College Football 2011

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Well, that was an independent school blog that has gotten very popular.

I am at an equal position in a different organization.
 
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Look, I think he was wrong and should be fired and that Penn State people were way too quick to defend him instead of taking an objective look at the situation. I think the vast majority of people associated with Penn State have made asses of themselves during the last three months.

That said, it's damn sad that he's gone. Did he fuck up, more than most up here in State College are willing to admit? Absolutely. One hundred percent. I think less of him for it and always will.

But he's not a bad person. He's a good person who made one terrible decision and had to deal with the consequences of that when the situation came to light. I have been battling people for nearly three months when they act like Paterno was a victim of the BOT. But I will not fight anyone who is sad about Paterno's death, because it is sad. It's very sad. And I think it's a tad bit aggressive to say you're only willing to feel bad for his family.

I know this post isn't going to change your mind. I think you made a post saying you hoped he burned in hell a couple months back. Whatever. I get that part of it is fueled by all the asinine folks going out of their way to put him on a pedestal. Doesn't mean you're right.
 
It has to do with the crimes committed and the utter disdain for the victims shown by Paterno and everyone else in that organization who decided the reputation of a silly team was more important than the safety welfare of children.

There is no going back from that. I know he did a ton of good things. To me this erases every other thing he did. Something tells me when he arrives at the pearly gates that the covering up of child rape will probably hold a little more weight than a great graduation rate.

He claims he didn't know a man could rape a male child? That he had never heard of that before? The man studied the Greek classics!

Again... I feel badly for his family for their loss.
 
I'm sorry, but I really can't see any reason to feel sad about this. The guy was 85. He was wealthy and revered throughout much of his life and died in a cocoon that still largely revered him. His life was more comfortable than 99.99% of people on earth. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of sad deaths per day - Paterno is not one of them.
 
Mourning Joe Paterno, a flawed hero - CNN.com
By LZ Granderson , CNN Contributor

Penn State University head football coach Joe Paterno watches his team during practice on November 9, 2011, in State College, Pennsylvania.
Editor's note: LZ Granderson, who writes a weekly column for CNN.com, was named journalist of the year by the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association and a 2011 Online Journalism Award finalist for commentary. He is a senior writer and columnist for ESPN the Magazine and ESPN.com and the 2009 winner of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation award for online journalism. Follow him on Twitter:

Grand Rapids, Michigan (CNN) -- I am sitting here in front of my computer, looking at the headline that former Penn State football coach Joe Paterno has died, and I honestly don't know how or what I should feel. If he had passed a year ago, it would be a no-brainer. For a World War II soldier who dedicated more than 50 years to one institution and one wife during a time in which examples of both grow rarer by the decade, it seems flags should be flown at half staff.

But then there's Jerry Sandusky.

And then there's Paterno's silence and then ... well with all due respect to the Paterno family, his loved ones and the Penn State community, uninterrupted mourning becomes difficult.

Now for those reading this column expecting a glowing obituary for a renowned coach who truly deserves one, you may want to click elsewhere as this is not that kind of a piece. And for anyone hoping I rip Paterno to shreds, again you will need to look elsewhere.

'Sandusky scandal part of Paterno legacy'
I am writing for those of us trapped in the middle -- for those who watched the Penn State story unfold without the ability to see the world in black and white.

I am genuinely saddened to hear a wife has lost her husband and children have lost their father. But that mourning for the Paternos subconsciously shifts to mourning the innocence of the little boys that could have been saved had Paterno fought to protect them with as much vigilance as he used to protect his good name in the aftermath of the scandal. It's unfair to blame Paterno for what Sandusky is accused of doing, but it's impossible to accept Paterno did anywhere near to all he could by simply alerting two university officials to one incident. Years passed and the coach didn't utter one word about what he knew about Sandusky to the media but he managed to address the media on his front porch within hours of his firing.

If you've ever held a crying child in your arms, it's hard to see Paterno as a victim of the media.

But if you've ever made a mistake, if you've ever mishandled a difficult situation, if you've ever done something you've regretted, then it should be hard to characterize JoePa -- a man who has done so much good outside of football -- as a pariah.

And therein lies the rub: What do you do when a wonderful man who made a terrible mistake dies? How do you properly honor an admirable life without whitewashing the egregious shortcomings that ruined the lives of others? I see the Penn State students paying tribute to Paterno in front of his statue on campus and wonder how many would still do so if they had young children of their own to protect. How many would do so if they were one of Sandusky's alleged victims.

I am not directly tied to the scandal at Happy Valley, so I wasn't among those who were wronged and thus it's not really my place to judge or forgive. But who among us can forget?

Fans pay tribute to Paterno
Though the coroner's office will say cancer was the cause of death, those who know the story well will say Paterno died of a broken heart, a sad ending for a man who truly deserved better. And then you think about the children who allegedly grew up broken because of Sandusky's acts and Paterno's silence and you wonder who deserved better than them?

But this kind of conflict is not unique to Paterno.

I look at the way people lionize President Ronald Reagan and I wonder how they feel about Reagan letting years go by without publicly addressing the AIDS epidemic (possibly because the disease initially was seen as primarily affecting gays) or that he vetoed a comprehensive anti-apartheid act that would have placed sanctions on South Africa.

I watched the response to the manslaughter verdict against Michael Jackson's doctor and marveled at the passion people had for justice for a likely drug addict who was twice accused of child molestation. If Jackson wasn't such an amazing artist, would the people outside of the courthouse decked out in glitter and holding signs be so forgiving? And did they really forgive Jackson for his alleged trespasses or did they simply chose to ignore them because they got in the way of their neatly packaged narrative?

