Bad sports, good sports: Jerry Sandusky brings shame to Penn State

Posted on November 7th, 2011 by Alan Spoll

It makes me sad to write this column, but when I looked at this week’s bad and good sports stories, the choice of which story would lead my article for the week was an obvious one. For as long as I can remember, the name Penn State has meant nothing but winning and honor. Head football coach Joe Paterno, who has been at Penn State since man discovered fire, it seems, has led a program that has exemplified the best in college athletics. He has not only won two national championships, accomplished a bunch of undefeated seasons, and put countless players into the NFL, he has done all of that while graduating an unusually high percentage of his players and without having any kind of cheating or recruiting scandals. While some might mock the team and its coach for its clean image, there are few who do not respect what Paterno has accomplished. This week, though, the name “Penn State” is in the news for all the wrong reasons. Jerry Sandusky, a former defensive coordinator for the Nittany Lions, has been charged with multiple counts of sexual abuse of children, and two school officials, including current Athletic Director Tim Curley, have been charged with perjury.

I was a big fan of Sandusky during his time at Penn State. He was the architect of many great defenses at Penn State, including the one that essentially won the national championship in January of 1987, during my freshman year up at University Park. His units were well coached, and his gameplans were clever and innovative. I, like many others, often thought he would take over when Paterno retired, which is an event that I remember being discussed back when I was there, and is still being discussed today, all these years later. Sandusky left in 1999, moving to a full-time position with an organization called The Second Mile, a charity he started in 1977 to help underprivileged children. When I first read of the investigation into these claims about six months ago, I was shocked. I hoped that it was not true and that time would show there was some kind of mistake. Now, according to the prosecutors, there is no mistake. He has been charged with 40 counts of various kinds of abuse involving eight different boys over a period of about 15 years. The details of the charges are so repugnant that I do not wish to recount them here, but they are easy to find if you choose, as the D.A.’s entire report is available online. I am incredibly saddened for these boys and what they went through.

I have mentioned before that I regularly spend time on some Penn State message boards. Like most sites of their kind, these boards are great places for information, but also great places for wild over-reactions to just about everything. With a story as serious as this one, emotional reactions are certainly commonplace but also quite justified, in my view. That said, the focus of those reactions is often misplaced, or at least out of proportion when you consider each individual aspect of the source of the reaction. In the last few days, I have read posts by a lot of different people calling for the ouster of nearly everyone associated with the Penn State football program, including Joe Paterno. I have seen people say that they are ashamed to have attended Penn State, and that their degrees are disgraced. Aside from the obvious point that no one has yet been convicted of anything, to decide that the entire program is guilty is absurd. Yes, it sounds like Jerry Sandusky should and will go away for a very long time. If the charges are true, he deserves nothing less. If Tim Curley and Gary Schultz are guilty of perjury, they should be held accountable and be punished accordingly. The only statements from the prosecution about Joe Paterno say that he did everything that he should have done when he became aware of the accusations. As the case plays out, I imagine we will learn a lot more about who knew what and when. To proclaim that the 45 years that Joe has been the head coach are now worthless and that his entire philosophy of “success with honor” is somehow a fraud is simply unfair and certainly incredibly premature.

I am horrified at the accusations that have been leveled at Jerry Sandusky. Any decent person would be. I just wish people would wait until they have all the details before deciding that an entire university is now worthless. Let’s focus on finding out who committed wrongdoing, and hope that those people are suitably punished for it. Those people who are tired of Joe Paterno and already wanted him out will certainly use this to try to bolster their case. They are not helping matters in any way.

Bad sports, continued:

2) Pedro Sosa, a boxer from the Bronx and a former Golden Gloves winner, is in a coma after he was injured in a car accident last weekend. His sister, who was driving, died in the crash.

3) NASCAR team owner Rick Hendrick and his wife were in a small plane that crashed in Key West on Monday. Both survived and are expected to fully recover. The Hendrick family has had bad luck with small planes, as Rick lost his brother, his son, and some other members of his team in a crash in Virginia back in 2004.

4) Two cricket players from Pakistan were convicted of cheating this week after it was revealed they had attempted to fix games played in England in 2010. The fact that one of the players is named Salman Butt adds an element of fun to this story.

5) Last Monday night, Philip Rivers, the quarterback for the San Diego Chargers, had an evening he would love to forget. His team was in the process of running time off the clock, which would have been followed by a short field goal to complete a victory over the Kansas City Chiefs. Attempting to take a snap which would have been followed by a kneel-down, Rivers fumbled the exchange. Kansas City recovered the ball, and the game went to overtime, where the Chiefs won on a Ryan Succop field goal. Ugh.

6) Someone explain to me what Luke Rodgers, a soccer player for the New York Red Bulls, was trying to do here. I bet that woman would like an explanation too.

7) Remember caddie Stevie Williams? He was last in the news after behaving like a petulant child when Tiger Woods fired him a few months back. This time, he went a step further, showing that he is also at least a bit racist. I wonder when this guy will remember he is a caddie and that he should probably keep his mouth shut.

8) NASCAR driver Kyle Busch continues to demonstrate why I think he is a total idiot. In Friday night’s truck race at Texas Motor Speedway, Busch, who is not eligible for points in the truck series, deliberately wrecked title contender Ron Hornaday early in the race for some perceived slight. Busch even admitted that he intentionally knocked Hornaday out of the race. In a move that was quite shocking to me, NASCAR actually stood up and suspended Busch for the remaining two races of the weekend, including the Sprint Cup race, which was part of the Chase.

9) Former boxing champion Joe Frazier has liver cancer, it was announced on Sunday. The cancer was discovered within the past month, but is apparently quite far along. Frazier is currently in hospice care. I actually had a beer with him once in a Philadelphia bar about 20 years ago. I am sorry to hear of his illness.

Good sports:

1) Surfing champion Kelly Slater won his eleventh world title on Sunday. This story was originally going to be in the Bad Sports section, as he was originally announced as the champion on Wednesday, but the governing body discovered an error in its calculations and had to backtrack, despite the fact that a big celebration had already occurred.

Bad sports, good sports appears every Monday

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Alan Spoll

Alan Spoll is a software quality assurance director from the suburbs of Philadelphia where he lives with his wonderful wife and children. He has spent his entire life as a passionate fan of the Eagles, Phillies, Sixers, Flyers, and Penn State. Recent Phillies success aside, you will understand his natural negativity. Follow me on Twitter - @DocAlan02