Observations from the Window 1.5

This is the first of two small updates on the aftermath of the Jerry Sandusky scandal at Penn State. I won't get into the scandal itself again, personally I hope he rots in prison, just click on one of the tags if you somehow don't know it. I just find these stories interesting as hell because of how things change over time and how some stories always seem wind and twist their way into others. This post falls into the latter category.

All the background you need for this part is to remember what the scandal did to Joe Paterno and the Penn State football program. Paterno's firing, the NCAA $60 million fine, banned from bowl games, and the loss of scholarships. With the end of the Paterno reign a savior was summoned from Boston, Bill O'Brien. Amid all the turmoil and scandal O'Brien and the team had an awesome season that any other year would have landed them in a New Year's Day bowl game or better.

The problem is O'Brien did such a good job with the mess he was handed that his stock as a coach will probably never be higher. Multiple NFL teams, including the Eagles, wanted to talk to him and rumor has it the Penn State administration was so sure he was going to leave that they started a list of coaching candidates to talk to about replacing him. Enter a second savior in Penn State graduate Terry Pagula who had already donated over $100 million to start Penn State's division 1 ice hockey program. Out of nowhere the story went in a completely different direction Thursday night.

From a Buffalo News report; "Pegula donated a $1.3 million gift to be added to O’Brien’s salary in the coming year that will bump his total compensation to $3.6 million and place him behind only Ohio State’s Urban Meyer and Iowa’s Kirk Ferentz as the third-highest-paid coach in the Big Ten." Bill O'Brien announced he would not be leaving Penn State, had never really planned on leaving, and was indeed happy in Happy Valley. You can think what you will about O'brien's comments but they are probably casting his statue as I post this.

Still, I do have a small problem with Terry Pagula.

How could I possibly have a problem with a fellow Penn State alum, a man who gave birth to the Penn State ice hockey program, built a state of the art ice arena, and kept O'Brien in Happy Valley? Pagula also happens to be the owner of the Buffalo Sabres of the National Hockey League.

I'm not even going to get into that.

Observations

An open letter to the Penn State Board of Trustees as it appeared in the Friday edition of The Centre Daily Times, posted without comment.

Well one slight comment. Talking to people at yesterday's game one constant thread was that it didn't go unnoticed that the Freeh Report release, the NCAA's quick punishment without investigation, and the University's acceptance of both of these happened in the middle of the summer when State College is a sleepy little town and not the third largest city in Pennsylvania.

Dear Penn State Board of Trustees,

It is apparent you want us, the Alumni, to move forward. You implore us to move forward. Here is a simple fact. We can and will move forward, and will join you on a united front, if one of two things occurs. We will move forward if: 1) Indisputable evidence surfaces that clearly shows Joe Paterno knew that Jerry Sandusky was molesting boys since 1998/2001 and did nothing to stop him, (it is evident that the findings of your $6.5 million Freeh report were not factually derived: (EM Foundation)) or 2) You admit your hasty decisions starting back in November 2011, (including firing Joe Paterno, accepting the Freeh Report, and agreeing to the NCAA sanctions) were a mistake, made under pressure and not based on truth, and that, most importantly, you did not act in the best interest of Penn State University.

One day you will have to look in the mirror and admit that you allowed this debacle to spin out of control. In November 2011, Penn State had no crisis management in place, so the media naturally turned to Joe, the face of Penn State, but he was allowed to say very little. The media applied pressure and once you, the Board, fired Joe, that was all the world needed to conclude: He must have been guilty of a cover-up. You, the Trustees, were distancing yourselves from anyone the media labeled as ‘guilty’ so you could come out smelling like roses. Then you hired Freeh to validate your firing of Joe and again to make yourselves look like the good guys. Did it not once occur to you that, by making the icon of your own university take the fall, with no evidence of wrongdoing, you were potentially destroying the university? (NCAA sanctions, economic suicide, lawsuits, accreditation fallout) It seems you were anxious for so long to get rid of Joe that you could not wait to throw the last jab. And here you are reaping what you sowed.

