November 8, 2011. I was shooting pool at State College’s best dive bar when the bouncer came running in, his face flushed with excitement. According to TV news, he told us, the Penn State Board of Trustees had just fired football coach Joe Paterno. Though Paterno had already declared his intention to retire at the end of the season, after allegations that he had condoned an ongoing pattern of child molestation by assistant coach Jerry Sandusky, the trustees decided they couldn’t wait. Paterno would not be coaching that Saturday’s home game.
My friends and I realized that Penn State kids would not be taking this well. Joe Paterno may have been a minor national celebrity, but he was Premier of State College, with soviet realist propaganda dedicated to him all over town—including a bronze statue. The trustees had announced the beloved figurehead’s dismissal at a time when many students were already drunk, a decision interim President Rodney Erickson would have trouble defending in days to come. Even though Penn State kids become completely different people every four years, they always seem to be more likely to riot than your average college students.
I don’t know whether sports are always what Noam Chomsky has called “training in irrational jingoism,” but that night I became convinced that in State College, they are little more than that. In his landmark study of ideology, Louis Althusser pointed out that “the role of sport in chauvinism is of the first importance.” But it isn’t only the sense of assumed regional loyalties and resentment for foreign enemies that sports instill in participants and spectators alike. Althusser elaborates:
The reproduction of labour power requires not only a reproduction of its skills, but also, at the same time, a reproduction of its submission to the rules of the established order, i.e. a reproduction of submission to the ruling ideology for the workers, and a reproduction of the ability to manipulate the ruling ideology correctly for the agents of exploitation and repression.
The imaginary relations represented by sports are highly efficient training for life under capitalism. Players are workers, their bodies instruments of labor, applying a Protestant work ethic to an apparent competitive meritocracy. In the case of college sports, as a damning article in The Atlantic recently addressed, the surplus value extracted from their labor is at a maximum: collegiate athletes are not financially compensated for their many hours of work. Meanwhile, the oligarchic structure of the industry produces symbolic wealth for the administrative ruling class in the form of wins, not to mention actual profit for the university itself. To be sure, players enjoy their brief moments of glory. But there are no statues of football players in State College.
Paterno’s dismissal threw Penn State into ideological crisis, as we saw that night after climbing the stairs outside. Sure enough, the streets were flooded with young people dressed in blue and white. It was unclear at this point where they were headed. Some carried signs defending Paterno. Some cheered. Others followed with indignant resolve. Others followed just to follow, giddy with the thrill of being part of the crowd.
Nerds like us often play a dangerous game in situations like this, the point of which is to find a guy bigger than you and insult him as much as possible without letting him realize he’s being insulted. Bonus points if he realizes he’s being insulted but you talk him out of beating you up. You lose if he beats you up. I’ve never lost.
We played this game for much of the night. To the ubiquitous call-and-response chant, “We are?” “Penn State!” we answered “Pedophiles!” We informed couples that someday their own children would ask them why they defended a child molester. Some we just asked why they were there. We never got much of an answer. When I shouted after one kid that his actions were an endorsement of child rape, he looked as though he was seriously considering turning around and taking the time to kick my ass. But after regarding me with contempt for a moment, he dismissed me with logical reasoning: “You’re not even American,” he scoffed, and walked on.
He had a point. What he meant, though, was not quite the same as what he said. What he meant was, “you’re not even white,” and he was right. I’m not white at all. In fact, at that moment I was probably the only nonwhite person on the whole block. But when it comes to being American, my credentials are impeccable: I was born and raised in State College, PA.
“There’s only one good use for a small town,” goes a song by Lou Reed. “You hate it, and you know you’ll have to leave.” I hated State College. Many accounts of the Sandusky affair by current and former residents would have you believe that this scandal is a fall from grace. There was once a consensus, they say: we loved Penn State, and we loved football. Most of all, we loved Uncle Joe and his Blue and White Army.
I didn’t. To me and the kids I hung out with, Penn State football didn’t mean “success with honor,” as Paterno’s now-infamous slogan would have it. It didn’t mean we were part of a community, or a tradition. What Penn State football meant was that in State College, there were no all-ages concerts, no cinemas that screened foreign films, no radio stations with anything but Top 40 hits or classic rock. Like many little college towns, State College is infused with a submissive parochialism that finds its starkest expression in team spirit.
