"Making Life Better" is its Orwellian motto, "Happy Valley" its Orwellian locale. Penn State was the school that everyone admired and wished to emulate: the excellence, the integrity. It was all lies, "Pay no attention to that man behind the (shower) curtain!", it was all founded upon lies, and it collapsed. It broke the hearts of all who loved her and of those who merely admired her. A cancer grew within this modest, respectable, good institution the moment Joe Paterno stepped onto the campus and it matastasized year after year, decade after decade and it changed Penn State's soul. They imbibed the purple kool aid, got drunk on it and began chanting it; for years and years, they have chanted cult-like, WE ARE...PENN STATE!
The Jerry Sandusky child rape scandal presented the gravest crisis ever to hit an American university. It decapitated the university administration. For a while Penn State people did the soul of Penn State credit. They immediately cut ties with the corrupt heads to save the body. They accepted their punishment. That was the moment. In the super-heated crucible of that moment, Penn State could have achieved transcendence. Truly the scandal could have elevated Penn State to beatification.
But a body rots from the head down and the rest of the Penn State people fought and buried their heads. That was the new Penn State soul after a half century of Paternoism, the lying, denying, cover-upping, enabling Penn State. And they won! The sanctions have been lifted, Joe Paterno's wins have been restored, his statue will be replaced.
Penn State threw greatness away. It is the Pennsylvania Paradox, a big state, an important state, yet a state that has never produced greatness, has produced one president, the worst of all, James Buchanan. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity. It is what it is, the State of Mediocrity, numbing, heartbreaking, mystifying mediocrity. A part of my heart is there and my heart is broken. Pennsylvania never fails to disappoint. Truly pitiful.
The Jerry Sandusky child rape scandal presented the gravest crisis ever to hit an American university. It decapitated the university administration. For a while Penn State people did the soul of Penn State credit. They immediately cut ties with the corrupt heads to save the body. They accepted their punishment. That was the moment. In the super-heated crucible of that moment, Penn State could have achieved transcendence. Truly the scandal could have elevated Penn State to beatification.
But a body rots from the head down and the rest of the Penn State people fought and buried their heads. That was the new Penn State soul after a half century of Paternoism, the lying, denying, cover-upping, enabling Penn State. And they won! The sanctions have been lifted, Joe Paterno's wins have been restored, his statue will be replaced.
Penn State threw greatness away. It is the Pennsylvania Paradox, a big state, an important state, yet a state that has never produced greatness, has produced one president, the worst of all, James Buchanan. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity. It is what it is, the State of Mediocrity, numbing, heartbreaking, mystifying mediocrity. A part of my heart is there and my heart is broken. Pennsylvania never fails to disappoint. Truly pitiful.