There will never be unity between the Alumni and the Board until you start admitting your mistakes or until all of you who were active in November '11 vacate your positions, which could be years from now. You want to move on because it is too painful for you to live in this mess you made. I wonder how many of you, with the benefit of hindsight, would have done things differently the night of November 9, 2011. I’m sure it is difficult for some of you to look in the mirror or even get out of bed in the morning. We all know when we offend or do wrong to another, there are simply two choices: (wo)man up, admit our mistakes, make amends, and then move on, or sweep it under the rug and never move on. The one who was wronged can never move on until the offense is reconciled. This is why we, the Alumni, cannot and will not move on.

And now you find yourselves desperate to repair and rebuild the image of Penn State, an image which you single-handedly allowed to be torn apart. Perhaps your first course of action should be to repair and rebuild the trust within our family, and then together, we can restore the image of our great university. It is time to fight for what is right. It is time to be the leaders we have entrusted you to be. Please remember this, “a house divided against itself cannot stand.”

Sincerely,
Eileen Morgan, Fellow Concerned Alumni, and Friends of PSU

Obsevations 8.30

With Saturday's game a new era of Penn State football begins, I'm talking about the post Paterno era not the WiFi at Beaver Stadium one. With other things going on, and in an attempt to put the scandal behind me somewhat, I haven't mentioned it much lately. What I am sharing here seemed a good reason to break that silence. Two days ago a group of past Chairs of the Penn State Faculty Senate released a statement concerning the NCAA and its "sweeping assertion that a culture permeating every level of the Penn State community places the football program "in higher esteem than the values of the NCAA, the values of higher education, and most disturbingly the values of human decency."

For what it's worth some highlights and a link to the complete statement with its 28 signatories.

".... as a document in which evidence, facts, and logical argument are marshaled to support conclusions and recommendations, the Freeh Report fails badly. On a foundation of scant evidence, the report adds layers of conjecture and supposition to create a portrait of fault, complicity, and malfeasance that could well be at odds with the truth. We make no judgment of the culpability of those individuals directly surrounding the Sandusky crimes. We lack sufficient knowledge to do so, and we are content to wait until guilt or innocence is adjudicated by the courts. But as scientists and scholars, we can say with conviction that the Freeh Report fails on its own merits as the indictment of the University that some have taken it to be. Evidence that would compel such an indictment is simply not there.

More central to our concerns are the recent sanctions levied against Penn State by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and, more importantly, the rationale for those actions and their negative impact on the academic well-being of the University. The NCAA did not conduct its own investigation of the Penn State situation, but rather drew its conclusions from the findings of the Freeh Report. The NCAA Consent Decree, which substantially embellishes the initial Freeh findings in both tone and substance, claimed no standard of proof for its conclusions but nonetheless required Penn State to accept the Freeh Group’s assertions as fact. The NCAA actions were not predicated on any rulebook violations by members of the football team, the crimes committed by a former assistant coach, or even the alleged concealment of those crimes by University officials. Rather, the NCAA based its actions on the  sweeping assertion that a culture permeating every level of the Penn State community places  the football program “in higher esteem than the values of the institution, the values of the NCAA, the values of higher education, and most disturbingly the values of human decency.” The NCAA further alleges that “the culture exhibited at Penn State is an extraordinary affront to the values all members of the Association have pledged to uphold and calls for extraordinary action,” and it states that the sanctions are intended to change this culture.

As faculty members with a cumulative tenure at Penn State in the hundreds of years, and as former Faculty Senate chairs with intimate knowledge of the University stretching back for decades, these assertions do not describe the culture with which we are so very familiar. None of us has ever been pressured or even asked to change a grade for an athlete, nor have we heard of any cases where that has occurred. We know that there are no phantom courses or bogus majors for athletes at Penn State. Some of us have privately witnessed swift and unyielding administrative actions against small transgressions, actions taken expressly to preserve academic and institutional integrity. We have performed our duties secure in the knowledge that academic funds do not subsidize the athletic program. We have been proud of the excellent academic record of our student-athletes, and of the fact that Penn State has never before had a major NCAA sanction. And we have taken pride in an institutional culture that values honesty, decency, integrity, and fairness.