The submission to the ruling ideology Althusser identified in the structure of spectator sports has been the defining characteristic of the ugly state of affairs at Penn State. The story begins, at least in legal terms, with graduate student Mike McQueary allegedly discovering Sandusky raping a 10-year-old boy, after he heard a “rhythmic slapping sound” emanating from the locker room showers. McQueary has had trouble keeping his story straight since then, but his Grand Jury testimony is incriminating. He made eye contact with both Sandusky and his victim, but he didn’t stop the rape, and he didn’t call the cops. He told Uncle Joe.
The most disturbing thing about McQueary’s passivity is not the conduct of one man, but that his ideological conditioning to walk away from an atrocity may not be so unique. Former NFL fullback Jon Ritchie, who was mentored by Sandusky early in his career, speculated on ESPN with disarming honesty on how he would react to the scene Mike McQueary said he saw:
This is the guy who was second-in-command to Joe Paterno. In State College, where Mike was born and raised, Joe Paterno is a deity. This man was second-in-command during Mike’s stay in State College as a player. I hear guys saying, “Hey, I would have gone in and stopped it.” I don’t think I could have.
It’s no surprise; American sports replicate the corruption characteristic of the ruling classes, and leave its witnesses powerless. The Chicago Tribune points out that Penn State is not an isolated incident, citing reports of sex crimes by coaches of youth football teams in Texas, Rhode Island, Nebraska, Illinois, and Virginia—all episodes from this year alone. Even legal proceedings surrounding the Penn State case appear to be little more than an invocation of blind faith in the ideological underpinnings of American sports culture. “He’s a jock,” Sandusky’s lawyer told CNN, as though that explains everything. “The bottom line is jocks do that—they kid around, they horse around.” And they get away with it.
This sick sense of entitlement is inevitable anywhere these sorts of hierarchies flourish. Pier Paolo Pasolini’s notorious film Salò, based on the Marquis de Sade’s novel 120 Days of Sodom, explores these libidinal dimensions of political power. A group of Italian fascists in the last days of Mussolini’s regime kidnap and torture 18 teenagers, enacting their basest sexual fantasies. International imperialism is not enough; they crave an imperialist expansion into flesh. Pasolini shows soldiers and house staff looking on indifferently, something like Europe’s complacent bystanders to the rise of fascism. Something like the administrative officials at Penn State University, who let Sandusky live out his own days of Sodom.
We may never know the full extent of Paterno’s involvement in covering up Sandusky’s bad habit, but he is unquestionably implicated. Former Penn State assistant coach Mike Paknis has no patience for Paterno’s denials. “Joe knows everything,” he told NBC Sports, claiming that Paterno abetted Sandusky from the beginning. This allegation is consistent with Paterno’s longstanding tendency to manipulate the university system to his advantage. The Wall Street Journal has reported that in 2007, after six Penn State football players assaulted students in an off-campus incident, the university’s Vice President of Student Affairs called for an application of the same disciplinary standards that would apply to any other students, instead of the customary brushing-under-the-rug Penn State football players enjoyed. Paterno used his financial clout to force her to resign.
Why, then, did students take to the streets to oppose the toppling of a dictator? Their outrage was blind, and it was barbaric. The Nation’s sports correspondent, Dave Zirin, summarized the antics of the kids I saw in downtown State College that night:
Students overturned a media truck, hit an ESPN reporter in the head with a rock and made every effort at arson, attempting to set aflame the very heart of their campus. They raised their fists in defense of a man fired for allegedly covering up the actions of a revered assistant who doubled as a serial child rapist. The almost entirely male student mob was given the space by police to seethe and destroy without restraint.
That same day, Zirin pointed out, students at Berkeley were peacefully protesting as part of the national Occupy movement. Cops beat them brutally with riot sticks. If Penn State students won’t join the national protest against the economic corruption plaguing their country—a circumstance that leads to relentless tuition increases for them and their families—can’t they at least protest against the corruption at their own university that allows a violent pedophile easy access to victims? Apparently not. Thousands of students rallied in support of his sponsor.
