Joe Paterno statue on Pennsylvania State University campus.
Photo cr: New York Daily News.
UPDATE 11:30 AM:
ESPN Reports School President to decide on Paterno Statue.
UPDATE 10:00 AM: Bonnie Bernstein tweeted:
So the decision may not be final yet. Sigh.
While everyone is reeling from the news of lone gunman, James Holmes, 24, in a deadly mass shooting at a midnight screening of The Dark Knight in Aurora, Colorado, --at least 12 dead and 50 injured-- there's news out of Penn State:
While everyone is reeling from the news of lone gunman, James Holmes, 24, in a deadly mass shooting at a midnight screening of The Dark Knight in Aurora, Colorado, --at least 12 dead and 50 injured-- there's news out of Penn State:
SportsGrid.com is reporting that the statue of Joe Paterno will come down this weekend.
ESPN Sportscaster, Bonnie Bernstein tweeted:
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2 comments:
Thank goodness. And to all those students camping out to try and protect it from staying up--shame on you.
I've been a crime and trial junkie from the time I read the newspaper accounts of the stabbing of Johnny Stompanato by Lana Turner's daughter, Cheryl Crane when I was 7years old.
For a long time, I was also a big sports fan. Football was my favorite sport. Around 15 years ago, I stopped following sports.
As a former long-time football fan, I am very familar with Joe Paterno. I first heard of him around 1970. Paterno was skillful at getting favorable attention from the Eastern media. In those days, he portrayed himself as a football coach who understood and sympathized with the student rebellion of the time.
I am not overly surprised by the Sandusky Affair and Joe Paterno's allowing Sandusky to continue bringing young boys onto the Penn State athletic facilities. Paterno knew Sandusky raped boys and refused to contact law enforcement, hoping it would remain a secret and not hurt The Program.
While in this case it was a coach whose criminality was covered up, nowadays a big part of a college football coach's time is spent excusing or playing down criminal behavior by players. Usually it will be theft. Other times it's beating up innocent bystanders in bars or students. Sometimes it will be sexual assaults of varying degreees.
In recent years, Paterno has sometimes sounded like a defense attorney when one of his players misbehaves. I can assure you Paterno knew what he was doing throughout the Sandusky Affair.
The football world, college and pro, is a closed society with its own rules. If you are a member of the club, which Sandusky was, you will be protected from bad behavior as far as possible.
I don't need to tell you that a good many sports fans go along with this state of affairs. The football team at many so-called Institutions of Higher Learning seem the most important thing on the campus.
This is why janitors who saw Sandusky raping boys in the shower were afraid to tell the police. They would lose their jobs.
The Penn State graduate assistant, Mike McQueary, was hesitant to tell what he saw. Why? McQueary wanted a career as a football coach and felt if he informed on Sandusky, major football programs wouldn't hire him in the future.
As for the Paterno statue, it is about the most ridiculous one I've seen, even before this story broke. By the way, there used to not be any of these statues outside a football stadium. Nowadays, every big-time team has them. I suppose it is a weird kind of "idol worship."
The late Jim Murray, long-time sports columnis for the Los Angeles Times, wrote in his autobiography about football coaches:
"But I have never known one who wouldn't suit up Jack the Ripper if he thought he'd get him to the Rose Bowl."
They can also apply this reasoning to themselves.
David In TN
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