written before it.

The death penalty would have meant a fresh start eventually.

Instead, Penn State will begin a four-year span of meaningless football and public scrutiny. There will be no break from media analysis for the football program. There will be no fresh starts. There will be no bowl games, no Big Ten Championships and no hope to make the NCAA playoff when it begins in 2014. But there will be plenty of time each Saturday for broadcasters to talk about the events leading to the current situation. Viewers at home and at Penn State games will witness the walking-dead Nittany Lions carry out their penalty every week of the season. Talk may die down as time goes on, but the scandal will always be the 800-pound gorilla in Beaver Stadium.

Public perception of Penn State football won’t be helped by a mediocre team, either. With the loss of scholarships and inability to play for Big Ten Championships, National Championships and bowl games, the talent wells for Happy Valley are bound to hit drought conditions. Elite players won’t want to come to Penn State to play for nothing. These young men will play for Penn State’s competition and make the Nittany Lions’ road to success on the field that much harder.

The football team will be bled to death slowly for the next four years and beyond as fewer and fewer top recruits commit. A team of walk-ons just won’t win many games. In the coming years, Penn State will set a different precedent besides the sanctions imposed against them: Never in college football history will such a pedestrian team get so much media attention.

But public perception and sanctions aside, I believe Penn State will recover from this someday. The next decade will be an uphill crawl for everyone who represents the university – the football team, students, alumni and fans (myself included). Success with honor may not have meant anything to Jerry Sandusky, Joe Paterno and other Penn State brass, but it still means something to the rest of us and it’s our duty not to forget what happened while still moving on to set a new standard of excellence.

Football at Penn State will be relevant some day in the future, but it will be the most publicly scrutinized return to relevance in the history of college football.

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Will Centre County Locals Doom Sandusky?

June 7, 2012 Leave a comment

Today, the final jurors were picked for the Jerry Sandusky sexual misconduct trial. The 12 jurors and four alternates were decided today and yesterday for the trial that’s set to begin on Monday, June 11.

More than 600 jury duty summonses were sent out to residents in Centre County, where Penn State University is located. The judge said before jury selection that people with Penn State connections would not automatically disqualify potential jurors, just as they could pledge to be impartial. So it came as no surprise that many of the jurors have Penn State ties.

According to reports from various media outlets, at least four of the first nine jurors selected had some kind of direct Penn State connection and all four of the jurors selected today said they had ties to the school. One is a full professor at Penn State. Another is an administrative assistant and a dance teacher at the continuing education program at the school.

The jury also includes a Penn State senior, a man with bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the school and a woman who has been a football season ticket holder since the 1970s. One of the alternate jurors selected is a woman in her 30s who graduated from Penn State in 2007 with a degree in human development. There are also a handful of people who claim to have no ties to Penn State or Sandusky.

For a detailed breakdown of all the jurors, here’s a great place.

My initial gut reaction told me that I don’t trust Centre County residents to have the ability to be completely impartial in this case. I believed that anyone who lives or works in Centre County probably has a strong, negative opinion regarding Jerry Sandusky.  I thought a jury made up of locals would help the prosecution in the end. It even seemed reasonable to think that any one of these jurors could have lied about being impartial for the chance to lock up Sandusky for life.

After all, Penn State is the life-blood and driving force behind the population in Centre County. Anything that negatively affects Penn State negatively affects Centre County. Penn State has a bigger alumni association than any other school and many of them reside in that region. And even if you live there and don’t have a direct connection with the university, odds are good you are a fan of the football program and its late coach Joe Paterno.

Paterno, one of the most prominent and respected people in the history of Penn State, was fired because of the Sandusky allegations. He died of cancer shortly after and some believe it was because he lost the will to fight his disease with football no longer in his life. If you’re old enough to be a juror for this trial, you’re old enough to know how much Joe Paterno meant to the university and the surrounding area. Even if you agreed with Paterno’s firing, it’s difficult to ignore that Sandusky was the root of it.

BUT…

Just because Centre County has such a huge contingent of Penn State and Joe Paterno fans doesn’t mean people there can’t be impartial. The defense wanted to keep the jury limited to locals for a reason. It wanted Centre County residents because they would have a better understanding of the case and because Centre County has a greater population of well-educated individuals than other rural, central Pennsylvania regions. The defense decided it would benefit Sandusky more to have more educated people with Penn State pride than less educated ones without it.

That strategy may pay off for Sandusky.

Even if there are people on the jury who lied about their impartiality, could it be possible that all of them did? Maybe, but it’s unlikely.