There was some dissent. The next day, students and community members held a candlelight vigil in honor of the victims, a valuable act that is nonetheless no replacement for holding the powerful accountable. Those attending the following Saturday’s game organized what they called a “Blue-Out.” In contrast to the usual “White-Out,” in which fans show their solidarity at Penn State’s Beaver Stadium by dressing in white, the Blue-Out called for game-goers to wear blue, a color that is associated with promoting awareness of child abuse. Blue and white, of course, are coincidentally Penn State’s team colors. The result was an almost comical display, with the stadium’s seats full of spectators wearing the same old Penn State shirts. Nothing really changed.
For the first time in my life, I watched a football game. I was glued to the television, hoping Penn State would lose. I was against my home team not out of any resentment for the players or the fans. I feared that a win would incite a triumphalist fervor in the misguided kids who rioted before, and they would destroy our town.
We lost. Of course we lost. It was the first game Penn State played without Coach Paterno on the sidelines since Dylan went electric. Uncle Joe still holds the record for winning more games than any collegiate football coach, a record he broke a week before the Sandusky allegations surfaced. But that isn’t going to be his legacy. At best, Joe Paterno is guilty of doing too little in the face of evil. It’s difficult not to conclude that the students, the administration, and the local community have been guilty of the same. I’ve waited my whole life for this town to snap out of it.
I’m still waiting.
Shuja Haider is a library worker who has previously written about music for Little White Earbuds and Resident Advisor. He is a member of the Viewpoint editorial board.
Well said, Shuja. As a similar scandal unfolds at the SU, the nearest collegiate team to my hometown, I’m similarly astonished by how many people blindly defend their team, even when the allegations include one of the most horrific crimes according the public opinion. Thanks for being a voice of reason.
Posted by Hartley | November 29, 2011, 9:18 amI wish you were on the ballet for the 2012 Presidential race.
Posted by Jeremy | November 29, 2011, 8:47 pmWe Are, Shuja.
Posted by Matt Cooper | November 29, 2011, 9:22 pmCheck your facts, you loose all credibility when you use false information. The reporter himself said he got hit in the pant leg with the rock. And if you listen, you can hear his hesitation to admit this fact because of his want to embellish the story. And with that, you can understand how everything was embellished. Where is the 24/7 coverage of the SU scandal? That’s right, you won’t see it because ESPN knew about this years ago and did not say anything. They play the role of Joe Paterno in the SU scandal, they didn’t do anything when approached with allegations, and don’t want the public to know of their guilt. Hypocrisy at it’s finest. Prayers go out to all the victims.
Posted by Jon | November 30, 2011, 7:44 amMaybe you should read this. This will give you the facts about the whole story and really who is at fault.
http://tominpaine.blogspot.com/2011/11/upon-further-review-joe-paterno-rose-to.html
Posted by Katelyn Gill | November 30, 2011, 8:30 amMy first thought after reading this article was “maybe it’s time for you to leave state college, if you hate it that much.” But seriously, if you’re content to demean your town and your university for crimes that most did not even know about (hey, most of us were shocked to hear the news, too), then you haven’t even read the grand jury report. You’d probably be hatin’ on the police too, and the rest of the administrators who “knew about this” if you had all your facts. No, we don’t agree with what happened. We don’t even agree with what was done with it. I’m not usually one to stoop to the “shut up and go home” reply to an article, but you seem to think that you’re better than the average person at PSU because you don’t believe. However, you somehow believed enough to not get out and find some greener pastrues. So before you blame the entire university, students, staff, and the general public and call us all idiots, dont forget to include yourself as part of the general evil spawned by this pedophile-sheltering institution.
Posted by Jill | November 30, 2011, 10:49 amTo Jill: Some of us have extenuating circumstances which prevent us from ‘seeking greener pastures’. I am from a college town in Michigan and unfortunately have too much debt between bills, student loans and saving up for grad school. The point of the article wasn’t just to vent about hating the place, it was about the sociological tendencies for people to develop a herd-mentality and overlook simple facts in the face of societal constructs such as sports. You could transpose the situation surrounding 9/11 and America’s response to the threat of WMD’s in the Middle East as blind fervor and patriotism but the point then as now still wouldn’t be to get out of the United States, (read: State College). I for one was impressed by insight. Some say religion is the opiate of the masses – I say nowadays it’s sports.
