Blood Transfusion

For decades I have bled Nittany blue. I remember hooting at the top of my lungs in '83 as Penn State outlasted the Miami hurricanes. I had been trying to stuff my cheers because everyone else was asleep. I still tell how humiliated my seminary roommate slunk back from 'Bama after crowing all week how the Tide was going to smear Penn State. PSU won that game 28 years ago. I worried like many that Joe was getting too old after a broken leg at practice put him off the bench. I wondered if Paterno's coaching genius had dried up as the calendar marched into the 21st century. Over the years friends have given me Penn State mugs, shirts, hats and I have worn them proudly, even after the scandal and the disgusting, immoral conduct of an insane Jerry Sandusky.

I ached for the young men, scarred for life by a man they trusted. I ached for Joe Paterno, who seemed to be shaken and not comprehending what had happened in the showers.

Jerry Sandusky got tossed into jail for the next couple of lifetimes. Justice prevailed on his head. Amen. Penn State football got bruised and black eyed by the Freeh Report and the the NCAA sanctions. Joe Paterno lost the only job he ever loved, yet that was right, because young men lost the only childhood they would ever have and perhaps their ability to love and trust. The stupid statue that had seemed so majestic came down.

I was proud of the young men who stayed with the team when the NCAA gave them an out. I cheered for them as they played on after their icon had died in disgrace and their play had no chance of taking them beyond the post season. Any pro team that picks up one of these men has gained a quality player on several levels.

Yet here we sit three years later, after firings, and reports and sanctions with a university who now wants to sue over lifted sanctions, dig up the Joe Paterno statue and seems determined to wade into a glory past that set up the problem in the first place.

Jerry Sandusky used the glory of Penn State football to live out sexual fantasies. His "The Second Mile" charity comes into being from his coaching staff status. The draw to put kids into it rises from the entre into Penn State and the shadow of Joe Paterno football. The perks that hook young men come from meeting, traveling and being on the sidelines of a great college football program.

So colleges shouldn't have great programs in sports? Not to the untouchable level. Penn State's program was not supposed to be just about stepping to the pros. It was supposed to be about education and integrity.

Jerry Sandusky retired in June '99 at age 55. He had been a key member of the coaching staff of a premier Division I college team. Joe didn't see fit to set him up to take his place. Hallelujah. So why didn't Sandusky go somewhere else? I know, go to prison and ask him yourself. The explanations seem pretty simple. 1) Joe Paterno didn't see him as coaching material and let other schools know. 2)Sandusky had been doing some back door checking, but no one was returning his calls. 3) He has such a sweet set up at Penn State that feeds his addiction and need for power that he can't imagine going anywhere else and trying to put the same system together. Second Mile/Penn State was the perfect trap for our pedophile to strike from.

So why smash your Penn State gear three years later? Why start this rant all over again? Because the attitude and decisions I see coming out of the powers that be at Penn State are the same ones that led to the trap in the first place. Penn State football should sue, because we weren't really in the wrong. Joe Paterno's years should be remembered a new statue should go up, so we can get back to the way it  used to be. Now its easier to forget the damaged young men. They are now three years older and wiser. They have stopped talking. But poor Penn State got pressured by the NCAA in to a 60 million dollar fine! Think of all the lost revenue from bowl games we could have had under O'Brien. Besides Joe was our friend. We don't know these kids.

The mugs are smashed. The sweatshirts will shred to rags and all the shortcuts to Penn State football are erased.