crickets.
In case you missed it, here is an excellent post from Scoutmaster from earlier this week:
Were Penn State a normal university, it may take twenty years or more to recover from this. The lawsuits and appeals, and the state and federal hearings, will drag on for years . . . some perhaps for five or more. There will likely be dozens of civil and criminal lawsuits naming Penn State, the Second Mile, and individuals, including those not commonly being mentioned by name, such as Jack Raykvotiz of The Second Mile and Wendell Courtney (who simultaneously served as legal counsel to the University and The Second Mile during the 1998 investigation). Toftrees Golf Resort and Conference Center is likely to be named. And discovery in each case, and each new victim (we are already up to at least twenty apparent victims from the eight in the grand jury documents) may bring other names to light.
If the story is true that there was a ring of pedophiles involving affluent Penn State alumni, boosters, and other Penn State-related individuals, then that will set the University back another decade or more. And the person hinting that he may have that story began to break the Sandusky story in April and was ridiculed and subjected to character assassination for suggestion such a thing in April.
Authorities in Texas are already investigating the possibility of pursuing charges against Sandusky there, because Sandusky was permitted to bring boys with him to at least two out-of-state bowl games, and one of the GJ-reported molestations occurred there.
Given the novelty of some of the charges that may be brought regarding violation of federal reporting laws, and whether Penn State would appeal any finding, that litigation could find its way into a Federal Circuit Court or the U.S. Supreme Court.
The recovery time will be long because this story will be around in the courts for a decade and because it now concentrates on Sandusky, McQueary, Paterno, Curley, Schultz, and Spanier. Soon, the number of individuals called out by name with increase by many multiples of that. And instead of reading a GJ report, the public may witness video of men testifying in court.
So an ordinary university may take twenty years or more to recover.
But Penn State wasn’t an ordinary University. Football was a major part of what made Penn State, Penn State. The NCAA may find one of its Byzantine rules to shut down football for two years; it’s that serious. Players will transfer if allowed. Recruits will not come. Attending away games will be a nightmare for fans and players.
And you may bond together over the greater things that a university is supposed to stand for, but only after you decry the cult of Paterno personality and destroy the altar of Penn State football. Yet yesterday, a star Penn State player from the 1950s who admits he does not listen to news and has not read anything because “it would anger me” donated money to a Sandusky legal defensive fund and personally contacted former players encouraging them to do the same. Because Penn State football was under attack. Damn the pre-teen victims.
And Penn State will never be the same because Penn State was Happy Valley, an idyllic place where kids like Mike McQueary grew up and played touch football in the park next to Joe Paterno’s house, with Jerrry Sandusky’s kids, and Joe Paterno walked from his house to games, and everything was more wholesome than everywhere else, and the standard by which actions were judged was moral right, not legal minimum.
You can’t go home again. There is no Happy Valley. That cannot be recovered.
If there is to be a new Penn State that rises higher, it must truly rise as a Phoenix from the ashes of a fire. And it cannot be built on football. It took 45 years for Penn State to build the moral authority by which it was viewed until Saturday. It can’t reclaim that authority in such a short period as only another 45.
Penn State will not rise from this until sports fans in their late twenties - men and women with children - become grandparents and lecture their children on how to report abuse by a coach or authority figure, or tell their children who are assistant coaches or graduate students to do the right thing, using Penn State as the example. Those people must die first.
So Penn State may rise. But it must first endure decades of clouds. And then Penn State must find its soul.