The fact is, it takes only one person to hang a jury. If Sandusky’s defense can convince just one person on that panel that he’s innocent, he might have a chance. But can Sandusky’s defense convince every juror he’s innocent on all 52 counts?

I highly doubt it, even if there is a lack of physical evidence.

The odds are stacked against Sandusky that he’ll get off scot-free. But if by some unlikely turn of events he comes out of this trial as a free man, move over Lou Gehrig. Sandusky will be latest ‘luckiest man of the face of the earth.’

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The Bill O’Brien Hire: Keeping Things In Perspective

January 7, 2012 Leave a comment

Last night I was half asleep in bed, when breaking news about Penn State’s head football coach search flashed across my television screen. I was instantly awake and I honestly got goose bumps. But only partly because I was excited to hear who it was. Mostly, it was because I believed it was the first step back to normalcy for the university. Now before you tell me that a new coach in Happy Valley is not at all normal – considering this hasn’t happened in about half a century – remember what has been normal lately in the Penn State community: one of, if not the biggest scandal to ever occur in major collegiate sports. As Penn State fans, our normal became people cracking jokes when we wore PSU clothing. Normal was seeing the bottom line on ESPN scroll news about a new victim speaking up about alleged abuse from Sandusky, nearly every day. Normal was also our fairly average starting quarterback knocking himself unconscious during a fight and suffering a seizure a few weeks before the Ticket City Bowl. Then normal became our terrible back-up quarterback help the rest of the team sink into bowl mediocrity at a half-empty stadium in Texas on January 2. Suddenly the latest “normal” for Penn State doesn’t seem so bad to me. Now we have the prospect of having a winning future. And because it’s awhile until the next Penn State regular season football game, we won’t know if O’Brien will be successful for some time. But we can at least have hope. That’s pretty good considering how hopeless it has seemed for Penn State in the recent past.

I’m also aware that some folks refuse to have hope for Bill O’Brien. His hiring is getting blasted by the media and Penn State alumni alike ever since the news dropped. Many former Nittany Lion football players, such as LaVar Arrington, Matt Millen and Todd Blackledge have all questioned the decision. And it is all because O’Brien is not a “Penn State guy.” It’s as if this “outsider” can’t do the job because he’s not “one of us.” Give me a break, that sounds like some sort of cult. I couldn’t care less if Bill O’Brien isn’t a Penn State guy. Is that really such a big deal? There have been plenty of other college football coaches who have found success at schools that they had no previous ties to. Pete Carrol wasn’t a USC guy, Chip Kelly wasn’t an Oregon guy, Les Miles wasn’t an LSU guy and Nick Saban wasn’t an Alabama guy. I’m not saying O’Brien will live up to any of these standards, but it just shows that success in college football can come from the outside.

Former Lion quarterback Kerry Collins came out and stood up for O’Brien today. He called all alumni football players to support the new guy, even if they didn’t want him in the first place. Collins urged former players to spend less time criticizing O’Brien for not being a Penn State guy and spend more time showing him what makes Penn Staters great and treat him with respect and show him support. Collins called for a united front to stand by our leader whoever it is, because Penn State needs leadership now more than ever. At this point, I think we should all follow Collins’ lead. The football team doesn’t need a Penn State guy, it needs a winner. And last time I checked, O’Brien has a much better chance of winning football games at Penn State now than he does going back in time and having some kind of affiliation with Penn State.

The naysayers will drive home the point that he has no head coaching experience. And that’s a valid point. A head coaching job isn’t as much about the Xs and Os as it is managing people, kids in fact. There’s a big difference between working with the best and richest athletes in America and trying to improve a 19-year-old that is rough around the edges in both football and academics. True, there are many different facets to the college job compared to the pro job. But remember, it all comes down the same thing: football. O’Brien is a highly talented football mind. He has potential and it’s not like he was a former bowling coach. He was a football guy. He’s had experience with the New England Patriots, Duke, Maryland, Brown and Georgia Tech. He’s been a running backs coach, a tight ends coach, an inside linebackers coach, a quarterbacks coach, a wide receivers coach and an offensive coordinator. The total record of the teams O’Brien was coaching for is 151-92. He was a part of 10 winning seasons and only two losing ones. All of that has to count for something right? I know it might not mean much considering coordinators and position coaches don’t get credited with wins, but I’d rather be optimistic, given the fact that a big name didn’t accept the job and Bill O’Brien did. We don’t have a choice right now, so why not try and think positively?

