The university I attended was not a big football school. It has a football team but seems to be perpetually locked in a battle to rise above Div I-AA status, something difficult without a minimum-seating stadium that's larger than what we have. A large wide receiver on the New York Giants, Ramses Barden, played for my alma mater. He caught a pass and had a good run in a key situation against the Patriots last Sunday, eliciting a hearty cheer from the cadre of Mustang alums at our friend's house in Seattle.
I guess I'm just trying to get to the point that I don't have an emotional connection to a college football team. The emotional ties to college teams tend to be more idealized as "pure" when compared to the binding emotional ties to professional teams. It most likely has to do with the nostalgia-colored lenses of memory about how much hope exists during time in college, the associations of the formative years of the relationship with the team and connection itself being categorized differently.
Big sports universities, and here I guess I really mean big football universities, since football originated as a college-only sport and today is the biggest moneymaker in college sports, do everything they can to foster that emotional tie and connection with their non-athlete student population. This ensures a steady flow of season-ticket purchasers, logo-ed gear owners, and future donors. Nowadays the real money is in television and merchandising rights, but the old business model is still in use.
Classic games come to define whole generation's core beliefs about their love of their school/team, and can create a large well of good will. One case in point is the 1986 Fiesta Bowl, a game in which the national champion was crowned. In this game the flamboyant villain, Miami, was bested by the unadorned hero, Penn State. The defensive schemes that led Penn State over Miami were designed by their defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky.
For those of my readers unfamiliar with Penn State's football team, their head coach is a guy named Joe Paterno. Joe has worked in the football program for six decades, having spent the last 46 years as head coach. He is generally seen as the last Good Guy in college football, having an old-school air about how he treats his players--emphasizing academics--and his staff that it makes sense that the school has never had a recruiting violation or ever had any problems with the NCAA rules about boosters or improper payments to student-athletes. It was truly the last university where the program was what fans thought of as "pure". Paterno's name is not on a sports facility on Penn State's campus, rather, its library.
Jerry Sandusky's defensive schemes and overall coaching genius led him to be tapped as the heir-apparent to Joe Paterno, whenever Joe felt like stepping down or moving aside. Sandusky coached in the system for almost thirty years.
He abruptly stepped down in 1999, surprising both players and fans with knowledge of the team and coaching situation. He was given an office on campus, access to the workout facility, an emeritus professorship, and the use of other resources to smoothly run his charitable foundation, The Second Mile.
Apparently, in 2002, he was quietly barred from the workout facility. Following an incident. That was never really mentioned.
Then...then as we're landing in Long Beach from our trip to Seatts I'm watching silently the JetBlue television screen in the seat in front of me, watching some ESPN highlights, and catch the bottom news scroll saying something like "Jerry Sandusky, former Penn State defensive coordinator, has been indicted on 40 counts of child sexual abuse with at least 8 victims over the course of 15 years..."
Uhhh--what?
A Grand Jury had been convened to delve into the matter. Indictments followed for two school officials for perjury and obstruction of justice, and they appear headed to jail for at least a little time. I've read over the sickening transcript of the Grand Jury findings. Some pertinent dates:
Apparently in 1998 Sandusky forced a boy to shower with him, then that boy's mother asked why his hair was wet and why he seemed so weird. She confronted Sandusky who apologized for what he characterized as a misunderstanding. In 1999 he resigned from the coaching staff. Who knew what when? The only importance of that question is about how long Paterno keeps his job.
The 2002 "incident", the incident that was hushed up and ignored besides having Sandusky barred from the facility, also took place in the shower. A graduate assistant to the team was surprised to see the showers on and as he approached heard rhythmic movement. He came around the corner to see Sandusky actually in the midst of raping a child who looked to be ten years old.
This assistant was so shaken that he notified--not the police--but his boss, Joe Paterno, who in turn notified his bosses (since, heck, Jerry wasn't actually on his staff anymore), who in turn didn't even attempt to learn who the boy was, they just barred Jerry, ensuring that at least the next act of abuse would happen off-campus. The two officials who Paterno told are the ones who allegedly perjured themselves.
If you walk in on a scene like the grad assistant did wouldn't you want to call the cops? Must be easier said than done.
Sickening. The only two people who know who that boy in the shower was are Jerry and the boy himself. That's a sign of corrupted power if anything is.
Now, other things have a scary ring to them when you learn them: Jerry Sandusky and his wife couldn't have kids, so they adopted. Any guesses about The Second Mile foundation, Sandusky's charity? If you said "works with at-risk kids", you're correct, and a cynic who could see where this is going.
Sandusky's fighting these charges even as a ninth victim has come forward. Wow, what a crazy conspiracy. It must have been hard to get all those boys to come up with the exact same descriptions of how they were treated by this adult, to all have the same memories independently of each other. Probably harder than framing OJ.
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