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| Joe Paterno |
Paterno legacy damaged by scandal, but not erased
Joe Paterno lived 85 years and I never heard of him until the homosexual rapes on Penn State campus hit the news a few months ago. As the darkness of the broadcasts echoed from one station to another his life and legacy went front and center stage. I had to shut the clamoring voices of critics, lawyers, fans, students, and reporters out to listen and later read a bit about his principles and gaze into the eyes of the people he had shaped and influenced with his deep commitments to excellence, intellectual curiosity, joy of life, perserverance, and discipline. Everybody should have men like this in their lives to ground them, and teach their spirits and mind when they are young and impressionable.
I was angered listening to the people who ripped him apart and spit on him for not doing more about what he knew about the rapes. I was angry because nothing was done about the rapes after it was reported. How do you let something like that go? I stopped myself. I knew. I knew the answers. I know the culture that protects its own at that level of financial profitability, and I understand the social stucture that supports the large institutions of male priviledge, white male priviledge, sports, and university image. Sodomy is a dark part of prison, war, and sports. It is a hidden reality and one of the main reasons I avoid sharing sports euthusiam with a lot of fraternity brothers, and have done everything possible to stay out of jail. There is a comradery in those places that frightens me because in those enviorments if certain defenses are lowered a man or a boy could easily be sodomized and no one would stop it or report it. But, Joe Paterno had a value system and a father’s connection to the lives of boys that could not stomach the violations of rape upon a boy’s spirit. Paterno's comment that he had never heard of "rape and a man" was interpreted as being out of touch. I disagree because not everyone’s lives are shaped by atrocities, and unless it was part of his life homosexual rape would remain outside of his peripheral of life.
I sensed his confusion and his compounded feelings, and his inability to ‘properly’ handle what was reported to him. What is proper? In retrospect many his age would be at a loss for words because homosexuality and rape and the combination of the two were not part of the lexicon of his era, and to make it worse the dark aspects of homosexuality were not addressed in public forums most of his life, and to add to the pain it is not addressed outside of the neat little scripts handed to people who need to learn how to speak about homosexuality in a politically correct way. It is sad, dishonest, and unfair, but that is the way it is, and that is what faced the old man. I don’t know if anyone else in his capacity would have done much different because it was a homosexual act of terror, and people today are held hostage to a mode of behavior and scripts regarding homosexuality that does not embrace whole truths. I heard this in his words when Mr. Paterno said, “I didn’t exactly know how to handle it … I backed away and turned it over to some other people, people I thought would have a little more expertise than I did. It didn’t work out that way…”
Fear. Fear and grief. Those two emotions will fuddle anyone’s thoughts and limit his or her actions. Whatever you practice in rehearsal comes out onstage.
A well written tribute by Dan Wetzel spoke to the heart of the man’s integrity which is stronger than his faults and shortcomings: “Truly great leaders are measured by the lives they reached, the people they motivated and the legacy of their lesson that can extend for years to come, like ripples from a skipped stone across an endless lake.
For Joe Paterno, the impact is incalculable, the people he connected with extending far beyond the players he coached for 62 years at Penn State the last 46 as head football coach. Paterno always tried to be the giant who walked among the everyman both in the school’s greatest moments and, it turns out, in its worst. Paterno died Sunday at a State College, Pa., hospital, suffering in his final days from lung cancer, broken bones and the fallout of a horrific scandal that not only cost him his job, but also his trademark vigor and a portion of his good name. He was 85 years old.”
All I can add is that we all need to get acquainted with Truth and learn to speak truthfully to each other and ourselves. ©Gregory E. Woods
http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/news?slug=dw-wetzel_joe_paterno_obituary_012212
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| Joe Paterno in 1965 |
Joe Paterno: ‘I just did what I thought was best’
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| Joe Paterno played quarterback at Brown University in 1948 & '49 |
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