At this point, Penn State needs to give it's football program the death penalty.

dj_bigbird: At this point, Penn State needs to give it's football program the death penalty.

Amen.

"But if we arrest those pedophiles, we won't win games! Can't the kids just suck it up?" -Everyone who supports Sandusky or has a problem with Paterno losing his job

Great commentary.

I also liked Jon Stewart's reaction to the rioting a few weeks ago. Nailed it.

Rich, educated, successful men let little boys get raped so they could become richer, more successful, educated men. I am angrier at them than at Sandusky. While Sandusky is an evil person with no regard for his actions, these men could have stopped evil. They had over a decade to stop evil. Every morning when they woke up they made a choice to hold down a little kid while he was being raped.

Sad to say this case is not the only time Penn state has ignored or tolerated child molestation Link (new window)

Checking Google Scholar, M. Kenneth Brody seems to have been the first to publish a paper on the comparison of sports to religion: (doi:10.1177/019372357900300203).

tortilla burger: He mad? Yeah, he mad.

Joe Paterno did do a bad thing, I don't think anybody at this point can argue against that. That doesn't change the fact that he's had a positive influence on many people's lives. You have to accept both, that he did both good and bad things. Reading Bernstein's rage-fueled-tard-rant is a fine example of why you should never write anything while angry.

You know who else did good and bad things?

i know way too many people whose formative years are defined by PSU football like some cult. Complete with the repetition of the most generic sayings 'Your party is just our pregame' and other nonsense like that. Strip that away from them and they have no individual for which to fall back on.

And by the way, those PSU sayings/ mottos you guys spout are utter gibberish.

Tourney3p0: Your priorities may be skewed.

I'm not letting Sandusky off here. I just think he should be put down like a dog and no other thought should go into it. The other guys were in a position where they could have done something, and the world at large expected more of any civilized human being.

R.A.Danny:The other guys were in a position where they could have done something, and the world at large expected more of any civilized human being.

so you're saying that i should touch little boys so i can be held to lower standards?

Penn State aside, too many adults do define their lives by fully engrossing themselves into sports events in which they have no control over the outcome. Sports were always meant to be a diversion, not a direction for life.

thomps: R.A.Danny:The other guys were in a position where they could have done something, and the world at large expected more of any civilized human being.

so you're saying that i should touch little boys so i can be held to lower standards?

Nope. I'm saying you touch little boys because you're an animal.

Hero worship is a bad thing. Never worship a person.

Because the propensity for your hero to fail -- or to let you down -- always exists.

Instead, worship an ideal, and urge the people you look up to strive for that ideal. But if they aren't up to it or they fail to live up the ideal's aspirations, then it's time to cast them aside. Because the ideal matters more than the people.

Tourney3p0: I realize personal responsibility isn't the "hip thing" right now, but surely even the most unreasonable person has limits.

And everyone who did nothing should take personal responsibility for allowing a child rapist to continue his crimes.

Or hell, let me put it in Captain Picard terms:

"Your honor, the football program is a crucible; in it, we burn away irrelevancies until we are left with a purer product: the truth, for all time. Now sooner or later, this man - or others like him - will succeed in damaging the program's reputation. The decision you reach here today will determine how we will regard this perversion of our institution. It will reveal the kind of people we are; what football is destined to be. It will reach far beyond this University and this one football team. It could significantly redefine the boundaries of personal liberty and freedom: expanding them for some, savagely curtailing them for others."

"The first duty of every football coach is to the truth, whether it's scientific truth or historical truth or personal truth! It is the guiding principle on which football is based. And if you can't find it within yourself to stand up and tell the truth about what happened, you don't deserve to run this team!"

NuttierThanEver: You know who else did good and bad things?

Every human being ever?

Orgasmatron138: By cracky!

Your observation is very hirsute.

Paterno chose looked the other way about allegations of child rape, by his then-Defensive Coordinator, to win football games. He deserves to be excommunicated from the world of college sports, and locked away for what remains of his natural life.

And now, we have the names of 386 people, less football players than "yes men" or flunkies, who deserve the same.

And of course we needed this greenlit. MOAR SANDUSKY THREADS!

The people who apparently hate it demand more internet outrage so they can say things that no one disagrees with ("pedophilia is disgusting") and then start claiming omniscience about what happened. yayyyyyy!

It's so tough and ballsy and the viewpoint "child rape is bad" really needs to be said over and over because I'm sure people didn't think that way. You're a real free-thinker, a true leader of people!

/everyone's interested in other people doing the right thing, yet the vast majority of people turn a blind eye to countless crimes every day.
//author is a terrible writer and it's pathetic to not allow for other people (many of whom actually know Paterno, unlike the author) to have opinions that disagree with your own myopic worldview

AbbeySomeone: It's goddamn football, not rocket science or anything that really matters.

Different things matter to different people. Rocket science is less important to most people than football is.

AbbeySomeone: It's goddamn football, not rocket science or anything that really matters.

apparently people take this football thing a little too seriously

AbbeySomeone: Well done.
The sports hero worship in this country is a real problem and played a monumental role in a scandal that was covered up. Many lives were ruined and many more will before this is finished.
It's goddamn football, not rocket science or anything that really matters.

F8ck you. Go Gators.