Paterno State

Soooo.... The Freeh report.  Penn State.  Joe Paterno.  Sandusky.  This is truly a heinous tragedy. It is shocking. Upsetting and cuts to core byut what does it cut to the core of?  Somehow we are missing that altogether. Stupidly one of the things that cannot leave my mind is a beautiful Uncle Tupelo instrumental called "Sandusky" which they recorded back in 1992 when Joe Pa only had a 9-5 record and lost the Blockbuster Bowl to Stanford. Anyway, listen to the song on YouTube while you read this...make it a multi-media experience.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_wBf5zkxB8

Is this the fault of:
Penn State’s Board?
Sandusky himself?
The grad assistant who didn’t go to the cops?
The NCAA collegiate athloetic system?
The Sainted Jo Pa himself?

Wake up?  This is not about sports.  The damage that Sandusky did to all of these children and their families is so grotesque, so wrong and so villanous that it only has to do with one thing which is sin and brokenness.  This was a totally broken and fucked up man and he was able to do tremendouse, dramatic harm but all this is about is sin and brokenness.  Since we have now sent the bad guy to jail (which is hardly enough but all we can do) now we are in a hurry to find other people to blame.  Paterno did the lynch mob the disservice of dying (likely of shame more than anything else) and now we can site the University Board.

WTF?  What is all this about.  I keepo hearing these annoying, sanctimonious sports talk idiots talk about tearing down the paterno statue and shutting down the whole Penn State program.  Shiut, why not close the college?  Inseed why not close ALL NCAA affiliated colleges?  Why do we have this dramatic (overly dramatic) and self righteous response from all the talking heads?  That is a more interesting question.

I would put it out there that this brings up so much bile for several reasons:
1. The awfulness of the crime which is a 10.
2. The idiotic pedestal we place sports in our country which is only an embarrassment about once a month and each time we act dumbfounded that this could happen in athletics.
3. The sick fear that if we had been close to the situation we might not have done the obvious and only right thing which was to scream loudly that there was something wrong in Happy Valley.
4. Failure to have a Christian understanding and personal sense that Sandusky is just another broken person, in a broken world that needs God’s Grace.

I don’t even need to speak about number one above.  911 bombings... Jeffry Dahmer... this ranks as one of the most disgusting, saddening incidents in our country.  I am NOT overstating it.  The second point above is the galling one.  Why do we need to place these people on pedestals and revel in others vicories as our own with sporting teams?  Are our lives so meaningless?  Is it really any different than the Roman Coliseums?  I doubt it.  It is not just America either, it is worldwide.  Mankind likes the spectacle of others competing and makes literal gods out of the participants.  It is shameful.  There really is nothing glorious aboyut a 19 year old, 6’9” kid with a sweet jump shot and awesome work ethic.  If there is it certainly pales when compared to the gloriousness of a 57 year old mother of four who has been a school teacher for 35 years while raising a family and staying married.  On the other hand she is not going to be able to sell you a lot of beers but seriously, we gotta look at the place we put sports in our society and we need to examine the sports industrial complex and how it fits into our value system as a Christian nation.  There was only one race the Bible ever talks about winning.

The next thing is all these poeple making their living off of vilifying the people around him who did not do the right thing.  I absolutely agree that if they broke laws in their failure to report , they need to be prosecuted but I don’ know the laws there and I certainly do not know the circumstances of their “knowledge”.  But every talking head and idiot on the radio knows all about it and these people all need to be killed, fired, shamed, stoned and villified but I would like to see any of these sanctimnious pricks stand in their shoes.  Lets say you are the head of the Penn State athletic program and you get wind that Sandusky has a problem.  You don’t have first hand knowledge.  The police are not doing anything.  Paterno is not taking any action.  The guy is key to the program and is an absolute LION in the community doing all kinds of good things with his charity.  Are YOU going to be the guy who makes the phone call about an allegation?  We all like to think we would be but if you know people at all, if you have ANY self knowledge... at least admit that you are going to pause before very likely:
1. Damaging what has become a sacred institution (sadly)
2. Damaging your career and likely harming your own family because now you are tainted.
3. Impugning grotesquely the character of a local hero.
4. By doing so taking on god (Joe paterno) and the entire University.
5. Putting your own children in a poosition to be villified and beaten up and abused because of your actions doing the right thing.
The list goes on and on.  Sure, I like to think if I saw a man sodomizing a child in the shower, I would go straight to the police.  But if someone told me THEY had seen it, or had been told by someone who said they saw it?  Then I pause.  Then perhaps I do not do the right thing or do not do it right away.

All I am saying is that we are askibng the wrong questions.  Thje questions should not be “who is to blame?”  The question should be why we as a country make these broken, sad people we call human beings into gods in the first place?  When you make people gods they can do nothing but dissappoint.  Sandusky’s actions were unforgivable by anyone but God.  he will die in jail.  The rest of the people associated with that school will have to live the consequences (perhaps criminal and certainly reputational) but they, along with us should all have stains on our conscience regarding a society that allows monsters to go unreported so that our sports heros can continue to walk as gods and allow us to cheer for “OUR” team.

