"Dear Penn State: It's just football"
And was AMAZED that I got the responses I did. I meant it to be in response to the rioting by the student body. I couldn't fathom why a football coach getting fired would cause a riot! I was politely told that people don't know all the facts about the case and they aren't passing judgement.
Um.... wait a minute. If this was a PE teacher in an high school, the same actions would have been taken. But there wouldn't have been a riot. There are some facts in the case that are clear:
- 8 young men came forward to accuse Sandusky of sexual abuse. It's credible enough that a grand jury was convened.
- This happened over a period of years.
- Paterno (Whom as an educator is a mandatory reporter) reported this to his superior
- The superiors did nothing.
The college, when the severity of this came out, decided to clean house and get rid of everyone involved. I have a feeling that if this happened in a High School the same would happen.
It sucks, but it happened.
And all that the Penn State folks can think of is how AWFUL it is that they lost a coach.
*blink* Not that the alleged abuse is awful. Not that these young men's lives were forever changed by this. No. just that their football team is tarnished.
Again I say: It's just football. Football is NEVER a reason to riot.
Here's something to chew on: What if the victims were girls? (you should read this one too) After what happened in Texas, and what is prevalent in the media I don't think we'd be singing the same tune. Women are often blamed for rape. They were dressed like they were "asking for it." I mean... if the 11 year old that was allegedly gang raped in Texas is being blamed for this (She acted "older." Older? She was 11!!) what to stop others from blaming the victim?
But I digress.
To sum up. Things are looking not great for Sandusky. Penn State cleaned house of the people that did what they should have done and not a bit more. And students cared more about football than sexual abuse victims and rioted.
How sad.
2 comments:
Well, I can't defend the riot either. But I can suggest to you that if you were young, in college, had some alcohol (shocked...shocked...I say), had the media following your every move on campus for about a week and found out the football coach was fired over the telephone you might riot too. And I will say they only flipped one media truck from WTAJ-10 based in Altoona, the home of a certain ESPN commentator has been bashing PSU all week so there were selective rioters! Again, I don't defend it but I understand how it happened.
The bigger problem is that somehow all students and alumni and faculty were "in" on this and suffer from a god worshop of Joe Paterno. Lets get this straight, football was the icing on a very big cake at a large, land grant, reseach university with 23 branches, a law school, a med school, and every other kind of program you would want.
This is the story of one pretty sick guy. And even the 23 page inditement has holes in the story so we don't have all the facts yet. What is even worse is from the former President of PSU (whom I've met and was on faculty when I was in school there) on down nobody including the police did their job. This is not the fault of the kids in school or the faculty, its the so-called responsible grown ups not doing what tehy had to do.
See my comment...
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