Penn State thoughts

[Cusefan95]

Cuseregular had a throwaway line in another thread talking about how he recently threw away a recruiting letter from Joe Paterno that I wanted to use as a jumping off point for another topic. Why did Mike keep a recruiting letter from 30 years ago...and why did he choose to throw it away recently? Most likely because the letter served as a symbol to Mike of his athletic excellence up until this last year, when the scandal at Penn State turned it into a symbol of corruption and evil to Mike - it lost its positive symbolic value and became disposable trash.

There's a significant part in the movie Invictus about Nelson Mandela, the South African rugby team, and their shocking victory in the 1995 World Cup. To black South Africans, the Springbok name for the rugby team served as a symbol of the oppression they faced under apartheid, and after Mandela was elected President they planned to eliminate the Springbok name. Mandela knew that the Springbok was an important symbol to white South Africans, and that eliminating it could inflame a precarious political situation and be a trigger for racial violence. As he said, people will go to war over symbols that are important to them. (It wasn't just a Hollywood embellishment, the events portrayed actually did happen). If anyone had a right to eliminate a symbol of oppression, it was black South Africans that had lived under apartheid - but Mandela knew it would be a mistake and they successfully rehabilitated the Springbok to become a symbol of reconciliation.

That's what bothers me the most in reading various people's posts regarding Penn State suggesting the football team should be abolished/the University shut down/etc - the casual disregard for what is an important symbol to many. It would be less disrespectful to physically assault someone than it is to launch an attack on their symbols. I went to the Syracuse-Temple game, then had a friend in PA that had tickets to the Penn State-Wisconsin game the following day - since I needed to drive through anyway I decided to go with him, partly to get a feel for the mindset of the fans.

There were lots of F@#K Sandusky bumper stickers on cars, but there was also a noticeable lack of any reference or tribute to Joe Paterno - even in the pregame video there wasn't a single clip of him. There was a lot of debate if it was appropriate to have the number 42 on the helmets as a tribute to Micheal Mauti - but in truth it's part of an effort to rehabilitate a symbol (just like having names on the backs of the jerseys this year for the first time) that the events of the last year have severely damaged. I admire the guys like Mauti that stuck around this year and refused to let the scandal define them; what they did didn't require the same level of courage as Mandela fighting to save a symbol his own people hated passionately - just the same type of courage.

There are times in life when you have to choose between doing what you have a right to do, and doing the right thing. People absolutely have the right to want Penn State football shut down; the NCAA would have been within their rights to do so. The right thing, however, is to either help rehabilitate a symbol that is important to millions of people - or at least stay out of the way of the people that try to do so.

 

[jcuse44]

Who cares.

 

[Cuseregular]

Who cares.

quite a few of us, actually.

 

[Cuseregular]

Cuseregular had a throwaway line in another thread talking about how he recently threw away a recruiting letter from Joe Paterno that I wanted to use as a jumping off point for another topic. Why did Mike keep a recruiting letter from 30 years ago...and why did he choose to throw it away recently? Most likely because the letter served as a symbol to Mike of his athletic excellence up until this last year, when the scandal at Penn State turned it into a symbol of corruption and evil to Mike - it lost its positive symbolic value and became disposable trash.

There's a significant part in the movie Invictus about Nelson Mandela, the South African rugby team, and their shocking victory in the 1995 World Cup. To black South Africans, the Springbok name for the rugby team served as a symbol of the oppression they faced under apartheid, and after Mandela was elected President they planned to eliminate the Springbok name. Mandela knew that the Springbok was an important symbol to white South Africans, and that eliminating it could inflame a precarious political situation and be a trigger for racial violence. As he said, people will go to war over symbols that are important to them. (It wasn't just a Hollywood embellishment, the events portrayed actually did happen). If anyone had a right to eliminate a symbol of oppression, it was black South Africans that had lived under apartheid - but Mandela knew it would be a mistake and they successfully rehabilitated the Springbok to become a symbol of reconciliation.

That's what bothers me the most in reading various people's posts regarding Penn State suggesting the football team should be abolished/the University shut down/etc - the casual disregard for what is an important symbol to many. It would be less disrespectful to physically assault someone than it is to launch an attack on their symbols. I went to the Syracuse-Temple game, then had a friend in PA that had tickets to the Penn State-Wisconsin game the following day - since I needed to drive through anyway I decided to go with him, partly to get a feel for the mindset of the fans.

