They are perfectly suited for piloting airliners...
Posted on 11/15/2011 6:41:13 PM PST by ventanax5
JOE AMES is an alumnus of the Pennsylvania State University. He served as editor of The Lionhearted: Penn State’s Only Independent Newspaper from 1991 – 1993. The paper gained national attention when two female undergraduate students, both journalism majors and members of the student club “Womyn’s Concerns,” stole and burned thousands of Lionhearted newspapers on the lawn of its advisor’s State College law office, to the applause of Penn State faculty and administrators.
Mr. Ames offers his view here of the recent scandal.
“WE are Penn State.”
Even those with superficial exposure to Penn State are familiar with its famous, antiphonal football chant, “We are Penn State.” Few people, even Penn State students and professionals, know its origin. In the late 1940s, the students of the football team heard rumours that SMU requested a meeting to discuss the exclusion of a black student from their upcoming game at the “Sugar Bowl.” The story goes that a student teammate spoke first and for the whole team, “We are Penn State. There will be no meeting.” The game was played, the black student went on to produce a score-tying touchdown, Penn State launched itself into the Civil Rights movement, and a righteous football cheer was born.
“We are Penn State” implied personal loyalty to a fellow student as a matter of principle, and the principle was more important than their extracurricular football play.Yet for the 109,000 football watchers packed into Penn State’s Beaver Stadium last Saturday, “We are Penn State” is a statement of identity similar to how Christians understand Christ’s remarkable statement in St. John’s Gospel, 10:30: I and my Father are one.
Except with a sinister turn to it.
(Excerpt) Read more at thinkinghousewife.com ...
Mr. Ames offers his view here of the recent scandal.
“WE are Penn State.”
Even those with superficial exposure to Penn State are familiar with its famous, antiphonal football chant, “We are Penn State.” Few people, even Penn State students and professionals, know its origin. In the late 1940s, the students of the football team heard rumours that SMU requested a meeting to discuss the exclusion of a black student from their upcoming game at the “Sugar Bowl.” The story goes that a student teammate spoke first and for the whole team, “We are Penn State. There will be no meeting.” The game was played, the black student went on to produce a score-tying touchdown, Penn State launched itself into the Civil Rights movement, and a righteous football cheer was born.
“We are Penn State” implied personal loyalty to a fellow student as a matter of principle, and the principle was more important than their extracurricular football play.Yet for the 109,000 football watchers packed into Penn State’s Beaver Stadium last Saturday, “We are Penn State” is a statement of identity similar to how Christians understand Christ’s remarkable statement in St. John’s Gospel, 10:30: I and my Father are one.
Except with a sinister turn to it.
In a curious inversion of Nature, the creation – the institution that is Penn State’s football program – is served by the creators: the students, alumni and taxpayers of the Commonwealth. And, the creator-servants will defend “Penn State” to the point of self-sacrifice. Why? What is so important about the one-time “Farmers’ High School”?
Most everything to be said about the monstrous Jerry Sandsuky has been said. Should even more horrifying details emerge (and they very likely will), who would be surprised? However, I want to explore something at least as sinister, the Cult of Personality that is Penn State University. Unfortunately, I have some expertise in this matter and understand how unimaginably impossible it is for most to grasp. It takes a lifetime of indoctrination and discipline to produce the submissive mentality of a “Nittany Lion.”
“Penn State” is more than Penn State. The psychological construct and marketing image has little to do with the legal entity that is the Pennsylvania State University, a 501(c)(3) non-profit educational corporation established in 1865.
“Penn State” is more than Jerry Sandusky or those innocent boys whose souls were murdered. It is more than federal grant money to prove man-made global warming. It is more than Joe Paterno … but not by much.
“Penn State,” you see, is a pretense, a persona, an identity worn by otherwise quite unremarkable and quite ordinary nobodies who exist vicariously through the exploits of their vaunted football team, its pomp, glory, conspicuous pageantry and manly bragging rights (easy girls, endless booze, the best drugs, and now we know … little boys).
We are Penn State. Defending ”Penn State” against the slightest insult is tantamount to defending oneself. If “Penn State” falls, what is to become of those whose very selves are defined by the cult?
The delusion is quite valuable too. We’re talking billions of dollars. The artificial halo of Penn State football covers a lot of ground far outside Beaver Stadium, all the way from your local voting booth to Harrisburg, Washington, DC, and beyond. Penn State is a racket, as we used to say here in Philly when we were more honest with each other.
