While we have been celebrating Magic all week – and rightfully so – there have been some other issues that are going on over in Pennsylvania that must be addressed.
The issues surrounding Penn State’s football team are absolutely horrendous. What’s even more sickening is that people are blindly supporting Joe Paterno and the program that turned a blind eye to Jerry Sandusky’s abuse of young kids.
It’s difficult for us to understand how people can submit death threats to the assistant coach who alerted higher-ups about what he saw. It’s ludicrous for people to riot and want JoePa around because, ultimately, he oversaw what happened, knew enough about it to tell others, but didn’t stop it. After all, Sandusky still was allowed to work at Penn State and be around kids and use the football program as a powerful object.
While it’s awful about what happened, Paterno has needed to go for some time. He hasn’t been relevant as a head coach for at least a decade. Maybe more. He was a figurehead at best. A caricature at worst.
Yes, he is one of the greatest college football coaches in the history of the game, but we have one lasting image of JoePa.
In a game five seasons ago, Paterno lost control of his bowels and crapped his pants. Sure, it was a “flu bug.” That “flu bug” is also known as “old age” and “incontinence.”
Yet, somehow this lasting image we have of Paterno pooping his pants is oddly significant in a strange, roundabout way.
To use a sports phrase, Paterno “shit the bed” when it came to his program and his handling of Sandusky. He didn’t take the necessary measures and allowed his program to become stained – like a pair of underwear with skid marks on them.
So, it’s with his shit-stained hands that he leaves a program he built up in shambles – emotionally and physically. Rather than riding into the sunset, as he should have been allowed after such a great career, Paterno jogs into the sunset with a dirty set of drawers.
Throwback Attack 