There were lots of F@#K Sandusky bumper stickers on cars, but there was also a noticeable lack of any reference or tribute to Joe Paterno - even in the pregame video there wasn't a single clip of him. There was a lot of debate if it was appropriate to have the number 42 on the helmets as a tribute to Micheal Mauti - but in truth it's part of an effort to rehabilitate a symbol (just like having names on the backs of the jerseys this year for the first time) that the events of the last year have severely damaged. I admire the guys like Mauti that stuck around this year and refused to let the scandal define them; what they did didn't require the same level of courage as Mandela fighting to save a symbol his own people hated passionately - just the same type of courage.

There are times in life when you have to choose between doing what you have a right to do, and doing the right thing. People absolutely have the right to want Penn State football shut down; the NCAA would have been within their rights to do so. The right thing, however, is to either help rehabilitate a symbol that is important to millions of people - or at least stay out of the way of the people that try to do so.

what are you a psychologist?!

Cuz your nearly spot on. I was never able to hate Penn state like most other Syracuse fans. This because I thought I knew the man at least a little after some exposure. You're just a little off on why I hung on to it before throwing it out and here goes... I hung on to that because until I became firmly convinced he covered up everything to save the brand name and his own name revealing it all (and him) to be a fraud, I held up everything Penn state and especially Paterno to be emblematic of all that was right with college sports.

The things he wrote in that letter where far different than all the other ones revealing some of the man and not just the institution or the sport. As a result I as a Syracuse kid actually considered going there, especially since another kid from my school years earlier went and was successful. Needless to say I can't say I was crushed but oh SO dissappointed with (for the lack of a better phrase) a further loss of innocence in life. Can't tell you the despair when Bees and others in reporting the news of it all convinced me he was crooked and not just old. So there it went and out it went. That's the real reason behind it which is somewhat in line with the rest of your cool/good post.

That Invictus movie was a force of life movie, amazing to me that it was real and played out that way. Using a sport to lift thousands. Awesome stuff. Now back to Penn st and doing the same there. I wouldn't have had quibbles if they shut them down for a year and then rehabed them the way you say. The delusional component down there makes me wonder if they even still fully get it the way they should. But assuming for a second they have and it being so important to so many the way SU football is to all of us, well then lets hope they go forward with some insight and attempts to learn from the horrendous experience of it all.

Good/interesting topics for a slow no game weekend.

 

[bevosu]

From a recent NY Times article about PSU and Paterno...

Once Ubiquitous on Campus, ‘Paterno’ Is No Longer Uttered

"In the Penn State community these days, if you ask people to talk about Paterno — to re-examine his decisions, to retrace his successes and failures, to rethink his motives and behavior — the response is increasingly no response. The topic once on everyone’s mind is no longer on everyone’s lips.

If there is a consensus, or a most common response to a reporter seeking further reflection on, or examination of, the once legendary coach, it is this: Penn State is moving on without Joe Paterno. Not un-remembering him, just not summoning him, or his contested meaning, very much.

The onetime king of Pennsylvania is like the statue that represented him: stored away, out of sight and, if not totally out of mind, in a dark recess waiting for an ultimate fate to be determined."

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/25/s...tate-is-no-longer-uttered.html?pagewanted=all

 

[Cuseregular]

From a recent NY Times article about PSU and Paterno...

Once Ubiquitous on Campus, ‘Paterno’ Is No Longer Uttered

"In the Penn State community these days, if you ask people to talk about Paterno — to re-examine his decisions, to retrace his successes and failures, to rethink his motives and behavior — the response is increasingly no response. The topic once on everyone’s mind is no longer on everyone’s lips.

If there is a consensus, or a most common response to a reporter seeking further reflection on, or examination of, the once legendary coach, it is this: Penn State is moving on without Joe Paterno. Not un-remembering him, just not summoning him, or his contested meaning, very much.

The onetime king of Pennsylvania is like the statue that represented him: stored away, out of sight and, if not totally out of mind, in a dark recess waiting for an ultimate fate to be determined."

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/25/s...tate-is-no-longer-uttered.html?pagewanted=all

great article, sums it up so well. Moving on won't be so easy just yet in light of the trials. Like a festering sore, it will be front and center for a while and then, mercifully, it moves to the back burner permanently.

 

[jcuse44]

The problem is that the Ped State community thinks that if they just ignore the words paterno now...that they can go back to what they were. And sadly, this school will allow madness to happen again if it means more wins. The fans, the community..all of them. Give it 5 years and it will be back to what it was...and by that i dont mean a program winning games..i mean a program, a city, a community, a fanbase...that will do and ignore anything to be successful.