So what do we have?
We see a common mythology that encourages various but selfish interests: access to impressionable minds for political purposes; unlimited opportunity for grift and payola; gigantic profit to be taken from gullible fools. Egos abound. Criminality flourishes. Academic intrigue enough to make the Borgias proud.
But the paramount motive is spiritual. Penn State football is a religious experience. Joe Paterno (whose name derives from the Latin root for father) is their god; Beaver Stadium their temple. “Players” are avenging angels. University officials are priests; football executives, high priests; Mount Nittany, a holy place that ascends to heaven. Happy Valley is Paradise. Nittany Lions are the Chosen People.
To admit football players are often enough common thugs or not-so-petty criminals; that a winning coach is a pederast; or the great and benevolent Paterno looked the other way for reasons unknown and unfathomable is to admit the faith is false. It is an existential crisis in the same way a boy’s soul-murder by way of homosexual rape is existential, except the boy is innocent.
In short, “Penn State” is a cult of personality little different from that of Jim Jones or a thousand others in history. Grown men allow themselves to be purchased to evil for the right to paint themselves Blue and White.
We are Penn State.
“But the paramount motive is spiritual. Penn State football is a religious experience. Joe Paterno (whose name derives from the Latin root for father) is their god; Beaver Stadium their temple. “Players” are avenging angels. University officials are priests; football executives, high priests; Mount Nittany, a holy place that ascends to heaven. Happy Valley is Paradise. Nittany Lions are the Chosen People. “
Occasionally, I read something and I wonder what how frequently the writer smokes crack. This was one of those times.
Well said.
Living in San Francisco, I have the suspicion that the situation is far more common that anyone chooses to admit. Cal Thomas had an interesting take on my old Alma Mater Penn State in a recent Town Hall article. He quotes,” C.S. Lewis, (who) said it best in”, “The Abolition of Man”: “In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.”
This should be a fun thread. You’ll be able to guess which profiles have PA state flags by the responses.
The simple fact is that while not always about pedophilia or even sex, lots of college towns with big money sports have a culture of silence to protect the home team.
Back in 84 or 85 my sister managed some off campus housing in Lansing Mi while her husband went to school. One of the star Spartan basketball stars (and eventual NBA star) parked in a fire lane outside the building so my sister had his car towed away. When the ball player returned later than night he found his car gone so he trashed my sister’s car with a baseball bat and kicked her apartment door off its hinges.
The guy was arrested and went before a judge who gave him a light slap on the patties and chatted with him about his season. The school gave my sister a big check and a warning that making a big deal out of it could be detrimental to her husband’s learning environment and general peace for both of them.
Exactly, see my comment below (number 6)
Since I also went to U of M for graduate school, I certainly know of whom you speak.
I can’t remember who it was but he became one of the big NBA stars a few years later.
Steve Smith.
I don’t think it would be Steve Smith. He was drafted in 1991 and would not have been at Michigan State when the incident happened.
We are state pen.
Sam Vincent or Scott Skiles. Maybe Daryl Johnson. Always heard Skiles had a nasty temper.
Skiles might be my guess too. Kevin Willis was another future NBA player in that era.
lol
They are perfectly suited for piloting airliners...
From the article: “Penn State” is more than Jerry Sandusky or those innocent boys whose souls were murdered. It is more than federal grant money to prove man-made global warming. It is more than Joe Paterno … but not by much.
“Penn State,” you see, is a pretense, a persona, an identity worn by otherwise quite unremarkable and quite ordinary nobodies who exist vicariously through the exploits of their vaunted football team, its pomp, glory, conspicuous pageantry and manly bragging rights (easy girls, endless booze, the best drugs, and now we know … little boys).
We are Penn State. Defending ”Penn State” against the slightest insult is tantamount to defending oneself. If “Penn State” falls, what is to become of those whose very selves are defined by the cult?
Indeed the "cult" of Penn State. A corporate identity of people defined by that cultic corporate identity.
Interesting the straight-arming of other individuals @ Penn State who also have been defined by that same corporate ID.
STEVE SMITH - 6’-7” guard, 1987-91;
There is a town named Paterno in Sicily (with an accent on the o). I don't know if Joe Paterno is of Sicilian ancestry but if so the family may have originally been from that place in Sicily and got its surname for that reason.
There are various theories about the origin of the Sicilian town but none of them seem to have anything to do with the Latin word pater. One theory is that it is from the Greek ep' Adernon meaning "towards Aderno."
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