BACKGROUND
I’ll be honest… I’ve angrily tapped out many openings that needed to be deleted for the sake of my future with the company. Before responding to @PaulHouse article (if you haven’t seen the trailer yet you can watch it first there), you should know that I am extremely biased. I hate Penn State with a passion. Every detail about how Paterno, school officials, and even police officers handled a situation in which they allowed a pervert to molest children, while covering it up, makes me sick. And the fact that it’s extremely rare to find a Penn Stater who will admit that Joe Paterno was one of the biggest pieces of shit to ever exist bothers the hell out of me.
I was even on their campus the day that news broke of the university paying a $60 million fine in exchange to reinstate the school’s wins that were originally taken away from the scandal. Bars immediately seized the opportunity to make specials with Joe’s name to celebrate. “409” chants broke out in the streets and bars all night. People acted as though Jesus had just risen from the dead and absolved the city of all their sins. I bit through my tongue while my ex prayed I didn’t start a fight.
REVIEW
There’s only one reason to re-tell the story of this happening. That is to ensure that the “legacy” (that some Penn State fans, and virtually no one else, believe is pristine) Joe Paterno leaves behind is tarnished. Along these lines, the trailer seems to capture the idea that Paterno is indeed the scum who knew all along, that we’ve established he is. The part where his wife is so confident that Joe Pa could not have possibly known about any of it… because he let Sandusky swim in the pool with their kids… and it’d be pretty disturbing to think your husband would let your children alone in a pool with a confirmed child molester… but Joe just sits there with an “I’m so glad I wore my Depends today” face… the level of cringe is off the charts, but a perfect illustration of just how messed up this man was.
My only qualm with it is the mention that the reporter may have been doing this for personal gain. That woman is a saint who helped expose one of the most disturbing cover-ups in NCAA history, and a challenge to her integrity has no place in the show.
CLAPBACK
Now let’s dive into my new colleague Paul’s review. I almost got to the end without getting angry. I believe that he truly meant to write an unbiased review of the trailer, but like most Penn Staters, he must have already sipped too much of the Kool-Aid to see things clearly. This was evident when I got to his last paragraph.
The word recovery means a return to a state. A recovery is needed when something that benefits a community is damaged by an outside force, so that it can return to its normal state of providing goods or services. The last thing that anyone who truly cared about the University should want is any type of recovery. The program needed total destruction, and to be built back up with a completely different structure; One that put ethics and morals over the things that come with a successful division one football program. I never got the sense that this happened at Penn State, and so, despite the good the university does in other areas, I can’t understand taking pride in how the aftermath was handled.
The people in charge at Penn State, along with the fans of the program never have, and probably never will see it that way. Every step of the way, it becomes evident that the most important thing to them is that they get back to winning as soon as possible. That’s why they complained about scholarship and bowl restrictions, when the rest of the world knew that SMU had received the death penalty for much less. That’s why they invested time and money into lifting those restrictions early. That’s why they ignored facts and did everything they could to put a criminal back in the record books. And that’s why I’m not sure whether or not I’ll be able to watch this entire show without firing a remote through the TV.