A State of Fury

I am a graduate 3 times over of the Pennsylvania State University, so I am taking all of the recent heinous events very personally.  My anger has consumed me.  It has driven me to yell on the phone with my mother-in-law or my own mother as they patiently, with love, listen to me vent my feelings.  The tears have come and gone more than once.

As a student I was consumed with the football team as so many others.  Jerry Sandusky was very well known for his work with The Second Mile.  I heard him speak at my church a number of years ago.  I ran into JoePa at the store once or twice, revered him as a coach and role model, became friends with a few of his players.  When his library was opened, I sent him and Sue a thank you card.  It was a wonderful gift.  Mike McQueary frequented the bar I worked at throughout graduate school in Happy Valley.  Seeing these campus "Gods" was an everyday occurrence for so many of us students.

My disgust and anger with each and every person involved with this scandal is beyond skin deep.    Shame on you Mr. Sandusky.  Your victims were children.  Children are innocent.  They are pure.  You took that from them.  Mr. McQueary, you are a coward.  How could you see something so horrific, so awful, so disgusting and tell Daddy?  Mr. Paterno, how have you slept at night the past ten years?  You have sons.  The Board of Trustees, President Spanier, however many more of you are involved that the public do not know?   Shame on you all.  Your judgment day will come.

What was your cover up for?  For the love of what ... a game, a school, yourselves?  Let me tell you about a love.  A love a parent has for a child, their child.  A love so strong that you as a parent will stop at nothing to protect them.  How helpless must those mothers and fathers have felt when they found out what had happened to their children.  Those boys are broken.  They are scarred for life.  Imagine if one of your children came to you and told you that someone had molested them.  Imagine their fright, their shame, their smallness.  What would you think?  How would you help?  How would you stop it?  Now ask yourselves how you would feel if you found out it could have been stopped years before.

November 10th, 2011