It is disturbing in the extreme to have that culture’s very existence denied by the NCAA. The NCAA has used its assertion of collective guilt to justify its collective punishment of the entire University community, almost all of whom had absolutely no involvement in or knowledge of the underlying crimes or the administration’s allegedly insufficient response."

Complete statement.

Also this is a good column by Walter Uhler who graduated from Penn State in 1976 with an MPA in Russian Studies. It's a little eye opening about being both a scholar and a football fan.

Observations from the Couch 7.31, Updates

With a win in the 4x200 freestyle relay American swimmer Michael Phelps became the most decorated athlete in Olympic history. His 19^th medal surpassed the 18 of Russian gymnast Larisa Latynina as he broke one of those sports records that will never be broken. For the record Phelps currently has 15 gold, 2 silver, and 2 bronze medals and he still has three races to go in London. This is one Olympic moment that deserves a drink and I shall have one.

In all fairness to Hope Solo I thought I should mention that she is far from the only athlete in London who needs to think before they talk. Before the games even began Kobe Bryant announced to the world that this Olympics' edition of the U.S. men's basketball team was better than even the original "dream team." That was the 1992 Olympic team which was the first made up of NBA players and has sometimes been called the best sports team of any kind ever assembled. To answer Kobe I'll just throw out a few names from that team. Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Patrick Ewing, Karl Malone, and David Robinson. They won every game with the wins ranging from a 32 point win in the gold medal game against Croatia to a 68 point opening game win over Angola.

Hope Solo threw a shutout today, her second in three games, as the U.S. women defeated North Korea 1-0 in front of 30,000, evidently no empty seats at this game. The American women swept the opening round of the tournament and now play New Zealand on Friday. It is the first time in Olympic history the U.S. team has swept its group.

The U.S. women's field hockey team stunned the 2^nd in the world ranked Argentina today by a 1-0 score. It was a repeat of the Pan American Games where the U.S. earned an Olympic spot by defeating Argentina. Before that loss Aregentina had not lost at the Pan Am Games in 25 years. The U.S. is ranked 10^th in the world and will face Australia on Thursday. The win keeps alive hopes for a medal after the American team lost its opening game.

In a totally different sporting area the Penn State football team  began practice today for its first season since 1965 without Joe Paterno as head coach. The team was greeted by an early morning rally attended by thousands of fans. Also the University announced it would loan the Athletic Department $60 million to pay its NCAA fine. Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbitt continues to tell anybody that will listen that no tax dollars will be used to pay the fine. This is easy to believe when you consider that under Corbitt the state has cut education funding to almost nothing at all.

And than there are the Phillies. Can you say fire sale?

Observations 7.23

I really wanted to stay away from the whole Paterno statue, NCAA sanctions, what did Corbitt know, its so easy to blame the dead man story, for now anyway. It's just such a total no win situation for me, too damn emotional too, and I have other things I want to write about. But yesterday I read Maureen Dowd's column in The New York Times,  "Paterno Sacked Off His Pedestal",  and to my surprise I found it good. Good other than where she falls into the same trap as everybody else and believes the Freeh Reports's assumptions about Paterno to be fact. I know, I know, stay away from it Katie.

Sometimes all to eager for punishment I was skimming the comments to the column when I came across this one from a Times reader in Dallas. I just had to nod.

"Pretty decent column Ms Dowd ...
I enjoy college football, that said, the over the top fasination with football as heroic, it's players and coaches, elivating them to such high levels of adoration is absolutely puzzling. It's a game, entertainment, little more.
We have no one else to blame but ourselfs if they get "too big" for their jobs, and believe the hype, pumped up by the "fans" misguided adorations, and the sports writers must take some of this blame as well. For all those writers recent "outrage", who help create that public image?? But I do not see how killing PSU football program serves any useful purpose. Leave Paterno's statue where it sits, it will for ever remind everyone of the good and the bad that lurks in all of us.
Let the courts handle the rest."

