Behold the Man, Behold the Shattered King
This week, former FBI Louis Freeh concluded his investigation of Penn State complicity in possibly covering up repeated pedophilia by Assistant Coach Jerry Sandusky, who was recently convicted of multiple acts of pedophilia. The results, unlike many other reports, were given to the media and Board of Trustees at the same time, preventing from responding or shaping the message before everyone saw it. The report was neither kind nor short. A summary can likewise be found here. Much of the long and short boil down to top administrators in the football program knew of previous incidents about Jerry Sandusky and did nothing about them. It showed there was knowledge of incidents with children going back to 1998, so that when McQueary saw what he saw in the shower in 2001, it was not the first time Paterno or anyone else heard of Jerry Sandusky being sexual with children. The school president and athletic directors had direct knowledge of these events and did nothing. The most they did was to ask Sandusky not to bring the boys from his charity to campus anymore, which kept Penn State partially covered. More noteworthy, the report found that Joe Paterno had knowledge of these acts, at least two of them, and did nothing to them or take the proper steps to see that it was reported to proper authorities. Indeed, the records show he wanted sole disciplinary power over his athletes and agreed with the university president and athletic director that these acts should be handled quietly. Paterno was the head football coach at Penn State for over 45 years, by far the longest of any coach in history. He outlasted athletic directors, school presidents, trustees and everyone else who might have claimed power at Penn State. He was beyond a coach, he was a legend. He was "JoePa", an iconic image of Penn State athletics and college football in general. He inspired millions with his coaching and thousands of his fans took to the streets to protest his removal. He had generations of adoring fans, millions of dollars on his contracts and statues and murals made in his honor. But now the question becomes, what of the legend and what of the man?
This rant almost didn't come to pass. There was a brief update last night saying that I was not going to rant about this subject at all when I finally found my angle on it all. I go a little far afield every now and again, but I try to stay within my bailiwick of politics, current events, history or sociological trends. As much as this is about ranting, I'm trying not to do as much anger ranting these days, since my best work tends to be when I engage my entire mind, not just the angry parts. This is, on just about every aspect imaginable, a tragedy. Personal, professional, local, state, national and institutional. There are parts that are not tragic and merely just wrong. There are no heroic parts to this story. There are parts that are better than others, but there are no truly noble parts of this story. But then, that's what makes noble acts noble: they're rare and worthy of note through history. Great men do great things and are remembered greatly for it. Occasionally, people who just do their jobs are remembered for it. People are remembered for failing utterly, but rarely are people remembered for just half-assing their jobs. At this point, it can be well said that Paterno did nothing heroic regarding this and actively did things wrong in this episode. However, these are up for great debate and not very reflective on anything much bigger. Not to mention, there are many angry hordes who are getting offended at any implication that "JoePa" was anything less than inspirational, covering up for repeated rape of children aside.
Paterno did not have fans. He had legions of followers who thought he was the greatest thing since sliced bread and generally the epitome of all things upright and noble in college sports. As with any other powerful and famous person, he had his detractors who were permanently skeptical. But for the most part, he was the larger than life gentle figure who with a calm smile and grim determination won football games. He had a reputation for being tough but fair on his players and donating millions to the eponymous library at Penn State. For about two generations, students of Penn State could count him as a steady institution: buildings would rise and fall, departments would spring up and get cut, teachers and deans would move but JoePa was the steady rock that defined Penn State. In this, he was more than a man, he was a symbol that happened to walk and take in oxygen. To the people who just lived in the area and didn't even attend Penn State, he was still a legendary icon who transcended normal reputations and normal measurements of people. If he wanted something in State College, PA, he got it. If he ever went out, he was greeted by adoring fans, by the hundreds sometimes. Crowds would part when he walked and people would generally look at him respectfully and move along their way. People wanted JoePa stories to pass around to their friends, and many had great stories about his kindness and largesse. He was revered as a kindly fatherly figure to all who played for him and his legend went far and wide.
