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Joe Paterno and his media enablers
Joe Paterno and Penn State's scandal
Bob Ingram
In his 46 seasons at Penn State, Joe Paterno has won more games than any Division I college football coach. Not the least side benefit of this success has been the media's long willingness to cut him enough slack to dock the Queen Mary.
From 2002 to 2008, according to ESPN, 46 of his Penn State football players faced a total 143 criminal charges, among them a melee involving six players, and a player who made terroristic threats and popped a knife on another player.
Twenty-seven of those Penn State players were convicted or pleaded guilty to a combined 45 counts.
Paterno's reaction: "We tried to get kids that were good. We may have made a mistake or two." Or 46.
Those were bad years at Linebacker U. The moral drawbridges were obviously lowered to recruit big-time quality players to reverse Penn State's mediocre won-lost record, regardless of any so-called character flaws.
NFL player-thugs
Paterno should have gone to the New York Jets when he had the chance. The NFL has always had a warm spot for player-thugs like Michael Irvin and Pacman Jones.
Paterno could win the Super Bowl of denial and/or arrogance. His initial take on this month's arrest of his former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky for molesting eight kids over 15 years was, "We were fooled" and "We grieve for the victims and their families. They are in our prayers."
What's wrong with that reaction? First, being "fooled" downplays the whole sordid sexual abuse mess into some kind of goofy kids' game, like blind man's bluff.
Second, the grieving and prayers make it sound as if the victimized kids are dead and gone, in which case let's get back to the main business of any Division I collegiate football program, which is winning at any cost and racking up millions of dollars by making an idol out of the coach.
Paterno is 84 years old and, prior to the Sandusky scandal, it was going to take a derrick and a winch to pry him out of his job. Most of the football world thought he was a decade or two past his shelf life, but only writers like Buzz Bissinger had the guts to suggest that he should pull the pin.
Unfair comparison
Most of the media, good corporate citizens that they are, doted on Paterno as if he was a combination of Santa Claus and Knute Rockne. After all, he attracted audiences for the media, too.
Especially sickening was the fawning mentions of Joe Paterno in the same breath as the late UCLA basketball coach John Wooden, a man who was everything Paterno is not. Wooden was humble and quiet— a true legend. And he knew when to leave. Paterno is and always was a yapper, yapping in that nasal Brookyn accent about his "kids" and "our program" while complicit sportswriters dutifully reported every yap as if Charlton Heston had just carried it down from Mount Sinai on a stone tablet.
Now the media have turned on him. The former lap dogs have become pit bulls. A scandal sells papers, much as a winning team fills stadiums and college coffers.
Half of their stories, it seems, now begin with one of the most cornball sayings in all sports: "Say it ain't so, Joe."
It's so. And it has been for a while. Our media watchdogs simply chose not to notice.♦
To read responses, click here and here.
To read another viewpoint by Leonard Boasberg, click here.
To read another viewpoint by Dan Rottenberg, click here.
From 2002 to 2008, according to ESPN, 46 of his Penn State football players faced a total 143 criminal charges, among them a melee involving six players, and a player who made terroristic threats and popped a knife on another player.
Twenty-seven of those Penn State players were convicted or pleaded guilty to a combined 45 counts.
Paterno's reaction: "We tried to get kids that were good. We may have made a mistake or two." Or 46.
Those were bad years at Linebacker U. The moral drawbridges were obviously lowered to recruit big-time quality players to reverse Penn State's mediocre won-lost record, regardless of any so-called character flaws.
NFL player-thugs
Paterno should have gone to the New York Jets when he had the chance. The NFL has always had a warm spot for player-thugs like Michael Irvin and Pacman Jones.
Paterno could win the Super Bowl of denial and/or arrogance. His initial take on this month's arrest of his former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky for molesting eight kids over 15 years was, "We were fooled" and "We grieve for the victims and their families. They are in our prayers."
What's wrong with that reaction? First, being "fooled" downplays the whole sordid sexual abuse mess into some kind of goofy kids' game, like blind man's bluff.
Second, the grieving and prayers make it sound as if the victimized kids are dead and gone, in which case let's get back to the main business of any Division I collegiate football program, which is winning at any cost and racking up millions of dollars by making an idol out of the coach.
Paterno is 84 years old and, prior to the Sandusky scandal, it was going to take a derrick and a winch to pry him out of his job. Most of the football world thought he was a decade or two past his shelf life, but only writers like Buzz Bissinger had the guts to suggest that he should pull the pin.
Unfair comparison
Most of the media, good corporate citizens that they are, doted on Paterno as if he was a combination of Santa Claus and Knute Rockne. After all, he attracted audiences for the media, too.
Especially sickening was the fawning mentions of Joe Paterno in the same breath as the late UCLA basketball coach John Wooden, a man who was everything Paterno is not. Wooden was humble and quiet— a true legend. And he knew when to leave. Paterno is and always was a yapper, yapping in that nasal Brookyn accent about his "kids" and "our program" while complicit sportswriters dutifully reported every yap as if Charlton Heston had just carried it down from Mount Sinai on a stone tablet.
Now the media have turned on him. The former lap dogs have become pit bulls. A scandal sells papers, much as a winning team fills stadiums and college coffers.
Half of their stories, it seems, now begin with one of the most cornball sayings in all sports: "Say it ain't so, Joe."
It's so. And it has been for a while. Our media watchdogs simply chose not to notice.♦
To read responses, click here and here.
To read another viewpoint by Leonard Boasberg, click here.
To read another viewpoint by Dan Rottenberg, click here.
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