I’m not going to promise that O’Brien will carry on the winning tradition at Penn State. Right now, there’s no way to tell. Let’s just wait and see before we decide whether Bill O’Brien can be a Penn State guy or not because right now, he is Penn State’s guy, whether we like it or not.

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We’ll Miss You Joe…

November 10, 2011 1 Comment

As journalist, I was trained in college to work with facts and leave my own personal feelings out when writing about sports, aside from writing columns of course. There isn’t room for opinion when writing news stories and we are taught to gather information and present it with as little personal bias as possible. I suppose right now I’m fortunate that I don’t cover Penn State football for a newspaper, because I now realize that it’s difficult for me to draw a line between my head and my heart – what I know Joe should have done and my overall respect and admiration for him.

A few days ago, I was 99 percent sure that Paterno would be fired or would resign in the very near future. I understood all the facts that had been presented in this case and I felt like I had come to terms with the future of Joe Pa. I read the grand jury report, constantly checked for updates regarding the case and delved into the situation with a previous blog analysis. I knew that Joe messed up. I knew that he was as good as gone. But still, I was surprisingly unprepared to hear about his firing. It was like knowing a tidal wave was coming days before it reached land and still being surprised when I saw water rushing up the streets.

To me and many other Penn State alumni and supporters, Joe Paterno was like the sky above us and the air we breathed. No matter what happened, he was always there. By the time I was born, Joe had already been the head coach at Penn State for 21 years.  He had already won two national championships and a Big Ten title, with two more Big Ten titles coming in 2005 and 2008. In my life time, Joe Paterno coached in 303 games, amassing 210 wins. I certainly don’t remember all of them, but I remember some of the important ones. I was at the 2005 Orange Bowl when Joe earned his 21st bowl win, topping his longtime rival Bobby Bowden. I was in the crowd at Beaver stadium when Joe’s Nittany Lions rallied from an 18-point deficit to beat Ohio State, earning him his 324th win and passing Bear Bryant for the record of most wins for a coach in major college football history. I remember standing amongst 100,000-plus people on November 6, 2010 in State College when Paterno recorded his 400th career victory with a 35–21 victory over Northwestern. Facing a 21–0 deficit, the Lions scored 35 unanswered points, tying Paterno’s largest comeback victory as a coach. I was also present when Paterno earned win 400, a number that had never been reached in major college football history.But more importantly, I remember how I felt every Saturday in State College watching Joe lead his team out of the tunnel. I got chills each and every time. Going to Penn State games was, is and always will be one of my favorite activities in my life. Unfortunately, it may never feel the same without ol’ Joe.

Joe also impacted me off the football field. I studied every week at the Paterno library, to which Joe had donated millions of dollars to improve. The fact that it is called the “Paterno library” tells a lot about the man. Penn State is the only university in the country to have a football stadium named after a school president and a library named after the football coach. Paterno showed everyone how much he valued the educational part of college, ahead of what happened on his football field. And despite his success (Joe earned more than 10 different awards in major college football, amassed 409 wins and 24 bowl wins, and coached more than 350 players who went on to play in the NFL) he couldn’t have been more humble. He would rarely take credit for wins, rather giving the esteem to his players and fellow coaches. He never argued over his contracts, despite making tremendously less than most other major college football coaches. And when his salary became public knowledge in 2006, Paterno said that “I got all the money I need,” even though he probably could have been making a lot more.

Back when I was in undergrad at Penn State, I used to walk by his house on occasion. Before someone told me it was his house, I would have NEVER guessed that the most significant icon in college football lived there. It’s small and modest at the end of a one-way street in a quiet neighborhood just off campus. Joe didn’t want anything more than that. He was content living in the quaint house with his wife Sue, and though will have some rough days ahead, I imagine he’ll be happy to keep on living in that house in a town that has always loved him.

Although we’ll never see Paterno on the sidelines at Beaver stadium again, his bronze statue will remain outside of it with the inscription “Joseph Vincent Paterno: Educator, coach and humanitarian.” What he has done for me, Penn State and college athletics will go on unmatched in history. And when I hear “Penn State,” I’ll always think of black Nike shoes, rolled up khaki pants and coke bottle glasses.

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Say It Ain’t So Joe…

November 8, 2011 2 Comments

It’s “College Football Live” on ESPN. Chris Fowler is interviewing Kirk Herbstreit about Joe Paterno. Herbstreit is dressed in all black. The background behind him is a dimly lit room and a mantle with picture frames and football helmets covering it. The talk is about “what now for Penn State?” Matt Millen, a former player at Penn State, has been commenting virtually all day. He’s visibly upset. And Tom Rinaldi is live at Paternoville at Beaver Stadium, reporting reactions from students. There’s no other way to describe it, at first glance, ESPN is covering the death of Joe Paterno.