I should note it wasn't the first time I had read that Penn State should leave the statue up as a reminder but sadly the PSU President didn't agree. Early Sunday morning a shroud was thrown around JoePa, a tarp was thrown over his head, and he was carted off to that proverbial secure location. Later the words on the wall behind the statue were removed as well, as if it had never been there.

Memory is a fickle thing.

Observations 7.14

I'm going to drive over to State College in a bit to meet up with my brother and take in some of the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts. Maybe I can remind myself of some of the good that is Penn State. Against my better judgement I decided to write down some of my random thoughts on the never ending Sandusky scandal. Take a deep breath and read on.

Honestly i don't think we will ever know the truth, if the Freeh report is to be believed the knowledge of Sandusky's evil just has to have been that widespread. In my current cynical mood I have to ask a question. Sandusky's abuse went on for at least 15 years and was apparently widely known in some circles yet those closest to him seem to have had no clue. His wife, friends, neighbors, and coworkers had no clue? Really? I don't think I'm that naive. No, we will never know the full truth because it's all to easy to blame Joe. After all its not like you can defend yourself from the grave.

A have special spot for Mike McQueary in my thoughts of the scandal. McQueary says he witnessed Sandusky sexually abusing a young boy in the shower of the athletic center. If my memory is correct the center is full of baseball bats and golf clubs. Personally. I don't care who he was, I would have grabbed one and beaten Sandusky senseless. Doesn't seem that thought ever crossed McQueary's mind at that moment or when he played in Sandusky's golf tournament the following week.

How supposedly intelligent men could allow this to happen to our school is totally beyond me. Did they learn nothing from Dick Nixon?

Even though I haven't read any of it I will mention the Freeh Report here. I was talking to my dad who told me of a conversation he had with a friend who has read the report and had some interesting thoughts. For a supposedly conclusive report Freeh didn't interview Paterno, Sandusky, McQueary, Curley, or Schultz. One would think those would have been important people to talk to. The current damnation of Paterno stems from Freeh's conclusion that he knew of the 1998 investigation of Sandusky, something Paterno denied to his grave. Freeh's monumental evidence comes down to just two emails, neither of which are from or to Paterno.

The first email is from Athletic Director Curley to University President Spaingler with the subject line "Joe Paterno" in which he says he has touched base with the coach and the coach wants to be kept informed. We are to assume the coach is Paterno and he wants to be informed of the investigation. Freeh never talked to Curley and Spaingler says he doesn't even remember the email.

The second email is even more vague yet is supposedly the smoking gun. The email is again from Curley but this time to head of the campus police Schultz which simply says "Anything new? Coach is anxious to know where it stands."   Freeh assumes the coach is Paterno and he also assumes the 'it' to be the Sandusky investigation, but remember Freeh talked to none of them. At the time of the email Sandusky himself was still employed as a Penn State coach and was negotiating his retirement. Why is that important? Because Gary Schultz was also University Vice President for Business and Finance.

For these two emails JoePa shall be damned for eternity.

One final thought. Let us not forget the Pennsylvania Attorney General's office ignored the Sandusky case for at least three years. The Attorney General for those years none other than current Pennsylvania Governor and member of the Penn State Board of Trustees Tom Corbett.

I guess Freeh didn't talk to Corbett either.

Observations 7.12

Surprisingly I don't have much comment on the Freeh report.
Former FBI Director Loius Freeh's company was hired by the
Penn State Board of Trustees to investigate the PennState/Sandusky/Paterno/Spanier/Curley/Schultz scandal. The Freeh report was released today but I haven't read much about it and probably wont. This is one sad episode I would just like to put behind me but I doubt I ever will.

For now I'll say my thoughts mesh pretty well with those of former Penn State and Washington Redskins linebacker LeVar Arrington who said this today ...

"On the one hand, Joe messed up. Joe was not perfect, Joe was not God. Joe was a person, and he messed up. On the other hand, if you're looking at everything Joe has done and all the lives he's impacted and all the things he's done ... that still remains as well. So how do you separate the two? I don't know. I don't have the answer for that one, I really don't."

The King is dead, long live the King.