To say he built the Penn State football program is an understatement. While they had a program, he took it to newer heights and created it as the venerable institution it is today. It is one of the few programs that makes money for the university to which it is attached. Their merchandise sells across the country and Penn State is best known for their football team. While they have many fine academic programs (top ten mathematics program, a nuclear engineering program with an actual nuclear reactor on campus, and many others), they are known for their football and Coach Paterno was the man who made that happen. He made that program the crown jewel of the university and created one of the largest athletic programs. One so massive they charge other departments at the university for use of the school logo since the athletic department copyrighted it. Millions of dollars for stadium and athletic facilities (which have recently had the men's restrooms and showers totally renovated). All that he built is in mild jeopardy because of the cover-ups he engaged in. The NCAA is very unlikely to invoke what is known as "the death penalty" that is banning certain schools from participating in all NCAA sporting events for a certain amount of time. Federal investigators are looking into possibly violations of The Clery Act which mandates all crimes, and possible specific threats, be reported accurately to the Department of Education. So, federal funding may be in danger, along with any other dangers from official channels. They could be kicked out of the Big Ten, but again, they're one of the only money making franchises (excuse me, athletics programs) in the league (excuse me, conference). Although, they did pull in 200 million dollars in donations last year, and most of that was due to the legend of Coach Joe Paterno.
The key word being legend. Statues were erected of him WHILE HE WAS STILL ALIVE. Murals were painted of him, and other football figures. When he died, the artist added a halo. On Friday, this halo was removed from the mural. That's a metaphor that writes itself. The fans, the students, and everyone else put him on a pedestal no man should have to see while he's alive. The debate currently rages about what to do with the statue erected of him, with many in the town saying leave it up since he was such a great man and other saying the tragedy overtakes all of that. The best suggestion I've heard is a blue blindfold; the trick would be figuring out a way to make it look like he put it on himself. But, there was, a living man with a statue dedicated to him. In 1986, a writer named Rick Reilly was in town doing a piece on Joe Paterno for Sports Illustrated and a person with the university asked him if he were to do the hagiography on Paterno. Hagiography was the word used, and it means "biography of a saint". Again, this was 25 YEARS before he was done coaching and his staff thought of him in saint like terms. When he was fired by the Board of Trustees, 10,000 people took to the streets of State College to protest it. Hundreds camped out by his house to offer support when he was fired and the Board of Trustees recently felt forced to honor a contract because of threats and letters from fans. This contact provides Mrs. Paterno $1000 a month for the rest of her life. Read that again, think about anyone else at any other university who gets anything like that and get back to me. Former president's widows can get up to 20,000 a year IF they give up other pensions. Millions of dollars, parades, pensions, statues and murals, he was accorded everything a Roman conqueror would want in a triumph.
Yet he was just a man. Some say he had a lapse in judgement when dealing Jerry Sandusky. Sadly, no. A lapse of judgement is a one-time offense where one bad act is taken in medium faith with varying degrees of consequences. Repeatedly covering up a colleague's pedophilia is not a lapse in judgement. For years, he said and did nothing to bring these deeds to possible light for fear of what negative possibility would do to the football program and the university. That's not a lapse in judgement, that's a lapse in morality. That's a repeatedly act on a daily basis, let alone when he heard for a second time that Sandusky raped a child. It's hard to go against a friend, so doing nothing after the first rape came to light in 1998 is at least understandable, but when someone, also trusted, comes to you and says they saw it directly a few years later, benefit of the doubt goes out the window. You do something about that shit. I'm not saying instantly kill the man, but you dig into it more than just telling people who had previously agreed to bury things (as Athletic Director Curley and President Spanier had agreed to in 1998). No part of "great legend" can be earned if part of the mathematics include "how many children did he allow to be raped?" He did an evil thing. This is just my judgement and I don't know if God/Fate/the Universe/Frank Sinatra would agree, but part of me hopes so.