No, Joe Paterno has not actually passed away, but his football coaching legacy is on its death bed. As I’m writing this, I’m distraught. I don’t think I’ve ever been so down because of anything in sports short of an actual death. I was hoping to hear something about the strange concept that is the BCS, but instead “College Football Live” is “Live: Penn State Scandal.” Fowler just said that they won’t even report on any of the football games approaching this weekend. This show is exclusively about Joe Paterno. Right now, I’m positive Paterno will either step down as head coach of Penn State or he will be terminated by the university, most likely sometime this week. The graphic on the screen says “Report: Penn State said to be preparing for Joe Paterno’s exit.” There are not any substantiated facts about Joe’s future quite yet, but I’m afraid there’s no hope for him. His weekly news conference was cancelled today, so it appears Joe is taking the 5th. I know that isn’t a positive determination of guilt, but in the public’s eyes (and in mine), Joe’s not talking because he failed to talk when he should have.

You see, Joe covered himself LEGALLY. He reported the alleged incident to his superior, Penn State Athletic Director Tim Curley. If he had failed to say anything to anyone, he would have already been fired. But ultimately, what he did (or didn’t) do probably added a few days at the most to his tenure. What will bring him down is the fact that he testified under oath to a grand jury that Mike McQueary told him Sandusky was in the showers with a child and he was “fondling or doing something of a sexual nature.” It’s pretty clear that Joe knew Sandusky was committing a crime. Those exact words “fondling or doing something of a sexual nature” make it clear that Joe knew. If that somehow isn’t a crime, then it is at least a good enough reason for Penn State to give him the boot.

Paterno is losing tons of support as I’m typing this, at least that’s what is on the “bottom line” on ESPN. I’m confident that if I continue watching for the next few hours, there will be new updates almost constantly. The Lions are at practice right now, as is Joe. As soon as it ends, the media will cover him leaving and going home. I think these might be some of the the last images of Joe leaving a football field.

I could be wrong and I’m almost hoping I’m wrong. As an alumnus, I take a lot of pride in my school and the football team that I devoted countless weekends to over the years. Paterno is obviously a legend and the biggest icon associated with Penn State (that’s why I chose to put a picture of him at the top of my website.) We cling to our icons, because they are who we wish we could be, to some extent. Joe Pa was also the icon of “success with honor.” That’s something that I strive to be. I want to do things well while doing them the right way. That was always Paterno. School always came first and Joe’s players’ graduation rates were always very high. Joe found ways to motivate his kids for decades and that usually meant success on the football field, as well as success in the classroom. That is why I’m sad. These concepts and icons that I used to cling to now are tainted, all because Joe did too little.

I’d like to hope I would have done more if I would have been in Joe’s spot. I’d like to think that I would have reported the event to the police as soon as Mcqueary told me about what he saw Sandusky doing. But the truth is, I don’t know. The only way to know how a person would react in a situation is to actually present them with that situation. Unfortunately, Joe was presented with that situation and he screwed up. Sandusky was a man that Joe knew for decades and they both helped each other win a pair of national championships. They seemingly had a very tight professional relationship that Joe might even describe as a friendship. (I think it’s unlikely that they weren’t friends.) Given those assumptions, Joe may have been tremendously conflicted about what he heard his friend was supposedly doing. What do you think you’d do if you found out your friend was doing terrible things to kids? Well, I’m sure you think you’d do the right thing too, but there’s only one way to know.

I can understand why Joe did too little, and hell, maybe I would have done the same thing. But Joe can’t un-ring that bell. I’m sure he probably wishes he had done more, but the past is the past and he cannot change it. We must learn to live with our decisions and actions, and so must Joe.

Rest in peace Joe Paterno, this is the death of your football legacy. I always knew this day would come; it’s just too bad that it had to happen in this way.

This is how I wish to remember Paterno, unfortunately it has an ironic title for someone who may have to quit.

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Jerry Sandusky: We Barely Knew You

November 7, 2011 4 Comments

Something has finally taken my mind off of the quarterback problems that Penn State has been having this season. And unfortunately, it’s much graver in nature. By now, you’ve probably heard about the scandal at Penn State involving former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky. Allegedly, he sexually assaulted eight different young boys over a 15 year period.