This a portrait of all of us and we should all feel shame at what happened to these children.  I know I do.

P.S. I wrote this over the weekend and in the interim Mr Gay at the Wall Street Journal Said it much better in the July 16th Journal but I cannot find a good link.

P.S.S. Buzz Bissinger might have had right in May. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/09/friday-night-lights-ban-college-football_n_1502787.html

Scandals In Sports?

So...whats up with sports and character...and drugs? I don’t know the answer and I do not mean to bemoan the obvious but...Jesus, Mary and Joseph. How did come epidemic? Has it always been epidemic? Have we been idiots to put all these guys on a pedestal for long like the Catholics did with their Priests...only to find that there are more cheaters then ever? I like to think that I am plenty cynical and don’t kid myself about people’s morality and character but once again...Jeez.

Barry Bonds. OK...he has been taking steroids for years and has bulked up not just his chest, arms and legs but...his neck and forhead. His naturally poor disposition has become almost homicidal over the last few years and even as he attains the record he is already become a sad freak whose record for right or wrong will be asterisked and disdained forever. It is very sad but still troubling because we don’t know what to do. Everyone knows that he ingested steroids in some form and bulked up unaturally. It is somewhat less clear to me whether or not it was “illegal” or even against the rules when he started but there is no question that it is now. One question though. Why is it so important that athletes do not artificially enhance themselves to increase performance? Why don’t we mind when an actress gets breast implants or liposuction, tummy tuck, hair implants...what is the difference? What indeed?

So what do we do? We let the guy get the record and wait till the end of the season and then the Commissioner offers him a chance to retire. If he does not he gets banned in the best interests of baseball. Along with that he announces serious drug testing and a zero tolerance policy which will cost us over time some of our best athletes. Teams and fans will be traumatized by the results but over time we will heal and so will the sport. As a public the best thing we could do would be to not talk about it and leave it alone.

The Tour de France. Jeeez! What happened here. We thought that with the Floyd Landis thing we had cleaned this thing up and were going to have a clean tour with clean results. What a nightmare... what a clown show. I am sure a lot of these guys are clean but once again we have no choice but to think that anyone who is succeeding is doping their blood, elevating testosterone or perhaps spending too much time with Vietmamese hookers. All can have the same result and all are equally frowned upon. This ended up in a nice battle on the last days of the tour since Rasmussen and Viokurov and well, so many others were then out. But what about them? I understand so little about drug testing but it seems like it is inexact science at best. Is it important that these guys dope? Is it demeaning that many of us assume that Lance was doping in some way? I don’t know. What do you do for the Tour? Same thing. Kick the bad guys out, strengthen your testing regime and for God sakes stop talking about it.

Tim Donaghy? NBA ref. Fixing games? Now this... this is a real nightmare. There was the Black Sox scandal. In 1994 there was that Northwester point shaving thing and the great City College of New York point shaving scandal but those all involved players. Boxers have taken falls but the dodginess of boxing is well known. But...but...but....we have always counted on the underpaid, very fallable refs to be on the up and up and if they werent it was just because they had lousy personalities, wanted to screw Bobby Knight or were just really and truly legally blind. The idea that one of the zebras was dealing for his own account really does undermine the game. Perhaps it is a wakeup call for everyone that that when you have a group of guys who everyone is counting on to perform, and so many dollars and so many personal and professional lives rely on the outcome that perhaps these guys should get some kind of compensation. Perhaps then we could think about doing the same for teachers.

That leaves us with Micheal Vick. Other then raping and killing someone’s child is there anything else he could of done to ruin his career quicker? No...there isn’t. We have become very accepting of DWI’s, drug arrests, gunplay in clubs, manslaughter related to the above, beaten girlfriends... the list goes on and on. I mean, after all, their athletes right. They get a pass. But not for this. I know, I know, innocent until proven guilty but... this guy is toast. This is an easy call as we can see because it has already been done. Pull his endoresments, ban him from participating in anything while he defends himself and let the law do what it will. He will not do any hard time but seriously...if I were him I would be seriously worried about someone shooting me. Other then his friends and family.... no one would mourn. Very sad. he always seemed like a nice guy.

So...the Diner reviewer believes that...as much as he loves sports... that we have truly, madly and deeply gone off the deep end in regard to athletics. We rely on these guys to distract us from the droll, hum drum and day to day. We live vicariously through them and give them monstrous salaries, possies, sex, drugs, women, no accountability and then we all act shocked when they do not behave like Wally Cleaver. Seriously, where the hell do we get off. these guys are nothing without our dollars and our unending tolerance and adoration. Perhaps it is time to reconsider where we find out heroes and show a little depth... or we can just go to the game, pay 20 bucks to park, 100 bucks for a ticket, 80 more for a jersey with their name on it, 6 bucks for a beer and 4 more for a hotdog so that this fabulous system can just keep on keeping on. I could be wrong.