This does not, necessarily make him an evil man. Honestly, no one who is writing about this can determine what kind of man he was: none of us knew him. The fans of Penn State knew the legend. The detractors knew the image they wanted to see. The players knew the coach, and he was more than a coach. His children knew their father, but he was more than a father. His wife knew her husband, but he was more than a husband. He was both more than all of these things and less than all of these things: he was a man. He did not merit cultish behavior from thousands of people: no man does. He did not merit statues erected of him while was alive: no man does. He did not merit being the vessel for millions of people's hopes and dreams. He did not deserve to be the soul of The Pennsylvania State University: no one man does. People, will all kinds of great intentions, made him out to be more than he actually was and are reacting disproportionately when it comes to all this. One local told me there was no way he could have known anything "I mean, what do you a think a Brooklyn Italian guy would do if he really knew?" Sadly, that wasn't the issue. It wasn't about what a person of his ethnicity would do, what a person form his town would do, what a person with education would do or any of that. It came down to what would Joseph Vincent Paterno do if he heard a friend and colleague were molesting children and he answered wrong. When the chips were down and a crisis reared its head, he did wrong. Men and women have done that since time immemorial and it's part of human nature. However, it does disqualify you for legend status. People who fail when it matters the most don't get halos or become saints. It makes them the worst thing a hero can be to the eyes of fans: a human. Philosophers have debated whether or not man is born good or bad, and I say both. After all, if people were born all good, then doing good would be less commendable since it would be the default action we would know. If we're capable of both, then good becomes all the more praiseworthy (since something has to be overcome) and evil becomes all the more understandable (since we all have those urges and manage to overcome them in some small way). He was a man, just a man who failed.
And that's the second biggest tragedy in all of this. There are millions of fans out there who looked up to him and saw him as the epitome of the sport they loved, the university they loved and the ideals they upheld. He was the living embodiment of the dream they dreamed about victory, glory and all kinds of other abstract great concepts. He ran an NCAA Division I football program that had no NCAA violations or allegations for 45 years. In terms of more traditional measures, he ran a clean college program: no kickbacks, athletes went to class and graduated and he generally played by the NCAA's rules. However, he was seen as, for lack of a better term, a god who walked among men and he didn't deserve that kind of treatment. That statement nothing to do with his inherent goodness or badness, merely a statement that at this point in our sociological/political evolution, we don't make people demigods anymore. People placed all their hopes and glory in him, and he failed to live up to it. Some are reacting with denial, some are reacting with angry and some are reacting with sadness. The great dream has been turned to shame by voices soft as thunder. So many believed that all would be right with the world, or at least Penn State, so long as JoePa were the head coach. It's why no one really blinked when he asked for the sole authority to punish "his" athletes and got it. No one saw fit to question him or his ways when that was exactly what was needed. It's the basis of the entire American form of government: no one man is to be trusted with too much power. But this is also more personal than that. Losing a god can be a very painful, personal process and all these fans have to do it publicly. While many outside the whole process wonder how it could have come to all this and questioned all along why this one man was given power and seeming impunity for anything he could have done, the fans chided that they didn't understand how great he was. When outsiders looked warily at thousands of fans who seemed to do whatever he wanted, the fans said he was a legend. And now that reality has crashed all those dreams, some outsiders are thinking "I told you so" and others look with sadness, as if to a small child whose first crush has rejected him or her in the cruelest ways possible. To someone like me who has been a hardcore cynic since age 13, taking down a legend is not only easy, but desirable. To someone who has believed in Penn State football for his or her entire life and seen Paterno as the infallible head/prophet of that, this is an existential crisis. It's the kind of crisis that defines the future character of a person.
And it's the kind of crisis the separates legends from mortals.
So it is written, so do I see it.
PS for those who saw my first reaction, I'm trying to use THIS as my first reaction from now on instead of acerbic cynicism.
This rant almost didn't come to pass. There was a brief update last night saying that I was not going to rant about this subject at all when I finally found my angle on it all. I go a little far afield every now and again, but I try to stay within my bailiwick of politics, current events, history or sociological trends. As much as this is about ranting, I'm trying not to do as much anger ranting these days, since my best work tends to be when I engage my entire mind, not just the angry parts. This is, on just about every aspect imaginable, a tragedy. Personal, professional, local, state, national and institutional. There are parts that are not tragic and merely just wrong. There are no heroic parts to this story. There are parts that are better than others, but there are no truly noble parts of this story. But then, that's what makes noble acts noble: they're rare and worthy of note through history. Great men do great things and are remembered greatly for it. Occasionally, people who just do their jobs are remembered for it. People are remembered for failing utterly, but rarely are people remembered for just half-assing their jobs. At this point, it can be well said that Paterno did nothing heroic regarding this and actively did things wrong in this episode. However, these are up for great debate and not very reflective on anything much bigger. Not to mention, there are many angry hordes who are getting offended at any implication that "JoePa" was anything less than inspirational, covering up for repeated rape of children aside.