Posted by Jeremy | November 30, 2011, 11:39 amI’m also from SC and stuck here with extenuating circumstances, so I do have some experience with the frustration of wanting to get out. My dislike of the authors comments is with the indiscriminate persecution of all that is penn state, like it’s our fault that he stuck here with the bourgeois mob. Sure, there is a certain obsession with football, more than most universities. But the author takes it as a personal insult and also seems to make it the town versus himself. Being a nerd, he probably knows of plenty that the university does for good, in terms of research, and I, for one, was insulted that he would point fingers at penn state and state college as a whole instead of only at the drunken idiots who, by the way, only had one count of property damage, and we’re egged on by the news reporters. Penn State is not just football (I don’t watch the games) and its not just joe paterno (I’ve never seen the man up close) and its not just drunken idiots (2000 rioting versus 10000 at the vigil). Kindly stop helping the media in condemning the entire student body for the poor actions of a few that most of us have never heard of.
Posted by Jill | November 30, 2011, 12:01 pmFair enough and point taken. While I personally am still interested in the sociology of it all, I can agree with what you are saying.
Posted by Jeremy | November 30, 2011, 3:34 pmAnd yes, in re-reading the article, there are some very good sociological issues pointed out, so outrage aside, I do agree that there is a religion built around football with joepa as it’s diety. Exactly why the media took him down, since fallen gods sell papers, and trying to sell a paper about a man they have to first introduce the rest of the world to is hard. Penn state set him up, for better or worse, So touche, Jeremy, and thanks for pointing it out.
Posted by Jill | November 30, 2011, 5:17 pmYour suggestion that I “go home” is paradoxical and probably racist, but let’s focus on the subject at hand. I see that you’re feeling defensive, and you’re right that it’s unfair to malign people based on where they’re from. I didn’t call anyone an idiot, and I’m proud to be from State College. But this town based its economy, its culture, and its self-worth on Penn State football, and this incident shows how dangerous that was. I’m not personally insulted. I’m sickened to my core that football and regional pride are considered more important than the lives of children, by both a vocal minority and a silent majority.
Posted by Shuja Haider | November 30, 2011, 3:59 pmNo, the “go home” part was hypothetical, and I’m sorry that you must have faced so much discrimination in your life that you feel that everyone is racist. And you’re right, this town is based on Penn State and football – the town probably wouldn’t exist today if the Pennsylvania State Farmer’s High School hadn’t been founded in 1855. And I disagree that football and regional pride are more important than the lives of children to the majority of people here. I think that people are simply upset that the university name is taking a blow when it should be the individuals themselves – Sandusky, for one, and then the administrators at the top who didn’t order an investigation when the word reached up the chain of command. I have friends whose “non-penn state” friends and family are condemning them for going to school here, as if being a “penn-stater” automatically means you approve of child abuse and molestation. That hardly is true, and I’m sure every single student at penn state would agree.
Posted by Jill | November 30, 2011, 5:35 pmIf you are upset about “non-Penn State” people condemning your friends for going to school at Penn State, perhaps you should address your criticisms to them, rather than to someone who has lived and worked in State College for most of his life.
Posted by Asad Haider | November 30, 2011, 6:47 pmThen your brother, of all people, living in this community for most of his life, should know that Sandusky’s crimes were not public or widespread knowledge, unless you had dug up that he was under investigation, and if “It’s difficult not to conclude that the students, the administration, and the local community have been guilty of the same,” then he condemns himself for not doing anything to stop sandusky. I’m trying to make the point that it’s a gross oversimplification to say that State College did nothing, when the bread and butter of state college – your brother, myself, the students, and the average joe on the street – when we didn’t know there was anything wrong until the bomb went off. Lay the blame on the rioters, on the administration, and especially on sandusky.
Posted by Jill | November 30, 2011, 7:07 pmIt is becoming more and more difficult to discern an actual argument in your comments. Since you’ve had ample opportunity to make your point here, I recommend investing your time in something more productive now. I’ll do the same.
