Rest in Peace

The Penn State community once again finds itself united; united in profound sorrow and despair.

A ten week surreal nightmare, the likes of which we dared never imagine has dealt its cruelest blow yet. The untimely death of the man we affectionately call JoePa, Coach Joseph Vincent Paterno.

The doctors say he died of lung cancer and clinically speaking that’s likely true. And yet most who truly knew him believe he died of a broken heart. The exact reasons for that heartbreak are now between Paterno and his creator and I will not debate them in this blog.

Ten weeks ago we mourned a spiritual death; the death of Paterno’s legacy. Today we mourn his actual passing. Both seemed indestructible; a rare constant in an ever changing universe, before November 10th, 2011.

Let me start with this; if you believe that Paterno engaged in a carefully orchestrated cover-up of sexual assault against children you should probably stop reading this column. If that truly is your belief than you likely are unwilling to see beyond it; notwithstanding a lack of any facts to collaborate that position. As the great Walter Payton said upon announcing his terminal illness, “For those who will say what they are going to say, may G-d have mercy on your soul.”

If you believe that Paterno was a good and decent person; a man who spent six decades trying to do right and likely made one horribly flawed decision than by all means read on. If you believe that good people can make terrible mistakes when put in situations beyond their comprehension, you may understand my grief and that of hundreds of thousands of proud Penn Staters.

Excepting a five second, passing conversation in 1991, I never met Joe Paterno. And yet I mourn for him as I would a member of my own family. The emotions are real and undeniable. And I assure you I’m not alone.

As former Nittany Lion Adam Taliferro so eloquently stated yesterday, Penn State has lost its heart. Joe Paterno was quite simply the heart and soul of our community. And with his death, our hearts are truly broken. There will never be another Paterno or anyone like him. There will never be another relationship like the one between Paterno and Penn State. I do not expect those outside of that relationship to understand it. I hope they have the decency to at least respect it.

I wrote this a few weeks back and it bears repeating. Penn State is a massive extended family. Our family has hundreds of thousands of members. It stretches across years and decades and thousands of miles. We are incredibly broad and diverse, different in so many ways. The one thing that binds us is an undying love of The Pennsylvania State University.

Understand this, whatever you may think of him right now, Joe Paterno was the patriarch of our family. He was quite literally the physical embodiment of this place we hold so sacred. His death is a death to our entire family. For that we mourn.

Some people cannot fathom Penn State football without Paterno. I cannot fathom Penn State University without him. As I sit here today I cannot believe he is gone any more than I can accept the callous indifference with which he was discarded. As his wife so simply and accurately stated, after 61 years he deserved better.

There is nothing more than I can add about the horrific scandal that ended his career and perhaps his life. It’s been analyzed, debated, and scrutinized. Questions have been asked and for the most part not answered. We may never know the whole truth. We may never truly know if Paterno enabled these horrific crimes or was served up as a sacrificial lamb to a blood thirsty public and media. As always the truth is likely somewhere in between.

History will ultimately pass judgment on the life of Joe Paterno. That history is still being written, for better or sadly for worse.

And it is irrelevant today.

Today we mourn the loss of a good man. Not a perfect man by any means but then he never claimed to be. I believe in my heart that this man tried to live a profoundly decent life. As I listen to the overwhelming tributes from virtually everyone who knew him, I am more and more convinced this is true.

We do not really know what he knew or did not know in 2002. And sadly now we may never know. We do not know what motivated his action or worse perhaps his inaction. All I can say is what I said last week; the idea that Joe Paterno willfully ignored the sexual abuse of children is in categorical opposition to the way he lived his entire life. I simply refuse to accept it without proof; not with this man’s track record.

If that makes me naïve or an enabler I will live with the charge. It is easy to rise upon a pedestal and pass sanctimonious judgments without facts. It is harder to open your heart, to try and truly understand. To ask the question of why virtually everyone whose life has been touched by this man so reveres and respects him. Perhaps because real life is complex; perhaps because the story is not so simple as many choose to believe.

I am remiss to use the word tragedy in the context of sports. Tragedy is about life and death; not about athletic competition. But it is absolutely a tragedy if a man who gave so much of himself to so many, is remembered first and foremost for crimes he neither perpetrated nor witnessed. It is a tragedy if this scandal, to whatever extent he is culpable caused his death. And you can add me to the long list of people who believe that is exactly what happened.

It just seems far too much a coincidence that such a strong and vibrant human being succumbed to death only ten weeks after his life was torn asunder. I cannot even fathom how painful it would be to devote your entire life to building something; a program, an image, and ideal, and then having it irrevocably destroyed in the span of four days. I know how devastating this has been for me; for all of us in the Penn State community. It terrifies me to think how painful this must have been for Paterno.

