JUST WHAT YOU WANT...ANOTHER PSU OPINION

I know…just what you want to read…another perspective on Penn State and their scandal.  This one will not reveal anything you don’t already know, but maybe…just maybe one or two Penn Staters will know how someone else feels after reading this brief overview. 

Growing up, I loved Pitt….and I HATED Penn State.  These feelings were NOT backed up by my family or the majority of my friends.  Whether I liked it or not, I was in the minority.  Even when I moved away from Pittsburgh after college, I was still always in the minority.  The reason I hated Penn State was pretty simple.  I was a Pitt fan.  For better or for worse, I love Pitt…I don’t care if they are losing shoot outs to Temple (when Temple was at its worst), or if they are in a nail biter with Cincinnati for a BCS bid.  I will support them no matter what, so that is the main reason.

There is another reason though.  Nitters have always come off as…well…arrogant.  No matter what happened on the field, they would immediately throw it in your face how God-like their program was and yours was not.  If you had any questions as to just how well they do things and how much honor they play with, then all you had to do was ask them….they’ll tell you.  Here is the thing…I know Pitt’s and pretty much every other program in the country is NOT perfect…they all at least bend the rules.  I think most people will agree on that…except Penn State.

Then, the internet happened.  So many things were harder and harder to cover up and despite their protests that these were isolated incidents; Penn State could not hide from it.  From 2002 until 2008, 46 players were charged with 163 crimes.  Some small…some not so small.  When this was brought up to any Stater, it was righteously met with, “that happens everywhere.”  NO…NO…I was always told that is what separates you….it DOESN’T happen there.  I guess you can always just rely on that.  If Nitters ever had to eat their words, it would have to be due to a major scandal.

Well, we have one.  It’s a bad one.  To be completely honest, I haven’t had one ounce of glee in all of this really.  We are talking about some ugly charges.  We aren’t talking about a recruiting scandal or a paying a player scandal.  We are talking about a massive cover up of a monster and we are talking about a good amount of young boys that were hurt in all of this.  Instead of glee, I was left with feeling bad for the member of my family who did her undergraduate and her graduate studies there.  I felt bad for all of the die-hards who probably felt like they had been kicked in the balls with lie after lie.  As arrogant as the fan base has always been, no one deserves what is happening.  Most of all, I felt bad for these kids that had to suffer all of these years, if said allegations are true.

This isn’t about JoePa or about the program itself.  This includes people like the president of the University (Graham Spanier) and the Governor of Pennsylvania (Tom Corbett).  You can pass blame all you want, but it seems (and I put a strong emphasis on SEEMS) that they are all at fault and it also SEEMS to go even deeper than that.  This is VERY ugly and the best thing to do now, is to cut ties with all involved (and that is a lot of people) and start over.  That may be tough to hear, but it is true.  You cannot put the welfare of children under the Penn State name. 

This thing reads like a mob cover up.  There is even a dead body involved (for the record, I’m not sure about that one – they can’t be that bad, can they?).  I mean the GOVERNOR is involved.  He should not survive this thing either.  Mike McQueary, Spanier, Gary Schultz, Tim Curley, and probably about a dozen others have to go.  When I have a friend who tells me that barbershops in the area knew of these whispers for years….THAT IS A MASSIVE COVER UP!!!

Now here is the kicker.  There are still many, many, many die-hard fans and alumni who are kicking and screaming about JoePa being fired.  As if donating millions and being a generally good person affords you certain rights in instances like this.  I think SI summed it up best with these people:

“The school’s rallying cry – ‘We are Penn State!’ – implies that no further explanation is needed.  We get it.  You don’t.”

That is probably the other thing that REALLY gets under my skin.  I think you could take this time, to maybe not remind people that “you are…Penn State”.  I am not talking about doing it at football games, but maybe, just maybe…if you are a student, alumni, or die-hard and you are trying to make a statement about this whole mess…you may just want to leave your little slogan out of it.  It comes off as very arrogant and it comes off as you saying that YOUR reputation is STILL the most important part of this whole scandal.  This is about a bunch of kids….KIDS…that were taken advantage of in stomach turning ways, and while I am not taking the glee I thought I would from a scandal involving Penn State, how you cannot see that everyone (and I mean everyone) involved must go and go quickly…well you must be blinded by your arrogance even more than I ever could see.

Contrary to popular belief, I hope the Nitters come out of this on the good side and they do the right thing.   Despite my personal feelings on their fan base, they deserve to hear the truth and to see that this does not happen again.  Once that happens, the reputation will come.  You can’t just keep screaming, “WE ARE…PENN STATE”.  I keep telling myself that the fans supporting JoePa and only caring about the Penn State reputation are in the minority.  I hope I am right on that.