Paterno has died, and I do not know how to compartmentalize the good from the bad. Just as I am incapable of thinking about Reagan without seeing the thousands and thousands of ailing Americans he didn't even try to help. Or how hard it is to listen to a Michael Jackson song and not wonder about the boys he was accused of molesting -- or how hard it is to watch reruns of "Seinfeld" and not recall the racist rant from the actor who played my once favorite character, Kramer.

That's the good thing about 24-hour media: it is hard to keep dirty little secrets. But this is also the bad thing. In a lot of ways, life was easier when we didn't know as much. We could have mourned a hero like Paterno and not feel conflicted.

If you do feel conflicted.

Some people can see the world in black and white.

I'm not one of those people.
 
ken griffey JR's son signed with the university of arizona

Junior's son!

you're all old
 
Bernstein: Cry For Victims, Not Paterno ? CBS Chicago

By Dan Bernstein-
CBSChicago.com Senior Columnist
“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
– Martin Luther King, Jr.

(CBS) Joe Paterno’s life ended today, but it began to end long ago.

It began to end when he decided to let Penn State football be a vehicle for serial child-molestation at the hands of his trusted assistant. It continued to end in the infinite moments thereafter, every time he failed to speak up, failed to act, failed to protect, and failed to care.

Nothing in his life was more important than his grim, cowardly silence. There is no counterbalancing the moral ledger, or any mitigation by anything related to football. For years, he looked the other way while children were being assaulted, and his program was being used to enable the crimes.

No number of victories stacks up against what these boys and their families lost. Not even 409.

It’s repugnant to believe that this was one small oversight by a kind, old man, blemishing an otherwise honorable legacy. Paterno’s inaction was concurrent with everything else. This was not a singular moment of poor judgment – it was boundless, constant, and ongoing. Any joyous cheers from fans echoed over the grave, dark stillness in Happy Valley.

He may have known when Jerry Sandusky was first hired. Most believe he knew when Sandusky was investigated, confronted and forced to retire in 1998. We know from his own sworn testimony, though, that Paterno knew in 2002.

Read about the victims after that date.

Read the sick details of what these men say Sandusky did to them in those years. Read about the on-campus swimming pool, the hotel sauna, the trips to bowl games, the basement dungeon where they screamed for help while being raped.

The plain reasons given for Paterno’s firing also serve to explain why his death needn’t be mourned.

“Every adult has a responsibility for every other child in our community,” Penn State trustee Kenneth C. Frazier told the New York Times last week. “And that we have a responsibility not to do the minimum, the legal requirement. We have a responsibility for ensuring that we can take every effort that’s within our power not only to prevent further harm to that child, but to every other child.”

Entrusted with that responsibility to a greater extent than others considering his vast, unprecedented power, Paterno turned his back. Rather than protect children, he knowingly endangered them.

And he should rest in no more peace than that of those boys, whose lives were ruined by a monster.

Here’s another quote about doing the right thing in difficult times: “Being the most popular kid won’t mean much if you are in trouble with the law or have flunked out of school. So if your friends are making poor choices, stand up to your friends and stand out from the crowd. Don’t give up your winning future for short-term popularity.”

That’s Joe Paterno, from the back of a 1990 trading card distributed by The Second Mile, Sandusky’s “charity” that he exploited as a victim-cultivation mechanism.

So there will be tears, now. Many will come from under-informed students, willfully-ignorant alums, and Pennsylvania residents raised to worship a fraud. There will be grandiose, sanitized eulogies from every media corner. A Disney Requiem.

I cried last week, when I read the words of Penn State trustee Stephanie Nolan Deviney, who described to the New York Times her thoughts as she left home for the meeting at State College to determine Paterno’s future.

She went to the bedroom of her seven-year old son to kiss him goodbye.

“I thought of all the mothers of all those boys in the presentment,” she said. “And I thought about what they must feel when they kiss their sons good night.”

I cried again when I read that passage on the air. I am crying right now as I type. I am sad, and still indescribably angry over what Penn State football helped happen.

I am crying for the right reasons.
Click to expand...
 
I'm waiting for my idiotic classmates to claim that the media are undercovering this story because they just hate Penn State.
 
Word is out and about that come 2014, we'll now have a +1 playoff among the top 4 ranked teams. The too-cute criticism I could never really understand is "...well, what about team #5?"

Even slightly better to have an issue with team #5 than team #3, no?

At the very least, it's one step closer to the hellish nightmare-scape of FCS football.
 
mobvok said:
Word is out and about that come 2014, we'll now have a +1 playoff among the top 4 ranked teams. The too-cute criticism I could never really understand is "...well, what about team #5?"

Even slightly better to have an issue with team #5 than team #3, no?

At the very least, it's one step closer to the hellish nightmare-scape of FCS football.
Click to expand...

Yeah, but the problem is that there are going to be 4-6 teams claiming that they deserved the #4 ranking.
 
A bunch of old, rich white people are on my TV screen telling me that the FOUR TEAM PLAYOFF is a done deal.
 
speedracer said:
Yeah, but the problem is that there are going to be 4-6 teams claiming that they deserved the #4 ranking.
Click to expand...

Late response!

The details to the playoff news is that there will be some sort of selection committee, apparently....

Done wrong their thought process would just be "durr pick the SEC teams" and move on, but done right, that strikes me as a bit better than strictly following the rankings (which are ridiculous anyway, since the computers aren't allowed to contradict human intuition).

Also, the two semifinal games will be held on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. Good timing in general, and by having the championship game a week later hopefully would raise the quality of play so the athletes aren't playing after a 5 week layover.
 
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