The Trials of PSU

The Trials of PSU

It’s been said that “Scandal is what one half of the world takes pleasure inventing, and the other half in believing.” That observation applies in spades to the ongoing scandal at Penn State University except for the fact those pleasuring in the PSU scandal have been woefully misdirected.

For inexplicable reasons, many people hate Penn State, perhaps for its immense size, its influence, or its football team.

Someone actually published a currently out of print screed on the subject titled, I Hate Penn State: 303 Reasons Why You Should, Too, a screed which may experience a revival in the wake of the events of the past six days in University Park, PA, regrettable events rapidly turning Happy Valley into an unhappy lowland.

It’s very evident neither the PSU child sex scandal nor its repercussions were invented and, at this point, the crimes against children and nature committed by former Nittany Lion defensive coach Jerry Sandusky must be termed ”alleged” until he is, hopefully, tried, convicted, and sentenced to live out his remaining days in some godforsaken Pennsylvania state prison.

(See “Paterno vs Sandusky, Mistakes vs. Predation,” http://tiny.cc/r4lqf.)

As more and more of Sandusky’s victims emerge–the count may reach twenty–media and public venom are developing into a tsunami. However, in a peculiar twist, the venom isn’t being directed against the alleged perpetrator of the vile crimes but against legendary football coach Joe Paterno and Penn State University itself.

With Sandusky long retired, the PSU Board of Trustees peremptorily fired Paterno, by phone, on Wednesday. University president Dr. Graham Spanier was also cashiered. Paterno was dismissed for not doing enough to expose Sandusky’s predations, Spanier for covering them up. Combined with Athletic Director Tim Curley’s leave of absence and Senior PSU VP Gary Schultz’s resignation, that should have put the scandal to rest pending Sandusky’s trial.

Four heads on a platter proved to be nowhere near sufficient to sate the bloodlust of Penn State-haters in the media, however, anymore than the arrest of Jerry Sandusky satisfied them. Sandusky became almost incidental, his guilt as an accused serial homosexual child molestor almost irrelevant to the MSM even as new revelations surfaced.

Classified so far as rumors circulated by long-time PSU critic, Pittsburgh sports writer Mike Madden, Sandusky and his Second Mile Foundation were reputedly “pimping out young boys to rich donors” and Sandusky retired at the unusually young age of 55 ”in exchange for a cover-up” of his illicit activities.

Also seemingly irrelevant are the inactions of then-graduate assistant Mike McQueary.

His action, that is, informing Coach Paterno that he had personally witnessed Sandusky performing a sex act on a 10 year old boy in a shower room, has been duly noted and praised. Paterno reported the incident to Curley the next day yet he was fired.

McQueary’s grievous inactions of failing to intercede, of allowing the assault to continue, of not immediately calling the police–after flattening Sandusky and freeing the boy–speak volumes about McQueary and the Penn State administration.

Now an assistant coach, McQueary was scheduled to be on the sidelines in Saturday’s game with Nebraska alongside interim coach Tom Bradley before he received death threats from overworked fans crazed by Paterno’s dismissal. Aside from his failure to intervene in the first place, questions remain as to why he was not criticized for doing what Paterno did, going by the protocol book, and why he, too, wasn’t fired by PSU higher-ups.

Piling on, . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=5937.)