Guilty

AP Photo/Centre Daily Times, Nabil K. Mark

Tonight at 9:57, five months to the day after Joe Paterno passed away, Jerry Sandusky was found guilty of 45 of the 48 child abuse charges he faced. Fourteen of the charges are first degree felonies with a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison, each. The combined maximum penalty
for all the charges is 442 years. Sentencing must take place
within 90 days.

You can rest in peace now JoePa.

Observations from the Window 6.21

The Jerry Sandusky child perversion trial went to the jury today but it hasn't yet reached a verdict. Quite understandable when you consider that, even after the judge dropped 3 charges today, the jurors have 51 charges to go over. If convicted of just half of them Sandusky will likely spend the rest of his days in prison. Given the nature of the charges I don't think he would be coaching a football team of convicts à la Adam Sandler. Maybe some other type of team not proper to discuss in a public blog.

I spent some time following the closing arguments and also saw when the story began to leak about why Sandusky didn't take the stand in his own defense. After the trial began Sandusky's adopted son Matt had told prosecutors that he too had been abused and had offered to testify against his father. NBC News reported that Jerry Sandusky's lawyers decided against having the former coach testify after they learned that prosecutors planned to call a new witness if he did take the stand and they believed it to be Matt Sandusky.

The makeup of the jury has been the subject of debate in the national media because so many of its members are either graduates, employees, or former employees of Penn State. What the msm doesn't seem to understand is that central Pennsylvania is Penn State. During the main school year State College is the third largest city in the state and the University is the second largest employer in the state. There isn't a county between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh where the jury makeup would have been much different.

I don't think the jury makeup is a factor in the verdict at all and in my opinion if anything it works against him. I don't know the details of the trial itself or the testimony but I do know this. If my family and personal contacts are any gauge at all Sandusky will spend the rest of his life in Graterford. Well probably not Graterford itself but one can always dream.

I don't believe in the death penalty, it would probably be too easy on Sandusky in any case, but I am so tempted to change my mind in his case.

Hopefully Friday will bring a verdict because now I just want it over. If for no other selfish reason than the sight of Jerry Sandusky, for a time second only to JoePa in the pantheon of Penn State sports, the sight of the man just makes me sick.

And than there are the kids ....

Observations from the Window 4.30

The was a big article in The New York Times today about an upcoming biography of Joe Paterno so maybe I was already softened up when I got my sis' email. She also has the uncanny ability of knowing what to send me even when I don't know it's just what I need. Whichever the reason, when I saw this video I just had to smile. It's just a short thing, and isn't even about what I saw, yet it made me think about what it is like in my mountains this time of year.

May was always a fun yet hectic time at Penn State as I'm sure it is at any school. The end of the school year, finals, graduation, and the beginning of summer role into each other as the month moves by. There is something special added in the mountains though, a feeling of renewal that comes from the woods being reborn around you. I love that feeling and I'm thinking I may have to make a little spring road. Excuse? Well I still do know some people up there and I really need to visit my paintings.

Than again maybe I should just tell the truth.
Sometimes I'm just a softie.

Yeah that works too.


link

Observations on JoePa

I wasn't planning on writing more about the passing of Joe Paterno even though I know I could. I could write to try and help you understand why we Penn State alumni feel the way we do but at times it seems a totally hopeless proposition. Than I came across this column by Bill Lyon of the Philadelphia Inquirer and it just made me think, from the first paragraph to the haunting question at its end, it made me think about Paterno's death in a way I hadn't done before. It really is worth reading the entire column but I'm just posting the beginning and end here because they are the two parts that I just can't get out of my head. The two parts that seem to sum it all up. (full column here)

"Once upon a time in the Valley called Happy, there lived a man with monarch powers. And with these powers he bestowed upon the Valley great wealth and fame and philanthropy and enviable reputation, and buildings for football warriors and diligent scholars....

....And here, finally, is the chilling question, the one that you dread giving voice to, the one that sits on your shoulder making you squirm, the one that will haunt you for a long, long time: Did Penn State kill Joe Paterno?"