Paterno did not have fans. He had legions of followers who thought he was the greatest thing since sliced bread and generally the epitome of all things upright and noble in college sports. As with any other powerful and famous person, he had his detractors who were permanently skeptical. But for the most part, he was the larger than life gentle figure who with a calm smile and grim determination won football games. He had a reputation for being tough but fair on his players and donating millions to the eponymous library at Penn State. For about two generations, students of Penn State could count him as a steady institution: buildings would rise and fall, departments would spring up and get cut, teachers and deans would move but JoePa was the steady rock that defined Penn State. In this, he was more than a man, he was a symbol that happened to walk and take in oxygen. To the people who just lived in the area and didn't even attend Penn State, he was still a legendary icon who transcended normal reputations and normal measurements of people. If he wanted something in State College, PA, he got it. If he ever went out, he was greeted by adoring fans, by the hundreds sometimes. Crowds would part when he walked and people would generally look at him respectfully and move along their way. People wanted JoePa stories to pass around to their friends, and many had great stories about his kindness and largesse. He was revered as a kindly fatherly figure to all who played for him and his legend went far and wide.
To say he built the Penn State football program is an understatement. While they had a program, he took it to newer heights and created it as the venerable institution it is today. It is one of the few programs that makes money for the university to which it is attached. Their merchandise sells across the country and Penn State is best known for their football team. While they have many fine academic programs (top ten mathematics program, a nuclear engineering program with an actual nuclear reactor on campus, and many others), they are known for their football and Coach Paterno was the man who made that happen. He made that program the crown jewel of the university and created one of the largest athletic programs. One so massive they charge other departments at the university for use of the school logo since the athletic department copyrighted it. Millions of dollars for stadium and athletic facilities (which have recently had the men's restrooms and showers totally renovated). All that he built is in mild jeopardy because of the cover-ups he engaged in. The NCAA is very unlikely to invoke what is known as "the death penalty" that is banning certain schools from participating in all NCAA sporting events for a certain amount of time. Federal investigators are looking into possibly violations of The Clery Act which mandates all crimes, and possible specific threats, be reported accurately to the Department of Education. So, federal funding may be in danger, along with any other dangers from official channels. They could be kicked out of the Big Ten, but again, they're one of the only money making franchises (excuse me, athletics programs) in the league (excuse me, conference). Although, they did pull in 200 million dollars in donations last year, and most of that was due to the legend of Coach Joe Paterno.
The key word being legend. Statues were erected of him WHILE HE WAS STILL ALIVE. Murals were painted of him, and other football figures. When he died, the artist added a halo. On Friday, this halo was removed from the mural. That's a metaphor that writes itself. The fans, the students, and everyone else put him on a pedestal no man should have to see while he's alive. The debate currently rages about what to do with the statue erected of him, with many in the town saying leave it up since he was such a great man and other saying the tragedy overtakes all of that. The best suggestion I've heard is a blue blindfold; the trick would be figuring out a way to make it look like he put it on himself. But, there was, a living man with a statue dedicated to him. In 1986, a writer named Rick Reilly was in town doing a piece on Joe Paterno for Sports Illustrated and a person with the university asked him if he were to do the hagiography on Paterno. Hagiography was the word used, and it means "biography of a saint". Again, this was 25 YEARS before he was done coaching and his staff thought of him in saint like terms. When he was fired by the Board of Trustees, 10,000 people took to the streets of State College to protest it. Hundreds camped out by his house to offer support when he was fired and the Board of Trustees recently felt forced to honor a contract because of threats and letters from fans. This contact provides Mrs. Paterno $1000 a month for the rest of her life. Read that again, think about anyone else at any other university who gets anything like that and get back to me. Former president's widows can get up to 20,000 a year IF they give up other pensions. Millions of dollars, parades, pensions, statues and murals, he was accorded everything a Roman conqueror would want in a triumph.
Yet he was just a man. Some say he had a lapse in judgement when dealing Jerry Sandusky. Sadly, no. A lapse of judgement is a one-time offense where one bad act is taken in medium faith with varying degrees of consequences. Repeatedly covering up a colleague's pedophilia is not a lapse in judgement. For years, he said and did nothing to bring these deeds to possible light for fear of what negative possibility would do to the football program and the university. That's not a lapse in judgement, that's a lapse in morality. That's a repeatedly act on a daily basis, let alone when he heard for a second time that Sandusky raped a child. It's hard to go against a friend, so doing nothing after the first rape came to light in 1998 is at least understandable, but when someone, also trusted, comes to you and says they saw it directly a few years later, benefit of the doubt goes out the window. You do something about that shit. I'm not saying instantly kill the man, but you dig into it more than just telling people who had previously agreed to bury things (as Athletic Director Curley and President Spanier had agreed to in 1998). No part of "great legend" can be earned if part of the mathematics include "how many children did he allow to be raped?" He did an evil thing. This is just my judgement and I don't know if God/Fate/the Universe/Frank Sinatra would agree, but part of me hopes so.
