I'll assume you didn't know that a second-generation Penn State alumnus lurks here and give you a pass on that. I'm willing to put the education I received up against anyone, UPenn grads included.
I'm not posting to stick up for PSU though - in fact, I'm disappointed it came up on this board because UA sports has been one of my refuges from that s***storm. When I first elected to get my master's from Akron (before this all exploded), I decided that I wasn't going to be a typical commuter grad student in that I was going to take pride in the school and not just see it as a means to a degree. Part of that, to me, meant picking one Zips team to root for ahead of all others, including Penn State, and I chose basketball despite my dad being a student manager for PSU's team in his day. Over the last couple of years, I've also developed an affinity for the football and soccer (of course) teams, and I attend as many games of all three of those sports as my schedule allows. My "big" Christmas present(s) last year were a basketball autographed by Coach Dambrot and the team and a soccer ball autographed by Coach Porter and the team, both of which are on display in my living room, not a mancave set aside for such things. I'm a lot newer to all of this than most of you, but I'm extremely proud to be an Akron Zip, especially now.
I can't speak for everyone with ties to PSU obviously, but I'm offended by our portrayal in the national media (I should note that when I say "our," I mean alumni and students, not the school's administration).
My story, in a nutshell, is that I grew up with the football program and was devoted enough to it to pass on Ivy League acceptances - sorry to bust your narrative, Drew Magary - and home-state loyalties (I've lived my whole life in NE Ohio, other than four years) to go to State College. I'm a huge sports fan, and believed that Joe Paterno and PSU football were a model for everything good in college athletics, a belief that continued unwaveringly though last November. I'm a life member in the alumni association and a member in the school's athletic donor club with enough points built up to get football tickets. As I sit here typing this, I see my degree on the wall next to my degree of my wife, who I met there, and several other little reminders of where I went to school. Hell, my wife and I were married on campus, our colors were blue and white, our reception tables were named after PSU linebackers, our cake was in the form of the school's main administration building, and we invited the Paternos (who declined, but his wife wrote a nice note on the card). You get the idea.
Basically, for all of you, it's a chance to point and laugh and/or bust out morality diatribes. For me though, it's the implosion of an entire belief system and the most important thing to me for most of my adult life (you can argue that family should come first, but PSU has been pretty tightly intertwined with that, as I've mentioned). It's impossible to adequately explain how this all feels, but the fact that I'm up after 3am randomly spilling my guts to all of you is a piece to that puzzle, I suppose.
ANYWAY, my sincere belief is that the NCAA doesn't have the authority to do anything. I don't believe the school gained any sort of competitive advantage from its actions/inactions. Yeah, outing Sandusky immediately maybe would have been a mild PR hit, but not anything that hurts the football program's recruiting or anything like that. In fact, by acting as most say they should have, Paterno and the school arguably would have ENHANCED their reputation. They couldn't have prevented Sandusky's pedophilia in the first place, but giving the sledgehammer treatment to a revered part of the program's tradition once he was discovered would have ultimately been good for PR, IMO. Honestly, the fact that nobody saw it that way is the single thing that has me scratching my head as much as anything else. It's sort of a dangerous precedent too, tying NCAA violations to criminal behavior. If a Sandusky gets a school the death penalty, do you lose a scholarship for every second player caught underage drinking?
That's what my brain says. My heart says burn the place to the ground. On some level, I would get a good deal of satisfaction if the football program was wiped out indefinitely. It would represent a fraction of what they've taken from me.
Sorry for venting to all of you...I just figured it was time for me to speak up on here. Go Zips!