There are a few things that really sicken me about this whole situation. The first is the fact that Sandusky founded the Second Mile organization in 1977. On the Second Mile’s website, it states:

“The Second Mile, founded in 1977 in State College, Pennsylvania, is a statewide non-profit organization for children who need additional support and who would benefit from positive human contact. The Second Mile plans, organizes, and offers activities and programs for children – and adults who work with them – to promote self-confidence as well as physical, academic, and personal success.”

It really makes you wonder if Sandusky had the evil intention of launching this program just so he could get closer to younger kids in the hopes of somehow sexually abusing them. We may never know his intentions for the program, but it’s clear that Sandusky should never have been allowed to be around kids in the first place. Unfortunately, hindsight is 20/20.

There were previous allegations that Sandusky had conducted sexual misconduct on children before these latest ones sprung up. In 1998, there was a police investigation in which Sandusky made admissions about inappropriate contact in the shower room with a child. In the end, nothing came out of it. And apparently, it was a close call for Sandusky that didn’t scare him away from these types of actions. Even after the 1998 event, Sandusky was still allowed on Penn State’s campus and even more mystifying, he was allowed on the football facility premises with children – alone. There were some reports that Sandusky was even in the Lasch football building working out as recently as last week. How could this happen? Penn State is a school that prides itself on success with honor. It’s one of a handful of major football schools in the nation that never had major recruiting violations and other than a few other isolated incidents involving player conduct off the field, Penn State has been golden. Penn State’s athletic director Tim Curley and Vice President Gary Schultz apparently knew about Sandusky’s actions and never did a thing about it. No one called the police. It was brushed aside, and in my opinion, covered up. Like I mentioned before, Penn State was a clean school and it seems that these two “higher ups” tried to ensure that it stayed clean, whether misconduct had occurred or not. We don’t have many answers right now, so it will take some time to find out who knew what and when.

Another reason why this case really disturbs me is because I had met Jerry Sandusky on quite a few occasions. He was friends of a family that lived in my area years ago and I was on the same little league team as a kid from this family. Jerry attended a few of these little league games, and because of his status as a Penn State football coach, we were always excited to see him there. I also had the opportunity to meet him on a few occasions while attending an annual football camp in my area. The man that ran the camp was the father of the little leaguer I played with, so it made sense that he brought Jerry in to talk to the campers about football and life. I don’t remember exactly what was said when I met Sandusky, but I do remember he came off as a very nice person. Despite his elite status as a well-known football coach, he was very down to earth and extremely personable, especially to kids. If these charges were true, we were speaking with and taking advice from a monster. The allegations concern younger children, around the ages of 10. I was about that age when I first met him at the little league games. Now, he won’t ever be allowed anywhere near a baseball diamond with kids on it. I was deceived and so were my parents. They wouldn’t have let me be around Sandusky at the time if they knew what he was capable/responsible for behind closed doors. It makes me sick just thinking about it. A few people had jokingly asked me if I was one of the little boys that “Jerry touched.” All joking aside, if circumstances were just slightly different, who knows, I very well could have been.

Again, I’ll reiterate that we don’t know for sure what happened with Jerry Sandusky. Perhaps there are some reasonable explanations for what we all think he did. Unfortunately for Sandusky, that’s a real long shot right now. If it were about just one incident, then maybe it could be resolved and Sandusky would be a free man. But if the allegations are true, then Sandusky was guilty of sexually abusing kids on many occasions. He was charged with 40 criminal counts. You can read the entire Grand Jury report here from the Washington Post. ( http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/sports/documents/sandusky-grand-jury-report11052011.html) That means it happened a lot. How he was able to get away with these encounters so many times is beyond me and perhaps more people knew about it, but just never came forward. For their sake and the sake of these children, I hope any witnesses or anyone with information about Sandusky comes forward.

The final reason that this shocks me is because of Sandusky’s family situation. He has six adopted children. Does this fact scare others as much as it scares me? Were those kids ever at risk? For me, it’s safe to say that this man should never have been allowed to adopt any kids, period. Again, hindsight is 20/20. It will be interesting to find out what his family has to say about these recent charges and I certainly do wonder what else will be uncovered. For now, I’ll wait to see what happens. But I anticipate the news will only get worse for Sandusky from this point forward. Justice will be served and I’m willing to bet that he will spend some time in prison. Child molesters are walking bull’s-eyes behind bars and the time he may serve in a cell will not even come close to the punishment he’ll receive from his fellow tenants.

Filed under Penn State

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