This does not, necessarily make him an evil man. Honestly, no one who is writing about this can determine what kind of man he was: none of us knew him. The fans of Penn State knew the legend. The detractors knew the image they wanted to see. The players knew the coach, and he was more than a coach. His children knew their father, but he was more than a father. His wife knew her husband, but he was more than a husband. He was both more than all of these things and less than all of these things: he was a man. He did not merit cultish behavior from thousands of people: no man does. He did not merit statues erected of him while was alive: no man does. He did not merit being the vessel for millions of people's hopes and dreams. He did not deserve to be the soul of The Pennsylvania State University: no one man does. People, will all kinds of great intentions, made him out to be more than he actually was and are reacting disproportionately when it comes to all this. One local told me there was no way he could have known anything "I mean, what do you a think a Brooklyn Italian guy would do if he really knew?" Sadly, that wasn't the issue. It wasn't about what a person of his ethnicity would do, what a person form his town would do, what a person with education would do or any of that. It came down to what would Joseph Vincent Paterno do if he heard a friend and colleague were molesting children and he answered wrong. When the chips were down and a crisis reared its head, he did wrong. Men and women have done that since time immemorial and it's part of human nature. However, it does disqualify you for legend status. People who fail when it matters the most don't get halos or become saints. It makes them the worst thing a hero can be to the eyes of fans: a human. Philosophers have debated whether or not man is born good or bad, and I say both. After all, if people were born all good, then doing good would be less commendable since it would be the default action we would know. If we're capable of both, then good becomes all the more praiseworthy (since something has to be overcome) and evil becomes all the more understandable (since we all have those urges and manage to overcome them in some small way). He was a man, just a man who failed.
And that's the second biggest tragedy in all of this. There are millions of fans out there who looked up to him and saw him as the epitome of the sport they loved, the university they loved and the ideals they upheld. He was the living embodiment of the dream they dreamed about victory, glory and all kinds of other abstract great concepts. He ran an NCAA Division I football program that had no NCAA violations or allegations for 45 years. In terms of more traditional measures, he ran a clean college program: no kickbacks, athletes went to class and graduated and he generally played by the NCAA's rules. However, he was seen as, for lack of a better term, a god who walked among men and he didn't deserve that kind of treatment. That statement nothing to do with his inherent goodness or badness, merely a statement that at this point in our sociological/political evolution, we don't make people demigods anymore. People placed all their hopes and glory in him, and he failed to live up to it. Some are reacting with denial, some are reacting with angry and some are reacting with sadness. The great dream has been turned to shame by voices soft as thunder. So many believed that all would be right with the world, or at least Penn State, so long as JoePa were the head coach. It's why no one really blinked when he asked for the sole authority to punish "his" athletes and got it. No one saw fit to question him or his ways when that was exactly what was needed. It's the basis of the entire American form of government: no one man is to be trusted with too much power. But this is also more personal than that. Losing a god can be a very painful, personal process and all these fans have to do it publicly. While many outside the whole process wonder how it could have come to all this and questioned all along why this one man was given power and seeming impunity for anything he could have done, the fans chided that they didn't understand how great he was. When outsiders looked warily at thousands of fans who seemed to do whatever he wanted, the fans said he was a legend. And now that reality has crashed all those dreams, some outsiders are thinking "I told you so" and others look with sadness, as if to a small child whose first crush has rejected him or her in the cruelest ways possible. To someone like me who has been a hardcore cynic since age 13, taking down a legend is not only easy, but desirable. To someone who has believed in Penn State football for his or her entire life and seen Paterno as the infallible head/prophet of that, this is an existential crisis. It's the kind of crisis that defines the future character of a person.
And it's the kind of crisis the separates legends from mortals.
So it is written, so do I see it.
PS for those who saw my first reaction, I'm trying to use THIS as my first reaction from now on instead of acerbic cynicism.