Finally, it’s
game week. I don’t think I have looked forward to a game as much as look as I
look forward to the Penn State game this Saturday. Apparently, Ohio (the
Bobcats, not the Buckeyes) is a good team. Not exactly a traditional
MAC-rifice. I really want to just talk about football. Most Penn State fans
just want to talk about football. We can’t, not yet.
On Saturday,
we (get used to this, I say we like I am a part of the team) have a new coach,
new offensive system, a new defensive system, and a new outlook on college
football. For three hours we want to watch a football game. We want it to seem
familiar. Yet it will all seem very
foreign.
The players
will be familiar. There will be Matt McGloin, a “moxie” filled Irishman, will
line up at QB. For the first time in his career, I hope he knows that all the
PSU community is behind him. I privately hope he brings back the Irish
mouthpiece. I loved the stone faced look he had during the players’ response to
the sanctions. I don’t know why- but I saw exactly what I wanted to see.
I also think
Michael Mauti will be out to hit as hard as possible- if only to release the
frustrations that have been evident in his voice since the sanctions came
down. I think I understand where the frustration
comes from. I hope it’s not from the actual need for the NCAA, but rather the
environment that was created in the wake of the sanctions. I see a leader of a
team trying his best to hold the pieces together.
Please do not
misunderstand me. A lot of people have told me that the punishment by the NCAA
is too harsh. It isn’t. A punishment had to be handed down. The NCAA had to do
something. The day the sanctions were announced, I wrote the following on my
Facebook wall:
Sometimes there are no words, no clever quotes to neatly
sum up what's happened that day. That jumped to mind when from a Criminal Minds episode- to ensure that credit is passed on to where due- and that it isn't my own original thought.
I have grown up as a Penn State fan- most people already know that. Today, and the future, I will still be a Penn State fan, I think. When you profess to do be doing things the right way, better than your peers, to be the incubation of some Grand Experiment, you don't hide behind "what is humane". This is not about who may have known what when, or what was done in some context of the law. Why hide behind these technical aspects to protect the moral slackness of supposedly great men?
And maybe
supposedly isn’t the right word- I hope I am never faced with a situation where
someone I am close to or responsible for is a degenerate.
There are a bunch of tough words people have used, and
blanket statements of what they would have done, and I can't make those. I
think today's punishments are deserved. Just as coaches and presidents are responsible
and credited with wins on the field that players earned, the players pay the
price as well for their mistakes. No one is an island. Today everyone
associated with Penn State is (faced with) punishment for the mistakes of few.
It is deserved, we deserve it.
There will be a
football game at Beaver Stadium this fall. I think I will be there. I'll no
longer think that we are doing better or cleaner than anyone else. It's just
another game on another Saturday I am spending with my friends and family. WE
ARE... because they were not.
I guess the
only part I don’t want to stand by is how I wavered in thinking I would be
still be a fan come Saturday.[1] Yet, the rest is true. To
take it a step further, everyone wants to wash their hands of the responsibility;
they want to say they weren’t at fault. They want their football team back. There
are many groups still attempting to call foul. Every single time, I hear the
same thing. I hear that the Freeh report was not valid. Who cares? Former
football coach Jerry Sandusky operated at Penn State while molesting children.
What part of that isn’t true? That sentence alone is enough to warrant the
sanctions handed down. Stop whining and move on.
We are now
operating in a known environment. Yes, players may transfer. Yes, wins have been vacated. Yes, there is a
post season ban and reduced scholarships. I am a fan of the football team at
Penn State. I am also a fan of the University and all the good it does. The way
forward can’t begin as long as groups continue to want to go backwards and not
claim to be responsible.
For at least
one group, the way forward has already begun. For the football team, it began
when they showed up for camp. On Saturday, we can show up and support that
group as best we can. They are the ones leading the way, while others tilt at
windmills attempting to restore a tarnished legacy. If they really want to say that we can do it
cleaner and better than other schools, then on Saturday, we begin again.
In science
the focus often not on the experiments that are successful, but rather the
focus is directed to the ones that have failed. The grand experiment failed, and
we must begin it anew.
[1] I was afraid I would be rooting for a
post death penalty SMU team, in which case I would not be watching college
football on Saturdays. I would have been a college football widower.
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