RE: Snoop Dog reportedly met up with Silas Redd during his USC visit...
No, you don't win. You have lost in a rout and that's the whole point. Your culture is so inward looking and insular that you don't even recognize how foolish you all look to the outside world. It's rather weird to be perfectly honest with you.
Believe me, I know this phenomenon well as my wife and her entire family are all PSU alums and they have all (except my wife) taken this very hard and very personally (which is super weird and deserving of a comprehensive mass psychology study, IMHO). The sad part is that they're all good, kind, generous people and normally very rational - except when it comes to Penn State football - and especially Joe Paterno - in which case all reason goes straight out the window in favor of an assortment of fairy tales of things they'd like to be true.
Seriously, we can talk domestic politics, geopolitics, history, other sports, religion, etc., without much of a problem even though we typically come at things from very different places. However, once Penn State comes up - even before this scandal - and they immediately launch into very rigid, often absurd, talking points that really stretch credulity.
I just spent a week on vacation with all of them and it's normally a very interesting week - our annual vacation to the beach. Last year and especially this year (now that they have regrouped) I spent all week listening to them trying to convince me - and themselves - that this is all one big mistake and/or conspiracy involving all sorts of different illogical bed fellows and that the truth will eventually come out and that when it does JoePa will be vindicated and the universe restored. I tell them, "Yeah, and when he gets out of prison, OJ will resume looking for Nicole's real killers." I also tell them that the problem is the that the truth HAS come out and that's why we have found ourselves where we are.
They don't like that one bit and frankly, I don't blame them. I wouldn't either if I was in their shoes. However, at some point you have to face reality even when it sucks.
Their mentality is basically that your BOT, your acting president, various media and news organizations - most notably ESPN, the president of the NCAA, the president of the Big Ten, the former director of the FBI, the Queen of England and Elvis' ghost are all involved in some sort of widespread nebulous conspiracy to make JoePa look bad for reasons that remain unclear to any sane human being. However, at the same time it is patently ridiculous for anyone to suggest that four men who work together every single day, have known each other well for years and years, and who all have a vested financial interest in protecting the money train that is the football program, would act on said interest.
I'm sorry but that is straight out of Crazytown, USA and it simply doesn't hold up to any modicum of common sense. Look, I'd like to believe in the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus and that most people are inherently kind and generous souls but that doesn't make that true either.
For me it just comes down to the timeline being messed up. Seriously, who waits 24 hours to report a child rape as McQueery did; or 48 hours as Paterno did? That kid may or may not have been raped by Sandusky in the shower - who knows? However that's not the point. The point is that Paterno certainly didn't know that at the time and he probably didn't know one way or the other the day he died. So why the hesitancy to do the humane thing?
More troubling, why was McQueery reporting a child rape to the football coach? This isn't like he saw someone in the office steal a stapler. He saw - or thought he saw - a little boy being raped by a grown man. What kind of a phucked up place has it where one reports the raping of children to the local football coach? In other words, why was Paterno involved at all? Further, when he was involved, why did he say to McQueery (according to Paterno himself), "Okay, you have done what you need to do. Now I have to figure out what I need to do?"
What the phuck was there to figure out?! A little boy was being raped for God's sake. Paterno did eventually report the rape - 48 hours later. Again, why on earth would anyone wait 48 hours to report the raping - or potential raping - of a child? I just cannot get past that point that everyone agrees on (including Paterno himself).
Here's what I think: I think EVERYTHING went through the Don. I think it was made clear to everyone inside or around the program that Joe had to be in the loop on everything from skipped classes, to roughed up girlfriends to stolen stereo equipment and so on and so forth. They had an image of being the paragons of college football to protect and that image would be tarnished if the minor indiscretions that happen at every football program were reported to the police and by extension the media.
That's what I think happened. I think McQueery knew this was more serious than most of the other hijinks their kids have gotten involved with. However, he also knew that the old man would be pissed at him if he went around him and straight to the po-po. The kid needed a job and that was the only program he had ever been around - indeed the only town he had ever lived in. He choked and chose the program over humanity. Then Paterno, fearing that this animal Sandusky - who he had long suspected of being a creep - was going to tear down all that JoePa had built up over the course of decades due to Sandusky's sexual proclivities and perversions. I think Paterno spent that 48 hour window consulting (read: conspiring) with his son - an attorney - and his other legal advisors over what he had to do to be legally clear while at the same time not blowing the roof off his program.
I think they all got away with it until Jerry got touchy feely a little too far outside of the PSU bubble and some alert guidance counselor and a victim's mom courageously stepped forward and said ENOUGH! That led to Sarah Ganim - who is an absolute hero in all of this and should have the PSU journalism school named after her - doing her thing which led to a monster being put away and possibly three more monsters joining him.
It's over and JoePa has been disgraced in the public's minds eye. That is not going to change no matter what happens with Spanier, Curley or Shultz. It is over and your best bet now is to take your medicine, turn the page and support Bill O'Brien. Also, please acknowledge how callously your leaders treated those poor kids. Even if you don't agree that they conspired against them (even though they pretty obviously did do just that), at the very least they were terribly uncaring about those "throw away kids." Let me put it another way. Had that been JoePa's grandchild alone with the Tickle Monster, he would have taken a much more aggressive course of action regarding the authorities.
That is a disgraceful revelation.
I think that is why people are so venomous towards PSU. You all just seem so uncaring towards those poor kids while at the same time wailing about your own victim status (for being stripped of a few scholies - BFD). It's just so incredibly tacky and off-putting and yet the wailing seems to be intensifying and the callousness towards the actual victims is as strong as ever. I don't pretend to speak for everyone but it has left a very sour taste in my mouth.
Your football coach - who spent 40 years telling everyone how virtuous he was - choked when the chips were on the table. He may - may - have done just enough to avoid a prison sentence (we'll never know because he died of a guilty conscience before we could ever find out) but he fell well short of his own standard and frankly, short of the basic standard you or I would expect from a man in his position were it one of our loved ones who needed help.
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