Joe Paterno was laid to rest late Wednesday after two days of public viewings at the Pasquerilla Spiritual Center which his donations had funded. An estimated 30,000 people stood in freezing temperatures to file through, lines so long the doors had been opened a half hour early. A private service followed than the funeral procession wound through State College, past the Paterno Library, and finally past Beaver Stadium, its parking lots once again full, and a lone blue and white tent representing Paternoville. A sign held outside the stadium read “We Are Because You Were.” Joe Paterno won 409 games as head coach of the Nittany Lions, 409 wins at one school, something that never will be repeated.

Over the past couple months I have tried to explain to numerous friends why I, why we, feel the way we do. I'm not sure I ever succeeded completely. Late today fellow Penn State graduate Becky Murdy put better than I ever have when she posted this on twitter, "From the outside looking in, you can't understand it. From the inside looking out, you can't explain it."

Goodbye JoePa, You will be, are, missed.

Observations

"Believe deep down in your heart that you're destined to do great things."

Joseph Vincent Paterno,
JoePa

December 21, 1926,
January 22, 2012

Observations on JoePa

Speedy, near instantaneous, information is a blessing of the age we live in. It makes possible something like Wednesday's SOPA blackout or the organization of protests worldwide. Tonight I saw how it also can be a curse.

All day I had been hearing rumors about Joe Paterno's declining health. How the family had been called to his side and the Penn State Catholic chaplain had visited him. When I got home tonight I checked and at 8:45 PM Onward State, a Penn State news organization, reported Paterno. had passed away. Seconds later the phone began to ring, texts flew, and emails were sent back and forth as the Penn State diaspora began to grieve the passing of our legendary JoePa. Minutes later the report was picked up by CBS Sports and quickly spread everywhere.

The problem was the initial report was wrong. Devon Edwards, managing editor of Onward State, wrote in an apology, "I never, in a million years, would have thought that Onward State would be cited by the national media, and today, I sincerely wish it never had been." I have no idea what happened but as always I have a pet theory. Twenty minutes before that initial report an email had been sent to Penn State football players probably explaining coach Paterno's condition. Now even at Penn State football players aren't always the smartest chicken in the coop so maybe one of them read it wrong and told somebody who told somebody who ran with it.

Sadly, whatever it was, it happened. Enough said.

But I also have another reason for writing this, call it a study in human nature. I have somebody I currently follow on twitter, currently being the key word, who endlessly tweets about liberal causes. Equal rights, economic equality, an end to the death penalty, health care for all, and on and on. Tonight this person reveled in the reported death of an 85 year old man whose only failing was that when needed most he was all too human. And that is what I'll always remember her for.

Again, enough said.

update - Joe Paterno died at 9:25 am Sunday, following complications related to his lung cancer, according to a press release from Mount Nittany Medical Center.

Observations on Penn State and JoePa

Just a small post here to put to rest for now this Penn State chapter of my writing. It really has consumed me for the past week, creating a roller coaster of emotions I need to get a grip on. I tend to take things personally and to see cable pundits and newspaper columnists suddenly discover Penn State for all the wrong reasons totally depressed me. For now I figure if the asshats can't see past this total tragedy to what is good about my school I shouldn't let it get to me. Their total loss.

I wanted to pass along a column Sean sent me yesterday. Titled "Joe Paterno's Code - Reckoning with the Penn State betrayal" it was written for Esquire by Chris Raymond who is a former editor of The Daily Collegian, the Penn State student published newspaper. It is the one thing I have read that sounded somewhat how i feel, how a lot of us alumni feel. Really the final line says it all....

"In the meantime, we will rebuild on the scorched earth of Happy Valley, and I will abide by this simple truth: If the Paterno way is discarded along with Paterno, then this tragedy will have been miserably, terribly compounded."

Observations on Penn State and JoePa

After a long emotional day I was sitting at what was always one of my favorite spots in State College. From Court's kitchen table you can look out over the deck to the Penn State campus and past it to Nittany Mountain where tonight a bright moon was rising. I was thinking about the day and the moment that bought a tear of pride to my eye. Just before the game between Penn State and Nebraska began both teams gathered in a group in the middle of the field. As the teams listened to a prayer by a Nebraska coach 110,000 people stood and looked on in utter silence. You could have heard the proverbial pin drop.

