This is kinda all over the place and at times it's hard to understand that he's being ironic, but this is the most intelligent description of our recent troubles.
chronicle.com/article/Why-I-Resigned-the-Paterno/134944/
And this is also another great piece by Mike Weinreb (State High '90)
www.grantland.com/story/_/id/8480248/new...mprehensible-tragedy
There's definitely a split in the community now. There's a vocal group - a loud minority- that just won't let this go and are all pissed off about the board and the NCAA and wanting "justice for JoePa" and all of that. These tend to be older people, alumni mostly, and there's a large overlap with the tinfoil hat birther/truther crowd (which creates a conflict, because one of their big things is that the Governor should take more blame, but he's a Republican, like most of them). There are some students in this group, but not many. Students like to wear antagonistic t-shirts, but generally they just want to get on with being students. But these "truth" people insist that anyone who says "let's move on" is in the grip of the liberal elite media blah blah blah.
This caused concern recently before the Temple game because a bunch of PSU students had organized that as the "Blue Out" - everyone was asked to wear blue (one of PSU's colors anyway) and help raise money for child abuse causes. But these "we want the truth!!! rabble rabble" types got all pissy on the internet and claimed that they would try to scuttle the event by wearing white because they refuse to apologize for what Sandusky did and are tired of being blamed, etc. There was real concern that they would embarrass PSU on TV. Fortunately, they failed. Big. The Blue Out was a big success. The student section especially looked very different than usual on TV and they raised a boat load of money for the cause. It will happen every year now.
It's true that a lot of innocent people are taking a hit for this, the Freeh Report is really shoddy and the NCAA is really corrupt - all true - but we shouldn't undermine a good cause just to belabor those points. Regardless of who did what, child abuse is a big problem in this country and education and awareness is a big part of the solution. And the attention on PSU right now is a chance to spread a positive message. We shouldn't let the crisis go to waste, so to speak. Given how little is understood about the psychology of it, money for research is needed badly. Who could be against raising money for that ?
Of course, it comes off as idiotic and hard-hearted to act like we're the *victims* in this whole mess given that it all started with child abuse. But we should be able to care about different levels of injustice simultaneously. Unfortunately, some people insist that it has to be one or the other and these people are loud and have little else to do but clog up the internet and troll student media and ESPN, etc. All along, we've been trying to explain to the outside world (mostly ESPN, certain sports hacks) that we're capable of watching football without forgetting about what is more important. Flipping that on it's head, by stating that any recognition that child abuse is an important issue is tantamount to accepting the blame for something "we" didn't do, is the same kind of logical error. Neither extreme helps anyone.
In town and on campus, most people are not assholes or idiots and therefore very sick of arguing about it and want to move forward. Nobody thinks the NCAA sanctions were helpful or reasonable - especially in light of the NCAA's complete inaction on the UNC situation and how they mishandle stupid stuff like that hockey player at Wisconsin - but most people realize that reforming the NCAA is going to take years if not decades, so bitching about it now isn't going to help. Meanwhile, the football team, the other sports, and the the university as a whole is doing pretty well and is fun to watch, so there's not a lot to whine about. And, after all, it is just football.
We've moved on to other issues. For example, a kid - a cheerleader whose brother is captain of the men's gymnastics team - somehow fell out a window Saturday and is in critical condition. Looks bad. That's the big "pray for" cause this week. We've got hockey now, volleyball is #1, soccer is doing well, women's basketball is in the top 10, all kinds of big research announcements, THON stuff is always ongoing, Bruce Springsteen is coming soon, midterms, concern about what to do with our high school football stadium that has a big sinkhole under it, etc, etc. Life moves along.
But unfortunately, for a huge number of people who claim to "support Penn State," their only interaction with State College is coming here a few times a year for football. That's the double-edged sword of college sports. Sports are the front porch of an American university (and not just the big ones). It provides *something* to keep the university name and "brand" in the public eye and an event to draw the alums back to campus.The trouble is that a lot of people never bother to move past the front porch.
