The Penn State Attorneys
I stayed away from the whole…you know…when it happened several years ago for a multitude of reasons. One being that it was college ball, and college ball isn’t something I do very often because I don’t really follow it. Also, that was just a toxic mess and most people seemed to be saying what I felt already. I would have been happy to leave Penn State alone but THERE IS NO GODDAMN NEWS NOW and this was kind of a big thing last week, so fuck it, lets talk Penn State.
Some evidence came out that shows that Paterno and friends may have been aware of Sandusky’s actions well before the incidents that eventually caused the whole mess, which shines Joe Pa in an even more damning light as an abuse enabler. This story is such a damn mess. It’s so weird. I personally wish Penn State had gotten the death penalty. I didn’t care about the wins being vacated, Paterno could keep those. Penn State won those games, NCAA recognized or not those games were won by Penn State and everyone knows that. It’s one of the reasons I’ve always seen “removing awards” as kind of a stupid punishment. So Reggie Bush had his Heisman taken away. We all know he still won it. Joe Pa can keep his wins, because the wins don’t actually matter (and anyone who thinks they do needs to look at themselves and wonder if that is the same mentality that led to covering up a problem in the first place). But the culture around the school needed a severe kick in the ass and the death penalty for a year or two would have done a better job of that because it punishes the entire program and hurts the school for allowing such a monster to exist. SMU got the death penalty because of recruitment violations, why can’t PS get it for a toxic child rapist enabling culture among the athletic program? I know which one I find personally more repellent.
A lot of people wanted to see Joe Pa burn mostly because he enabled Sandusky by doing so little but I think also in part by the multitude of people from Penn State who see Joe Pa as some sort of saint. The truth will always be in the middle. Joe Pa did a lot of good for that school. He made a lot of positive changes in a lot of people’s lives. I’m not talking about winning football games, I’m talking about as a person to his players and to his community. The fact that so many people are willing to throw themselves in front of the train for a child abuse enabler shows something about the man, cult of personality or not. I bet a lot of players considered Joe Pa a meaningful person in their lives. Joe Pa wasn’t a black and white piece of evil, he was complicated. He was human, and humans can be seriously terrible sometimes, and gracious at other times.
I think the biggest issue is that we’ll never know for sure just how much he knew. The grim reaper took him out before we really had a chance to investigate, and turned him into a martyr for some. We’ll never know if he explicitly knew Sandusky was raping children or if he simply suspected his friend was weird and decided to not follow up on it. We’ll never know how much he buried for his own sake, or because someone told him to, or what. All that we have is the fact that he did the bare minimum to stop this horrible thing from taking place and no matter what the defenders say, he didn’t do enough. He morally failed. He REALLY failed if he really did know this much back in the 70’s. I don’t think it should completely define his legacy, but it has to be noted and it has to be a major part of his story.
I can’t wait to see what kind of response I get for this one. There are no weak opinions on this story.
ANYWAY IN HAPPY NEWS I GOT THE FORMER EDITOR OF KISSINGSUZYKOLBER ON MY PODCAST AND WE TEAR APART PETER KING!
As someone who’s been molested (although not by Sandusky), Fuck Penn State. Give them the death penalty (even though, like Dave said, it should have happened already).
We do have a Friday game in Arena ball this week at 7:30pm on ESPN3 as the 6-0 Orlando Predators host the 0-5 Tampa Bay Storm who are coming off of a short week. This will be the 60th meeting on the ‘War-on-I-4’. Orlando leads 32-27 and has won 5 straight and 7 of the last 8, including a 76-25 in week 1 which amounted to Orlando suffocating tampa by sitting on them. That game was in Tampa. This game is in Orlando. Tampa won’t even score 20. Orlando will score 21 five minutes in. Orlando by 60
Yea, the storm are historically bad this year. I’m a Preds fan so I’ve been loving it.
I’m a storm fan and I’ve been hating every second of it
Fuck Penn State. O-H-I-O! Go Bucks!
On a serious note, if Joe Pa did know in ’76, then fuck him. If he didn’t… still… this has been a big fucking mess of a cycle and has no signs of ending anytime soon…
WHY DID YOU NOT DO WESTEROS WEEK?!!?!?!
Not enough people really cared last year and it ran out of steam by the end. Also I did it to coincide with my big Westeros League project. It was just a fun week.
I’ve got a different week of comics planned for next week
The Anonymous Play Comic
Agreed. PLEASE BRING BACK WESTEROS WEEK!
no
While I understand the reasoning behind the call for the death penalty here, I should point out that the most likely reason that it _wasn’t_ handed down here is that everyone with any sort of involvement in the case had already been fired or resigned.
I still feel like they should get it if there was any sort of institutional cover up to dissuade anyone else from ever trying to place football over a child rapist getting their due.
I hope that Spanier, and the other two that have been charged, go to prison over the cover-up. And if Paterno was alive, he should too. This isn’t a NCAA matter, it’s a criminal situation. I think the cover-up was partly to protect the golden goose of football, but if they knew in the 70’s, that’s just gross indifference.
I did a lot of work on psu and its satellite campus’s surrounding the state when all this was going on and was disgusted with how pretty much every person in the state thought it was a big witch hunt.. Couldn’t believe how much of a cult mentality surrounds him and the folks in and around PA.. Just a ton of willfully ignorant ppl up there.
Dave, I come for the comics and stay for the commentary afterword. As you say, this is an ugly situation and the NCAA really wriggled out of having to take a real stand on it. I’m not a Penn State, or college football, fan, but I appreciate your nuanced discussion of Joe Paterno. I think it was the right thing for him to be fired, but I don’t think he was some kind of monster. That title I’ll reserve for Jerry Sandusky.
Is no one else going to be that pedantic ass and point out that it’s burglary despite the fact that it’s hardly that important considering the content of the comic?
Dave and spelling don’t go well together.
eh, i could go either way on this story