The low point of the day came early when I received a school alert text advising a bomb threat had been received but Beaver Stadium had been checked and was clear. Than we arrived for some subdued tailgating only to find state troopers patrolling the edges of the parking area on horseback. As with OWS it always seems to be the sight of the horses that elicits a feeling of dred.

As we entered the stadium an organization formed this week by a group of students and alumni, Proud to Be a Penn Stater, was accepting donations for charity at all the gates and most people I saw donated something. The group is partnered with RAINN, the Rape Abuse & Incest National Network, and has a goal of raising $500,000 for the charity. In three days of existence it has raised $297,000 which includes over $20,000 at todays game.

The stadium itself was an amazing and surreal sight. Blue is the color associated with child abuse prevention and today Beaver Stadium was a sea so blue it almost seemed like a night game. The blue S in the normally white stands was now inverted to white and sported a blue ribbon, even the band's flags were now blue. The blue out was a success beyond anybody's wildest dreams, organizers had hoped for maybe a quarter of the fans, it was nearly total.

"I can't tell you how proud and pleased I am, especially with the students and athletes and the character and class they displayed," interim Penn State president Robert Ericson told reporters. That may be the only statement by university official I heard this week that I fully agree with.

It was a long sad week with possibly every negative emotion you can imagine swirling around. But a week filled with anger, sadness, and disgust ended with renewed pride and hope, touched with exhaustion.

"When we stood at childhood's gate,
Shapeless in the hands of fate
Thou didst mold us, Dear old State"

From the Penn State alma mater, rather fitting given the week.

Observations on Penn State and JoePa

One of the great days in Penn State football history will be just that but for reasons none of us could have imagined until a perfect storm of misery swept through Happy Valley earlier this week. I just sent a friend an email in which I described today as a homecoming from hell and I can't think of any better way to put it here. Ash and I arrived late last night, Sean early this morning, and it seems like nobody can stay away. In the end we still are Penn State and nobody is going to take that away from us no matter how hard they try.

I have no idea how this game is going to play out, honestly nothing will surprise me. The prevailing opinion is that the player's heads aren't going to be in it so it's going to be ugly but I'm not so sure. I won't even try to comprehend what these players must be going through. I do know from experience that, no matter how depressed I was, when the game started habit and training took over and I just played.

The 'blue out' is born. During today's game donations will be accepted throughout Beaver Stadium with the proceeds going to two Pennsylvania organizations, Prevent Child Abuse Pennsylvania and the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape. So far at other events, including the women's soccer game yesterday and a candle light vigil last night,  over $200,000 has been raised for these charities.

To put this day in perspective a person would have to be close to 70 years old to remember Penn State without Joe Paterno. That being the case I doubt they would remember it anyway.

To state the obvious this is going to suck.

Observations on Penn State and JoePa

The cover of my hometown newspaper this morning with the three words that say it all. After 61 years JoePa is gone.

Observations on Penn State and JoePa

Tears

morning update - Yes tears, tears for my school, for the kids abused, for the alumni, students, everybody involved, and tears for JoePa because I'm just so sad it had to end this way. But no tears foe Sandusky, if there is a hell hopefully there is a very special place there for him and his kind.

Stay by the phone Urban Meyer.

Observations on Penn State and JoePa

This just hurts. Ever since the Jerry Sandusky sex abuse scandal broke I have been avoiding the subject like the plague. I didn't want to talk about it and failed, I didn't want to read about and failed, and totally didn't want to write about it but I can't help myself. Penn State has been my anchor for years, it really has helped me to survive more than anything other than my family and friends so it does hurt like hell to see it all end this way. No matter how it plays out the name Joe Paterno will never sound quite the same again and that's just sad.

