Jan 22 2012
∞
five bits on the death of Joe Paterno, with an extra media-related addendum.
- He generally appeared to be a principled man who built and burnished the image of a university through its football program, devoting his life to it and the young men who played for him.
- This, by all accounts, made his impact and power at the school entirely out of proportion with the actual goals of an institution of education. The length of his tenure makes it unique, but this is an inherent conflict that afflicts nearly every school at the D-I/D-IA level in basketball and football in the country and is the bane of our existence as fans of collegiate sport, because we hate thinking about how much money is involved in football and men’s basketball. (Dan Jenkins summed up this conflict best in one line given to T.J. Lambert, fictional former NY Giants linebacker and fictional TCU coach in his Billy Clyde Puckett books, without football, “Them places wouldn’t be nothin’ but schools.”)*
- Despite this inherent conflict that led to clashes between Paterno, fans/alumni/students, and the administration about the right way to end his tenure (a process Florida State botched with Bobby Bowden), he would be remembered a whole lot better today had he not committed such a major moral failing late in life as failing to report alleged child rape by a former assistant on campus to local police — not merely campus security or his nominal supervisors.
- More like 3a, but whether a jury convicts Jerry Sandusky of those heinous charges is immaterial in the sense that the mere allegation, particularly one with an eyewitness report from a graduate assistant, ought to necessitate the basic step noted in point 3.
- Sadly for both Paterno and the alleged victims of Sandusky, the former’s death once again obscures the matter of what really happens for the latter, which is what nearly every story written since the emergence of these charges has done — focus more on what it means for the football program, for Penn State itself, rather than what it means for the (now) men who claim to have gone through something so physically and mentally abhorrent that it galls to believe that grown men in positions of authority could decide that handling the matter internally would ever be sufficient. (It is also galling to read about grown men and women blaming the school’s trustees and interim president for making the most obvious move in terms of public relations and firing Paterno after the scandal broke, revered or not, that is the least the situation demanded at that particular time.)
Media note: It is beyond bad practice to simply run a report as Onward State and CBS’ college football blog later did last night citing certain unnamed sources that Paterno died yesterday afternoon, which were quickly refuted by the family. In this particular case, the question the writer and editor(s) must ask themselves is: “What advantage is gained by being first to publish about a man’s death without confirmation from immediate family, the proper officials, etc.?” In this case, better not to wind up with egg on your face.
(*I forget whether the quote is in Life Its Ownself or Rude Behavior.)