I understand that this scandal made his position untenable. That does not make it right that a man who spent 60 years of his life coaching, teaching, mentoring, and impacting young people was sacrificed to a blood thirsty public. Not when so many others bare as much or great burden in this terrible tragedy. Not when the ultimate villain in this horror appears less reviled publically than Paterno.

Unless and until somebody proves to me that Joe Paterno deliberately covered up sexual abuse of children I will stand behind this belief; a person with his track record deserves and in fact demands the presumption of innocence. At the very least he deserved his day in court, a day he now will never get.

If and when it is proven that he participated in an orchestrated cover-up of child sexual abuse, his legacy will be indefensible at any level. Until that happens, I will maintain that a good and decent human was taken down for a terrible mistake. I will never believe without proof otherwise that he acted with malice at the expense of innocent children, because his entire life stands for just the opposite.

I am truly saddened by the passing of this man whose influence was so profound for so many. And I am angry that I have to justify my emotions. That is the greatest tragedy here. If not for this scandal we would without hesitation celebrate his life while mourning his death. Instead we are forced to temper our emotions lest they be construed as empathizing with the abuse of children. For what seems the thousandth time, we all recognize the horror of what occurred here. The children are the only real victims of the scandal. At least until yesterday.

I hope that even Paterno’s staunchest critics will take a moment to mourn his passing. Even those who believe the worst of him in this situation must recognize who this man was and what he lived for. If you are so sure of his guilt that forgiveness is impossible, at least take a moment to grieve for his soul. He’s earned that much from all of us.

I hope the rest of us will grieve a remarkable yet simple man whose primarily goal in life seemed to be as simple as “make an impact.” He impacted more lives than most of us dare dream

Rest in peace coach Paterno. We will never see another like you.

Much Ado About Nothing

I pondered the following question on Facebook the other day. Is anybody else concerned that as of today the Big 10 has 12 teams and the Big 12 has 10 teams? Or do I have too much time on my hands?

I’m guessing the answer is the latter. You can thank the end of hockey season for that.

Anyway, after several weeks of rampant speculation and theories about the end of the college football universe as we know it, there is surprisingly little change. Reports of the Big 12’s demise were, to say the least, greatly exaggerated as were reports that the Big 10 was prepared to add half the eastern seaboard to its membership. In fact, when it’s all said and done, we could literally end up with nothing more than two BCS teams changing conferences and perhaps one new BCS school in Utah (you may recall them trampling Tyler Palko in the Fiesta Bowl a few years back).

The initial over reaction is hardly shocking considering the flimsy amount of evidence that most sports media need these days to run with a story. If Andy Katz or Adam Schefter hears a rumor from Jim Tressel’s (aka Mr. Rodgers’) sophomore year roommate, that’s good enough for the ENTERTAINMENT and sports network in Bristol to create a half hour special.

And of course we are no closer to that illusive college football playoff. We are also no closer to Ben Roethlisberger being Time Magazine’s person of the year but that’s an issue for a different day.

At least we finally have the long awaited answer to why they never renamed the eleven team Big 10. I’m guessing it took about 20 minutes after Penn State accepted its Big 10 bid for the other members to determine they wanted a 12th school. Sadly, it then took 20 years to accept that Notre Dame was not interested. It seems possible that at long last, The Big Whatever Conference finally told the Fighting Irish to go pound sand.

Seriously, can the entire college football world please stop sucking up to this second tier program that is still living off accomplishments from the Eisenhower administration? There is little doubt in my mind that the Big Whatever held that spot open so long because they continued to hope ND would change its mind. That’s not going to happen and good riddance.

In lieu of the Irish, The Big Whatever choose the only other football program I can muster up comparable hatred for; the Nebraska Thug Huskers. I joked (sort of) during the Stanley Cup finals that I would root for a team of ex-convicts in a seven game series against the Eastern Pennsylvania Orange and Black Goon Squad. Perhaps I should have chosen my words more carefully since the last time this happened, the ex-cons stole a national championship from Penn State (yes I’m still very much bitter about that).

We will postpone railing on Nebraska for another day. Believe it or not, I’m actually happy they are joining the Big 10. Penn State fans do not typically charge the field or turn over cars on Atherton Street after beating Minnesota. Conversely, a bi-annual grudge match with Thug Huskers should have the goal posts in fear of their safety in Happy Valley. Given the rampant mediocrity of every Big 10 school west of Columbus, adding another power program is probably a good thing, even if it is one that sold out its integrity to win a national championship.