Former Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky is alleged to have sexually abused eight boys over more than a ten years, both before and after his retirement from the team in 1999. One incident in 2002 was witnessed by an assistant coach and reported to Joe Paterno who reported it to other athletic department officials including Athletic Director Tim Curley who was charged Monday for failing to report the information to the police, a crime in Pennsylvania. He was also charged with perjury in testimony to a grand jury and he resigned later in the day. Paterno, who was not charged or investigated, has been criticized for not calling the police himself or simply following up on what he had been told. Pennsylvania state police Commissioner Frank Noonan said Monday that Paterno fulfilled his legal requirement when he told his superior of the 2002 assault but he also questioned whether Paterno had a moral responsibility to do more. He did.

One of the blessings of Penn State is that it is situated in the mountains of central Pennsylvania with the nearest major media outlet an hour to the south in Harrisburg, literally down the mountain. That blessing is turning into a curse now with everybody from the BBC to Al Jazerra swooping into Happy Valley with seemingly one thing on their mind, Joe must go. I read one article in which the writer went so far as to call Beaver Stadium an “empty cavernous monument to JoePa's failed program.” Tarnished yes but to call a program with the highest graduation rate in the NCAA history failed is just shear stupidity. As long as I have been associated with Penn State there have been people both inside and outside the University who just wanted to bring Paterno down. I'll call it the Lance Armstrong effect, you can't possibly be that good with out cheating so there must be something hiding somewhere and if they just dig deep enough they'll find it. They failed every time but now it seems they have been handed a nuclear option with the timer winding down to zero.

I'm just terribly torn because I know how I would feel under any other circumstances and I know how I feel now. I just can't bring myself to turn on a man who has meant so much to my school. I do believe Paterno, how can I not, but I also know he is terribly wrong. At the bare minimum he should have pushed his superiors for some kind of public investigation and he should have condemned Sandusky's actions, friendship only goes so far. Another cop-out is for anybody to say it was out of his hands because of one thing I am certain, whatever Joe wants in Happy Valley Joe gets.

Should Joe go? As hard as this is to write it probably is time because there will be no moving on for the school until he does step down. But there is no need to fire the man who has made Penn State his life for 61 years, his contract is up at the end of this season. Just don't renew it.

As my dad reminded me yesterday the last time the the voices calling for Paterno's ouster were this loud in the valley I was a freshmen and Paterno was in the middle of his worst season ever. One of the men these people would have replaced him with?

Jerry Sandusky.

evening update - This statement was released by Joe Paterno today:

"I am absolutely devastated by the developments in this case. I grieve for the children and their families, and I pray for their comfort and relief.

I have come to work every day for the last 61 years with one clear goal in mind: To serve the best interests of this university and the young men who have been entrusted to my care. I have the same goal today.
That's why I have decided to announce my retirement effective at the end of this season. At this moment the Board of Trustees should not spend a single minute discussing my status. They have far more important matters to address. I want to make this as easy for them as I possibly can. This is a tragedy. It is one of the great sorrows of my life. With the benefit of hindsight, I wish I had done more.
My goals now are to keep my commitments to my players and staff and finish the season with dignity and determination. And then I will spend the rest of my life doing everything I can to help this University."

notes:

On November 4th Sandusky was arrested for 40 counts related to allegations of sexual abuse of young boys over a 15 year period. Sandusky is currently free on $100,000 bail pending trial and could face life in prison if convicted.

Saturday #12 Penn State faces #19 Nebraska in what is in all probability Joe Paterno's final home game as head coach of the Nittany Lions. It is also senior day which is a tear jerker in the best of times. I haven't made up my mind if I'll be making my planed trip to the game but I can't see myself not. If it is JoePa's last game in Happy Valley I'm going to have to be there.

Observations on Sports 10.31

On Saturday afternoon Penn State beat Illinois 10-7 when Illinois kicker Derek Demke missed a 42-yard field goal with 5 seconds left on the clock. With his 409th win JoePa moved ahead of Grambling State’s Eddie Robinson for the most ever wins among Division I coaches.  Penn State is now the only unbeaten team in Big 10 play (5-0 Big 10, 8-1 overall) and moved into the 16th spot in the BCS poll.

If you ever wondered why I so live for Penn State football just watch this vid taken at the end of the Illinois game, it should give you a pretty good idea. Keep in mind that this crowd was about 40,000 short of the normal crowd of 110,000 due to it being snowtober.

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