Now that the fury has dulled to a low white noise, I’d like
to get this on the record.
1)
I almost feel like the expected “acceptable
alumni response” has to be something akin to a religious ceremony. By that I mean:
Leader: “The children were hurt
and we don’t get it.”
Congregation (all): “And you
should suffer for the sins of your leaders.”
Leader: “It was too much about
football.”
Congregation (all): “PSU should
just lay down and die.”
Leader: “We didn’t know, and didn’t
think to ask. We did our best, and
donated to RAINN, despite always donating to THON. We demanded true, total accountability from
out Board and our President.”
Congregation (all): “You admit you
were complicit in keeping a secret.”
Leader: “We are more than just
football.”
Congregation (all): “You still don’t
get it.”
2)
To be fair, in real life most people have been
extremely respectful to me. I have a
fair-sized PSU banner in my office, and while I am not an uber-fan I certainly
haven’t packed stuff away in embarrassment.
The only guy who approached annoying was more inquisitive than
malicious, and I can live with that. The
nearly universal response has been supportive of PSU.
3)
I maintain my earlier position, that those
complaining the loudest about the PSU scandal not being about the kids are as
complicit in the cover-up as those in it.
IF they truly cared this much about the children, we’d be having,
demanding!, IN THE NEWS the tough
conversations about why pedophiles can hide easily in society and working
towards the answer that severely curtails molestation. Instead, by wasting their energy pointing
fingers and proselytizing, we get to hear for decades about pedophiles that are
caught after they molested dozens of children.
Guess what, folks? We have to
have grown-up conversations about sex in our society that involve those under
the age of 18; to do any less is to continue to repress those that need to
learn the critical lessons about sex, and continue to make it unsafe for kids
to speak out without shame.
4)
The NCAA is not only wrong, but hypocritical,
foolish, and laughably off-base. That
PSU deserved to be punished is something I as an alum can agree with, but they
are not the appropriate body to do something.
The events here arguably hurt the students before the NCAA was involved
by tainting their futures, and certainly didn’t give them any competitive
advantage. The very WAACy (win at all
costs) system that exists does so because the NCAA exists. If the hypothesis is true, that PSU’s
coaching staff and senior management allowed kids to be raped to not hurt the program,
then we should ask why they felt the program would be hurt. It would be illogical to think that if no
repercussions came from reporting, that this would have persisted- so why hide? NCAA has set up a system that has such a low
tolerance for error that they can mandate who can receive money, in an era
where universities are using sports as both a direct and indirect revenue
stream. They have evidence- when a local
vendor gives kids a free pair of shoes, they are fined, players are suspended,
and the program is openly humiliated.
That level of punishment-not-fitting-the-crime causes a near black
market style attitude. When you can joke
and say “sure, everybody cheats-“ what exactly are they cheating? It’s perceived they are cheating a system
that is so out of touch with its charter that you’re better to hide than to
voluntarily comply. Or can you point to
how all the other programs in the country have used the PSU scandal as a wakeup
call, and gone public about how they rely too much on football and not enough
on academics? And I mean all, because it
was an attack on the “football culture.”
The football culture will continue apace, with or without PSU.
5)
I personally don’t care about who is going to
get hurt. Of course the fans will, but again as an alum
I think it’s time for a margin call on our karma bets. You PSU fans know who you are. You sniggered under your breath every time a
program got the attention of NCAA. You
had the hubris and arrogance to puff up your chest, to say “it won’t happen to
us” when something far, far worse lingered the whole time. We allowed our honor to be perverted into
pride. We allowed our pride to be desecrated
into arrogance. And we’re allowing our
loyalty to be converted to zealotry. No,
we didn’t know anything. Yes, we would
like to think we’d have done something differently had we known. Ironically, the person who would have us
really look at this aspect would have been Joe- he would have compared it to
the rule of a Roman emperor, and asked you for an essay on the arrogance of
absolute rule, translating the latin.
And the ultimate lesson would be that he would ask us to let him
go. Forget the media, they’ve proven
themselves to be willful idiots and ESPN quislings. If you really believe Joe was right, then let
him go. Time will prove him and it
right.
6)
Penn State will not die unless they so heavily
penalize the university that they will go bankrupt. Watch the cosmic dance, though. It happens so regularly. First, the shock (check). Then, the scorn (check). Then the gossip-turned-RIMO (righteous
indignation moral outrage, check). Then
the loss of sponsors (starting). Then,
the actual facts of what happened. Then,
the muted corrections by those that profited from the RIMO and mob
mentality. Then, silence.
7)
A lesson to be learned here is important- the
one that was not followed. We said “Success
with Honor.” It’s one of the
cornerstones of the house we worshiped in- and don’t fool yourself, PSU
football (and many, many others) are religious organizations. We had a dogma, a legacy, a prophet, a rite, holy days of obligation, and
many, many avatars. But regardless of
what’s happened- the temple has been destroyed, in a sense- the corner stone is
still good. We are left to follow
it. We are left to enforce it on our
culture. Our honor has been besmirched,
but the idea had no man- it was each of us.
We stand together and demand honor.
Our training and skill will bring us success- which by the way of the
hundreds of thousands of alumni, only a very small portion actually played
football, and it’s not even relevant to the end result. Your professors give you honor. Your friends and roommates, organizations and clubs, greek and independent,
all those that shared the experience give you honor. And now we have something to aim for our
success- and that’s passing on a wise lifestyle to others.