This is hardly the conference armageddon we were told was coming. The Big 12 was deemed to be dead conference walking. The Pac 10 was going to steal 6 teams, which would in theory mitigate the short-term collapse of Los Angeles’ only professional football team, the USC Trojans. The Big 10 was supposedly going to grab four Big East Schools, while the ACC grabbed the leftovers.

The net result was expected to be four super conferences who could, in theory, have lucrative conference championship games and then send their champions to a 4 team national playoff. Or even better, four super conferences who could in theory have lucrative conference championship games and then have 8 computers and 1,500 sports writers arbitrarily determine who the best two teams are.

Maybe that will all still happen. Maybe the Big Whatever is so determined to get the Flubbing Irish in their conference that they will blow up the Big East. Maybe $25 Million per year will not be enough to make Texas happy.

My guess however is that in the end there will be minimal change. Here are a few things to consider in regards to the Big 10, the conference that got the ball rolling on this:

1) Nobody from the Big 10 ever officially stated that the conference wanted to expand to 16 teams. That was a media creation. Their primary goal was to get to 12 so they could have the all important, conference championship game. That way somebody else can ruin Ohio State’s national championship hopes before the entire country has to endure it on New Year’s Day.

2) The teams that were being thrown around as potential candidates were ridiculous. Why on earth would the Big 10 want to add Rutgers or Syracuse? The Big 10 already has a highbrow academic institution with lousy sports teams in Northwestern. They don’t need a junior varsity version from New Jersey. Syracuse has not fielded a decent team since before Philly fans were hazing Donovan McNabb. And for those financial cynics out there, I just don’t see cable subscribers in the New York market forking over $3 extra per month to watch the Scarlet Nights battle Purdue.

3) No matter how much anybody wants to believe otherwise, I don’t think Pitt was ever a viable candidate. The Big 10 wanted one of two things; either a school that would advance its football profile or a school that would add a significant new television market. For better or for worse, Nebraska provides the former (and to a very small extent the latter). Pitt provides neither (although the Wannstedt offense is eerily similar to Big 10 offenses of the mid 70s). Besides, as much as I would like to see the Pitt/Penn State football renewal, the Big 10 would be terrible for Pitt’s basketball team.

4) No matter how arrogant or stupid it may seem to the rest of us, Notre Dame is not coming. Good for them. Let them value their football independence right into irrelevancy. It might take 20 more years but eventually NBC will find something that generates higher ratings on Saturday than a 5 win team with an overrated QB (see, Powlus, Mirer, Quinn, Clausen, etc). I for one will not lose a minute of sleep when that occurs.

What this means is that the Big 10 might officially be the Big 12 (not to be confused with the existing 10 team Big 12) and that might be it. The Big East may survive, completely unchanged from a football perspective. The PAC 10 will settle for Utah and continued conference mediocrity and The Big 12 (10) will probably survive as a 10 team league. That’s unless The Big 12 (10) goes after TCU and one other school to be determined (although there is apparently some huge cat fight between TCU in Baylor, ripped straight from the truly strange stories of the who on earth could possibly give a damn department).

So much for the seismic changes in college football. So much for the potential playoff. Bring on five more years of John Saunders and Kirk Herbstreit explaining to us why you really can use a computer to pick the best team in the country and yet we are decades away from having the capabilities to stage an 8 team playoff.

The masochist in me would like to see more changes. I would like to see exactly what everybody thought was going to happen. It would add a desperately needed boost to college football which is far too reliant on the same, tired 100 year old conference match-ups. It might even force the BCS schools to play quality opponents in their non conference games, rather than battling for Buffalo and Coastal Carolina. Most important, the new conference set-up would rid us of any more mediocre Big East teams stealing BCS bowl bids through the NCAA’s charitable giving program for disadvantaged eastern conferences.

Conversely there is a side of me that hopes this does not happen. That’s the side that values integrity, loyalty and the notion, however quaint, that college athletics are supposed to be about interscholastic competition rather than billion dollar television deals. Watching all these schools ditch their conference tie ins in a desperate grab for more money is a bit sickening. It’s also a bit hypocritical given that they just admonished USC for failing to promote a proper amateur environment at their institution, around the same time the Pac 10 was consulting an intoxicated Eddie Belfour on how much to bribe Texas.

Of course there could be another round of changes and more jockeying for position. Anything is possible. That being said, in the end this story appears to be far more bark than bite. That’s fine, I can go back to ripping the moronic BCS system without all this other distraction.