They still ... don't get it (at least some people)

"You're a North Carolina grad. Did you take those classes when you were there? The ones that didn't exist?"

I confess, when I saw that Sports Illustrated had an article in this week's edition called "We Are Still ... Penn State" (the link isn't to the article itself, which I couldn't find, you'll have to see the magazine), I was prepared to hate it. I figured it would be a story about how everything at Penn State was fixed because the football team won a few games ... see also the Saints winning the Super Bowl or the Yankees and Mets in 2001.

However, it actually wound up being a more-complete picture of life a year after Jerry Sandusky. Yes, it notes that the team is actually pretty good, and there is some realization that something bad did happen there.

Unfortunately, there are also the "We Are ... Pissed Off" T-shirts (which you can actually buy), booing college president Rodney Erickson because he signed the consent decree that led to the NCAA sanctions against the school, the placing of flowers near the site where the Joe Paterno statue once stood.

There's the talk of "collective punishment," the idea that everyone at Penn State, even those who had nothing to do with football, has to be punished for what a few people did. First of all, people who complain of collective punishment have to realize that the scandal isn't that something happened to them.

Secondly, the football team at Penn State in general and Paterno and particular defined the university, providing a collective relevance to everyone who went there ... even if they had nothing to do with the team or any interest in football. They can't have it both ways.

Which brings us to the quote at the start of this post. The speaker was Russ Ross, the women's volleyball coach at Penn State, a 33-year employee of the school who was apparently upset about author and Tar Heel S.L. Price questioning the Penn State culture, because "That isn't the Penn State I know."

Price spends the next several paragraphs explaining that Ross sort of had a point about Penn State and North Carolina basically both believing that their stuff didn't stink, but sort of didn't for some reason or another.

What I wish Price would have written is that it takes a lot of nerve to equate an academic scandal to school officials, including the most-powerful one (hint: the guy who was the football coach) allegedly allowing a child molester ... let me say that again, A CHILD MOLESTER ... to walk around campus and covering it up.

Perhaps Ross should spend more time in Penn State's Principles and Ethics of Coaching class, which "examines the challenges of today's coaching profession through societal norms and expectations from the past and present."

It shouldn't be too hard for him.

He teaches it.

A logical Penn State argument, and why I disagree

Dave Zirin has a piece on why the Penn State football program shouldn't be shut down, and it's hard to argue with his logic. I won't spoil his arguments, which you should read, but he ends his column this way.

If (Sally) Jenkins, (Rick) Reilly and others really want to do something other that beat a dead Nittany Lion, they should call for the heads of the real enablers. They should call for the resignation of the Penn State Board of Trustees including board member Governor Tom Corbett. They should call for the abolition of the NCAA. They should call for anything other than the destruction of Penn State football: an action that would bring vengeance without justice.

But as compelling as his argument is, I still disagree with it. Although I wouldn't go so far as abolishing football at Penn State, I would shut it down for a year or two, because I think that's the only way to make people in the Penn State community get it.

I wrote about the Joe Paterno dead-enders in my last post, but the fact that there are still dead-enders is a commentary on the rot in Happy Valley, as is the story about the hundreds of millions in donations as the Jerry Sandusky scandal was going on. Although not all the giving was for the football program, tell me this quote doesn't make you sick.

"We're very grateful - humbled really - to have this kind of response from Penn Staters, who I think have rallied to the cause ... by the side of the institution through a very difficult time," Rod Kirsch, senior vice president for development and alumni relations, said Monday in an interview.

And let's not forget what happened on campus after Paterno was fired. (I've used this video before, but it bears repeating.)



I also can't forget watching the start of the first game after Paterno was fired, where despite the moment of silence, I just got the vibe (just a vibe, and through my TV, so take it for what it's worth) that people at the game still thought something bad had happened to them because their football coach was fired.

Mrs. Last Honest Sport and I were talking about Zirin's column this morning, and the way she described her feelings on it is that "King Football" and the people at Penn State who worship it should sacrifice ... something. Because right now, they're not. The home games will still be sold out; the cameras will still show up, and since not every Penn State game will be a three-hour rehash about the scandal, it will eventually largely become The Unpleasantness Which Shall Not Be Named.

And come December, should the football team be good enough, they'll play in a bowl.

In other words, nothing will change for 12 weekends this fall, and it should.

