As the title of this entry suggests, there are some Penn State people out there who think that the scandal that has rocked Penn State the past week has been getting a little too much attention. These fans are in the minority, no doubt (I think most Penn State fans realize the magnitude of the situation), but they've been vocal the past week, for sure. When it comes to 93.7 The Fan, I've never been the biggest, well, fan, but I have to give the local Pittsburgh station props for devoting just about round-the-clock coverage last week of the Jerry Sandusky child molestation tragedy.
Obviously, the Pittsburgh-metro area has a ton of Penn State alumni and fans, and a great deal have called that station and criticized them for biased and sensationalized reporting (The Fan is the flagship station for Pitt).
Nice try. I mean, I don't know what sort of production meetings took place last week at that radio station. For all I know, the station GM may have told the on-air personalities to really drive the Penn State situation home as a way to make the University look bad, but I doubt it. For one thing, The Fan Morning Show co-host Paul Alexander is a Penn State graduate and worked and lived in State College for years; you think he would go along with bashing Penn State just because his employers told him to do it?
Face it, this story deserves about as much coverage as it gets. As far as sports scandals go (or any scandal), it's about as big a story as there's ever been.
There are some people that say legendary coach Joe Paterno was made a scapegoat by being fired by the Penn State board of trustees for his part in the handling of the Sandusky situation when he was made aware of some potentially inappropriate behavior by Sandusky and a young boy in a shower back in 2002. Made a scapegoat? Are you kidding me? This kind of information was brought to the attention of one of the most iconic and powerful coaches in the history of college football, and all he did with it was pass it off to his superiors and never really followed up on it. Heck, Sandusky was still seen on the Penn State campus as recently as a couple of weeks ago. There are even rumors of a picture floating around of Paterno, Michael Mcqueary (the assistant coach who witnessed and reported the shower incident to Paterno) and Sandusky at some event months after this shower incident took place. If that's true, that's just off the page.
So, to you Penn State defenders who think this story is getting too much attention, please, take off your blue and white glasses and stop thinking about football for a minute.
Yes, this story should be covered for as long as it's necessary. Let's not forget, the reason this scandal got to the point where it is now is because people didn't talk, and they just looked the other way when they could have nipped it in the bud many years ago.
And with a case of this magnitude, we may have only touched the surface. Like I've been saying since I first became aware of this situation, Jerry Sandusky founded The Second Mile foundation way back in 1977, and people who prey on little boys don't wake up one day and just decide to engage in that kind of behavior. Who knows how many lives this man has ruined; who knows how many times Paterno and other people could have blown the whistle and had that monster taken off the streets.
So, with all due respect to interim head coach Tom Bradley, the people at Happy Valley shouldn't be worried about trying to heal just yet. The spotlight that has been on State College (for years, a town seemingly closed off from the rest of the world) will remain for a very long time. This story isn't going to go away any time soon, nor should it.
Oh, and just in-case you need to be reminded of the gravity of the situation, here's the 23 page grand jury report one more time.
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