We Were Penn State? Hardly

The upcoming Sports Illustrated cover says it all: "We Were Penn State." That's right, heinous crimes, a cover-up, $60 million in fines, stripping of scholarships, and a multiple year post-season ban strips Penn State of its identity. The university will never recover and is no longer Penn State.

What a load of crap.

While I'm sure this copy of SI will fly off the racks due to the dramatic cover, it twists the knife into a community that already has taken a lambasting from the media and much of the public. Maybe SI should donate half of it's proceeds from this issue to child abuse protection. But I guess that would be a common-sense and productive solution which people in power seem to be incapable of making.

From the alleged (has not been proven in a court of law and the Freeh report has a lower burden of proof) cover-up at Penn State to the nuclear bomb that Mark Emmert and the NCAA dropped on the Nittany Lions today, the leaders in the sporting world cannot seem to do what is right.

Clearly there is a big difference between the actions of Sandusky, Curley, Schultz, Spanier, and Paterno to that of Mark Emmert but both situations could have been handled differently. The Penn State gang should have made sure Sandusky was stopped while Emmert should have directed his urge to satisfy the lynch mob by using these tragic events to start a discussion of priorities in collegiate athletics. 

Instead, he wielded his power to cripple the Penn State program and use it as an example. He made it sound as if Penn State is the only school to put it's football (or in some cases basketball) program ahead of everything else. Has he ever traveled to SEC country? Will these sanctions on Penn State prompt other universities to take a hard, close look at their priorities? I doubt it.

Going back to the Sports Illustrated cover, they are wrong. So dead wrong.

Why?

Because you can't take away the memories thousands of us have of this great university. If I were a senior in high school today I would still make the same decision I did several years ago and attend Penn State. 

I didn't make that decision because of Joe Paterno.

I did it because of the magical feeling I got when I stepped onto campus for the first time.

I did it because of the fantastic people I met in the meteorology department during my first visit.

I did it for the opportunity to audition for the best collegiate marching band in the nation.

I was fortunate enough to make the the Blue Band and some of my best memories of Penn State revolve around the people I met in that organization. While the bowl games were fun, they pale in comparison to my most vivid memories as a member of the Blue Band.

Whether it be walking across campus at dawn on a crisp, Saturday morning in late October with frost covering the ground and hearing the crack of snare drums rifle across the IM fields, or marching into Beaver Stadium during pregame, or taking a moment out of rehearsal to view a spectacular sunset, all of these memories will stay with me forever.

I got to travel to Indianapolis and Tucson, proudly representing Penn State as a member of the basketball pep band. 

My education at Penn State prepared me for the job I now enjoy at AccuWeather. 

During my senior year, I was given the opportunity to attend the annual American Meteorological Society conference in Seattle where I networked with professionals in my field and met many interesting people and learned about a variety of specific topics in the atmospheric sciences.

I share these memories with the huge number of friends I met at Penn State. Although it is such a big place, you never know where you might run into someone. That was never clearer than last night when I was downtown grabbing a drink when a fellow sax player walked past. He was just up visiting for the day, yet we happened to run into each other and spent time catching-up. It's these impromptu experiences that make Happy Valley such a special place.

From parties and bars downtown to going ice skating to meeting truly awesome people, the memories I made will never go away.

There is no doubt the sanctions levied on Penn State will hurt the football program and negatively impact parts of our community, but we must overcome. We are being tested and we must prevail.

Before each football game, Dr. Bundy (director of the Blue Band and someone I had the privilege of working with for 4 years) would call us in for a huddle. Our 300+ member band would unite, mentally preparing for the upcoming day. "Carpe the heck out of the diem," he would say. These words are always words to live by but have greater meaning now. We must persevere, we must stay strong. We cannot let the public and media define us.

It's not the scholarships and bowl games.

It's the experiences.

It's the people you meet and will never forget.

A Dark Day at Penn State: The Scathing Freeh Report

Although not the darkest day in the history of Penn State (that is saved for the day the allegations were released), today couldn't get much worse for us Nittany Lions. The release of the scathing Freeh Report not only confirmed much of what we knew, but made it vividly clear that our leaders failed us. Our community failed us. And Joe Paterno, a man who many think could do nothing wrong, failed us.

While I am sure there are many people out there still blinded by the good Joe Paterno did for the university and will no doubt condemn this report as a biased attack on a dead man, there is no doubt, upon reading the report, that Paterno played a role in this cover-up. If you are a Penn Stater and are unwilling to admit that, then you really should re-examine the evidence, and your try to be unbiased.

Having said that, all of the great things Joe Paterno should not be forgotten. He contributed much to the university that will never be forgotten. However, as he himself said, "I wish I had done more." Joe Paterno made a fatal mistake. Spanier, Curley, Schultz, the police, and many others made major mistakes.

Obviously many people around the nation will want the death penalty for the football team or for the university itself. Critics will say that Penn State is tarnished beyond repair. Some may also even say that a Penn State degree is damaged.

That is an overreaction.

However, as the Freeh report states, the culture of Penn State must be examined. This was allowed to happen because certain people wielded so much power and the Board of Trustees did not do their proper job of oversight. While this is most definitely an issue at Penn State and much has been done in the past months to combat this culture, there needs to be a bigger discussion about collegiate football.

It is impossible to believe that something this catastrophic could ONLY happen at Penn State. Football is as important, if not more so, at schools just as Notre Dame, USC, Florida, Ohio State, etc. To believe that certain people in these organizations would not go to similar lengths to prevent bad publicity is foolish. Power promotes corruption but we put people in positions of power who we believe will do the right thing. That was not the case at Penn State. Hopefully those at other universities, corporations, and governments will take this tragic case to heart and ensure it doesn't happen again.

One last point which in no way is in no way an attempt to exonerate Paterno but merely explain some of his actions is a generational issue. From speaking with people Paterno's age, it seems that people of that generation do not understand what child rape is. Many years ago it almost seems that things like this was never discussed and that it was taboo. Again, not saying what Paterno did was right, but that he may not have fully comprehended a man raping a man.

In the end, this is a dark time for Penn State and alumni will no doubt take heavy criticism. But we must remember that tens of thousands of Penn Staters were innocent in all of this and that we represent all that is excellent at our university. The most important thing (other than the victims) in this horrific tragedy is to learn from the terrible mistakes of those who were corrupted by power. Let us all treat every decision in our lives with importance. And let us never take the easy way out in order to "save face." WE must do the right thing, even if it is the hardest. WE Are Penn State.