Joe Paterno and the Meaning of Life

Recently it was reported that former Penn State football coach Joe Paterno was recovering from a treatable form of lung cancer. This is the most recent in a string of health problems for the 85 year old Paterno and caps off arguably the most tumultous year any man can have.

Let me first say this. I love Joe Paterno. I am a huge Joe Paterno fan. Joe Pa. This is no small thing as he coached a team that is in the same conference as my beloved Ohio State Buckeyes. Die-hard sports fan realize the cardinal sin of routing for teams in the same division, yet I could not help being a Joe Paterno fan.

For me, and undoubtedly many, Joe Paterno represented the greatest thing about sports and being a fan; consistency. The man coached for over 46 years, that's twice as long as I've been alive. That's longer than my parents marriage and almost longer than my parent's age. Many athletes and coaches hope to become synonymous with a program, Joe Paterno IS the program. Joe Paterno IS Penn State football, and arguably Penn State. Even people who weren't sports fans new and respected Joe Paterno for what his career represented. In a world where most of us scrap to get by and we live on a whim as to how we tackle the next hurdle that awaits us, it's comforting when you have something consistent in your life. That’s why we seek out things that are stable and secure. We want stable relationships with a partner, stable jobs that lead to life long careers, a faith with strong rooted principles and traditions that be used to guide our lives.

It is hard to find anything more consistent than a sports team. They wear the same uniforms, play in the same location and play a set schedule. There are rules in place to insure that fairness and justice occurs. Clear outcomes are achieved. There is structure, something that many of us desperately seek in our own lives.

It is because of this consistency and structure that has put fans and spectator's in a perplexing conundrum as they are being required to pass judgment on the admired Paterno due to the recent sex scandal that has rocked Penn State for the past 5 months. It is almost unfathomable that a man who represented consistency and regularity for so long would now cause people to have to face hard questions about right and wrong, when for 46 years he seemed to represent everything that was right, which was too much to swallow for many.

So in that context it is understandable to see how people could make excuses for the inexcusable, as ultimately Paterno was complacent as he had knowledge that horrible and tragic things occurred under his watch as Jerry Sandusky raped and abused a countless number of young boys. It is in that context you can understand the deafening boos in the press conference as it was announced that Paterno had been fired, and you can understand the violent riot that students led in Happy Valley. They didn't only lose a coach, they lost one of the most consistent things in their lives, and that cannot be miscounted.

I was sad when I watched Paterno let go. I wanted to see ol' Joe Pa go out on his own terms, which was probably death. I honestly expected to have a wife and kids before Joe Paterno quit coaching, yet the unthinkable happened and the Joe Paterno Era came to a sad close. In a world where politicians can't fulfill promises, job security is as flimsy as paper and religious leaders prey on their congregation, it was nice to have what we thought was a rare beacon of right. Yet all good things must come to an end, it was just unfortunate that this had such a tragic one.

Mike Cronin, Michael Vick and the Police State of Athletics for Black Players

Let me start off by saying that I almost didn't want to type this blog. It's really a labor of love. The reason I say this is because I love sports. Anyone who knows me knows that I am a diehard Green Bay Packers fan who bleeds Grade-A Wisconsin dairy when cut. I am also(to my own detriment) a Cleveland Cavaliers fan (please keep your jokes to a mininum). I love sports and the dynamic matchups they bring and the pure joy that bonding onto a team can bring, a joy that can never be truly diluted by shady boosters or scandalous megastars. I generally cringe with contempt when I hear elitist intellectual snobs mock sports fan for what they feel is irrelevent outside of it's debauchery and corruption. Yes I know books are great, and I'll read one after the 4th quarter, now go sip your $8 organic smoothie while you belittle people and leave me alone.

Of course, these snobby smarty pants have a point, corruption has long plagued our beloved past times, from drug abuse, exhortion, performance enhancers, violence, and most recently and most disturbing, pedophilia. Just as unavoidable as corruption in sports is the pervasiveness of race in every walk of life. Yes, race is still a factor post Obama, especially the treatment of black men and their perception as brute, primal beast whose physical prowess can easily morph from a slam dunk on the court to an attack on society.

Last month the country witnessed the despicable in-game brawl between NCAA Men's Basketball rivals Xavier and Cincinnati. The fight was brutal as 7 players total(3 for Xavier, 4 for Cincy) received suspensions. Making matters worse was senior guard Tu Holloway, who immediately said during the press conference that his team was not soft, and full of gangsters. Of course these comments were idiotic and just plain stupid. However, they were coming from a kid who was no more than 5 minutes removed from a fight with a bitter rival. Think of the dumb things you might say when your adrenaline is pumping after your round of fisticuffs from fighting the kid who kept stealing your lunch money in the 6th grade.

It was at that moment that these young men stopped being students and had transformed into dangerous criminals. Think I'm overexaggerating? The District Attorney was asked to review the case and decide if legal action was necessary. The Freaking DA! I'm sorry, but I think their are more criminals on the mean streets than on the tough hardwood, but that's just me.

Right on cue, Mike Cronin, UC head coach, stepped up and condemned his players in front of the media, and promised alumni that he would be tough on his players, because they were not above the program, and that they had brought shame to the great university that had givfen a degree to the guy who invented Benadryl. Yet anyone who saw the fight saw Mike and his staff watching dumbfounded as the fight broke out(just as much as Xavier's staff was). Really, no responsible adult stepped in, including refs and security, until well into the brawl.

But Cronin did his job. He ensured swift justice against tyrannical injustice. He was tough on wrongdoing, just like most Americans say they are toughon crime. Yet what does that statement mean? Aren't we all tough on crime? IS anyone, outside of Gucci Mane, advocating for us to run around shooting each other?(Sorry, Gucci) What most people subliminally, or maybe not so subliminally mean when they say they are tough on crime, is that they feel black and brown people need to be policed and made examples of if they can't tow the societal line because they have the greatest potential of being a threat to said society, even though staitsitically Black and Brown people have been proven to not commit crime at a higher rate than their White counterparts.

Shifting to professional athletics, since the integration of major league sports the policing of Black men has been evident, from dress codes to deter the NBA's 'ghetto' image, to NFL comissioner Roger Goodell's crack down on players when the media began labeling the NFL a 'league full of thugs' a few years ago. Pro sports have always sought to deal heavy penalties to it's Black atheletes. The most recent and famous incident involved quarterback who was suspended from the league and received 2 years in federal prison for his involvement in an illegal dogfighting ring, a sentence that many found egregious.

To be clear I am not saying that players should not be punished for their conduct. Michael Vick deserved to be convicted, although I don't see the punishment fitting the crime. Those players in that fight deserved to be suspended, and for longer than what they received, but of course because they are starters they were insured to be back once all important inter-league play starts. It seems that even rules will not stop Black players from being valuable commodities. Yet they can be used to make an example of what happens when we stop seeing a young kid who made a mistake and start seeing a black hoodlum ready to prey on surburban families. Black players deserve to be disciplined for misconduct, and don't deserve special treatment, but as fans and observers we must ask ourselves do we have to see players reprimanded or criminals charged.

Let me stop giving ammo to the smoothie drinkers and get back to checking Aaron Rodger's stat sheet.