But the only way to do that is to take football away.

Joe Paterno isn't worth it

Matt Millen isn't the only fool still defending Joe Paterno after Louis Freeh's report, perhaps just the most public.

I could go on and on about the ridiculousness of the Paterno defenders, the people who insist on saying his role in the Jerry Sandusky scandal shouldn't overshadow all his good works, but all I'll say is that if someone knowingly, intentionally enables a child molester, especially when he had more power than anyone else to stop it, he doesn't get to take credit for good works. There are no works good enough to make up for that.

Instead, I want to offer this advice to the Paterno dead-enders.

Let him go.

It's OK.

Let. Go.

He's not worth it.

I find it abhorrent in light of Sandusky, but I know why the attachment to Paterno exists. He defined an institution, and therefore everyone associated with it, for decades. He made Penn State matter.

And he fooled a lot of people, including Rick Reilly, right until the end.

As Joe Paterno lay dying, I actually felt sorry for him. Little did I know he was taking all of his dirty secrets to the grave. Nine days before he died, he had The Washington Post's Sally Jenkins in his kitchen. He could've admitted it then. Could've tried a simple "I'm sorry." But he didn't. Instead, he just lied deeper. Right to her face. Right to all of our faces.

Joe Paterno was a fraud, a lying, despicable excuse for a human being whose inaction allowed young boys to be hurt because he didn't want the cult of the football team and the cult of personality he built around himself to be harmed.

For all the people who were fooled into believing he did things "the right way," there is no shame in admitting that.

It's OK.

Let the loyalty to Paterno go.

He's not worth it.

It's all personal at Penn State

I'm going to guess that LaVar Arrington and Brandon Short are not stupid human beings, at least not so stupid that they don't understand something bad happened at their beloved Penn State University.

So how do you explain this reaction to hiring Bill O'Brien as the school's new football coach?

“I will put my Butkus [Award] in storage. I will put my Alamo Bowl MVP trophy in storage,” Arrington told the Penn State Rivals.com website, BlueWhite Illustrated. “Jerseys, anything Penn State, in storage. Wherever Tom Bradley goes, that’s the school I will start to put memorabilia up in my home. I’m done. I’m done with Penn State. If they’re done with us, I’m done with them."

 "Penn State is a family and it is real and if they choose to get rid of Bradley and not hire a Penn State coach, then they’ve turned their backs on our entire family,” Short said.

And how do you explain some Penn State students, who I'm also going to assume aren't stupid, rioting after Joe Paterno was fired?



The answer is that it's all about them.

Let's go back to Arrington and Short for a minute.

“By these people making the decisions the way that they are making them, basically coinciding with everything that’s being written about our university, if they get rid of Tom Bradley, that means they, in essence, have accepted the fact that we are all guilty,” Arrington said.

"Penn State is a family and it is real and if they choose to get rid of Bradley and not hire a Penn State coach, then they’ve turned their backs on our entire family,” Short said.

By hiring an "outsider," Arrington and Short feel betrayed. Any "insider" they could have hired would be connected to Paterno -- the man they likely credit with making them who they are -- so by not hiring someone already connected with the program, Paterno's program, it diminishes Paterno ... and therefore diminishes them.

As for the students, it's actually another former player, D.J. Dozier, who sums it up with his complaints about the O'Brien hiring.

'Dozier said, 'It’s politics, it’s fall out, it’s everything that has nothing to do with a program and continuing to build a solid program.'"

Even though there's a Penn State alum who has been in the news a lot lately for reasons other than football, the college is defined almost entirely by its football team. If you see a kid wearing a Penn State sweatshirt, you think about the football team. If you ask a kid where he or she goes to school and Penn State is the answer, it registers with you because you know about the football team.

The football team in general, and Joe Paterno in particular, made Penn State relevant. And therefore, it made Penn State students relevant ... even if they had no aptitude for or interest in football.

So if anything makes Penn State football less relevant, it makes the college less relevant ... which makes them less relevant.

Now, that's probably what was not going through their minds when they rioted, but that's why they did it.

What a great, moral, upstanding man Joe Paterno is

According to this story from Matt Hinton, Joe Paterno said he "knew inappropriate action was taken by Jerry Sandusky with a youngster."

But he did nothing about it.

What a guy.