There is no sense yet to be made of the hell unfolding at Penn State, and I’m not going to try. I’m sick for the victims and their families, I’m thankful there aren’t going to be more of them, and I pray for their healing.
As the wheels of justice begin to turn, I’m sure I’ll have more thoughts. However, one thing is already certain. Socioculturally, this is forever, and consequently I’m heartbroken for the Penn State family in general. “Reeling,” “shocked,” and other such adjectives pepper the stories describing the mood in State College, and as abused as those words are, if anything they’re insufficient here.
(Please know that I write about this aspect of the story now only because I feel there is clarity here that is not yet present in the victims’ stories. I do not intend to suggest for a moment that any damage to the culture surrounding a university’s football program is morally comparable to the damage of the alleged sexual abuse itself, and no such suggestion should be assumed.)
Penn State means a little something to everyone in the college football world, and that little something it means has been overwhelmingly positive. It has been about character, tradition, and just doing things the right way in general. It’s about ceaselessly classy fans. It’s about a massive vessel of life and vigor springing up in the middle of a nowhere defined only by its equidistance between two somewheres.
As persistent and seemingly authentic as the Happy Valley mythos has been, Penn State shall now forever be remembered for this horror at least as much, if not more. It’s not fair to millions of fine folks, but it’s reality. When I mention Kent State, what do you think of?
See?
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I am stunned at how many people in positions of authority not only turned their heads, but actively covered up, the ongoing abuse of children. I guess that Penn State has maintained the status quo within their athletic department for so long that it has numbed their senses of moral decency and societal responsibility. My heart breaks for these kids and their families, and I hope that Penn State does some serious self examination on how this was allowed to happen. After they clean house, of course.
It’s gonna be a horrible horrible story that you would expect to come out of Notre Dame, not Happy Valley.. Fucking college football is all about exploitation, normally it is just college age boys instead of pre teen boys.
Jenny, agreed all around. What a tragedy—and on the subject of cleaning house, what a bizarre, horrific end to the Paterno era.
Buzzregog, that’s a bit much, in a couple of ways.