My mom's family used to live in the Pittsburgh area and although much of her immediate family has since moved away or currently lives in different parts of the country, her brother continues to live there with his family. My uncle Mark went to Penn State, met his wife there, and they are both HUGE Nittany Lions fans. I'm not sure how they're reacting now to the abundant media coverage following the Penn State former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky molestation disaster.
I do know that my uncle Mark (along with basically ever other Penn State student) loved Joe Paterno and he even had a life size poster of him in his dorm20 years ago. Joe Paterno is going down with this spiral, however, and the longtime most prominent man on campus was fired on Wednesday because of accusations that he didn't report sexual abuse violations made by Sandusky to the proper authorities. Paterno even said, "With the benefit of hindsight, I wish I had done more." According to the New York Times article that is linked in the beginning of this paragraph, Paterno has the most wins out of any other coach of a major college football organization and despite his lack of action in the. The students love him despite the fact the his name in a dark light during this massive scandal. Just look at this video showing kids protesting Paterno's firing.
This video also focuses on the fact that the victims' struggle is overshadowed by football because the kids are only rioting for their veteran football coach to be back. I found it sickening that this entire scandal ever even happened and am disappointed that Joe Paterno, such a large part of Penn State culture, did not turn in his colleague to the authorities and as a result has been ousted from the coaching staff. In the video it does mention that one of the sisters of a victim is not upset at Paterno but more at Graham B. Spanier, Penn State's president who was also fired. I'm disgusted nevertheless by the fact that such a heinous crime would even happen at Penn State by one of its former employees and am distraught that kids are not paying enough attention to the victims. The video mentions jokes about Sandusky and an overall lack of sensitivity to the issue that has really put a dark light on their school. What do you think this says about college culture in the US? What do these riots specifically say about college football culture in the US?
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