Posted by Asad Haider | November 30, 2011, 7:20 pmYou didn’t call anyone an idiot, you called them pedophiles. I guess in your eyes that is better. You also told couples they were defending a child molester. Jerry Sandusky is the alleged child molester, not Joe Paterno. I guess twisting the facts is okay in your little sanctamonous world. You quote Jon Ritchie as someone who played for Jerry Sandusky. Jon Ritchie played for Michigan and Stanford, so unless Sandusky had a clone, this is also incorrect. You state that it may never been known aboutthe extent of Paterno’s participation in the “cover up. Yet Paterno is the one who reported the alleged incident to his superivior. Perhaps you could explain how someone is covering up a crime if they reported it to their superior. It is wonderful that you can quote all these obscure films and novels. Perhaps you should first work on fact checking before you look to smear a man’s reputation and impugn the honor of an entire university, its students and its alumni. .
Posted by Frank | December 3, 2011, 7:16 amThe article does not claim that Ritchie played for Penn State. It alludes to Ritchie being coached by Sandusky in an informal rather than professional capacity, a relationship he describes in the interview linked. Thanks for pointing out the ambiguity; the word in question has been altered for clarity. The analysis remains the same. And though I make no claims to journalistic rigor in late-night altercations outside of bars, rallying to defend a man who harbored a child rapist looks an awful lot like an endorsement of that crime. It’s only going to look worse as the years go by.
Posted by Shuja Haider | December 3, 2011, 9:28 am“smear a man’s reputation and impugn the honor of an entire university, its students and its alumni.”
Brilliant point, exercising your right to free speech on the internet and responding quickly to correct ambiguities in phrasing impugns the honor of an entire university, while giving a free gym membership to someone who used a charity to rape my classmates for an entire decade is “success with honor”! So nice to have people like this “defending” my hometown. I truly hope that Penn State students will follow the lead of students around the country and save their university from its defenders.
I remember PSU having the biggest walkout in the country to protest the Iraq War. I remember an occupation of the HUB an ENTIRE DECADE before Occupy Wall Street in defense of the rights of African-American students (“The Village”). The HUB is named for the great African-American activist Paul Robeson. There is much at Penn State to be proud of, and when the students step up to reclaim this legacy, the defense of Joe Paterno will be revealed for what it truly is: an insult to every single person who works, studies, or plays football at Penn State University.
Posted by Asad Haider | December 3, 2011, 10:42 amAbusive comments referring to the author’s family and his “cultural heritage” were deleted. Comments that criticized the substance of the article have been preserved. We have also tolerated comments insulting the author, but bigotry and attacks on others who are not involved here are unacceptable.
I am turning off comments. If you want alternate perspectives, they can be easily found with your favorite search engine. If you feel the need to engage in abuse, start your own website or go to 4chan. Don’t waste your time trolling a small internet magazine. I’m sure you have better things to do.
Posted by Asad Haider | December 3, 2011, 4:48 pmThe article up there is also a very interesting read. Thanks for sharing.
Posted by Jeremy | November 30, 2011, 11:42 amI also grew up in State College, and I actually like the place. I often miss it. That’s why I think it’s outrageous for people to come to this article and attack the author (full disclosure: my brother), a city government worker who spends his days patiently showing State College residents how to search for books and use the printer. If you care about State College, I would think you’d support him 100% in criticizing the rioters who tried to destroy our hometown. If his tone comes across as angry, that’s because it was our classmates who were being raped.
Disagreement and argument are fine, but please keep it civil and respectful.
Posted by Asad Haider | November 30, 2011, 12:40 pmI don’t disagree… the rioters were in the wrong. However, I do disagree with condemning the rest of the town, university and student body (minus rioters) for the actions of the few (exactly what the rest of the media is doing).
For those who have not read it, here’s the grand jury report. Remarkably little is said about anyone but the victims and Sandusky…
http://www.freep.com/assets/freep/pdf/C4181508116.PDF
And another article condemning the media. Interesting, obviously skewed in the opposite opinion but good to read the other side.
http://aworldofprogress.com/blog/2011/the-sanctimonious-scavengers-of-the-penn-state-scandal/
Posted by Jill | November 30, 2011, 5:51 pmVery well written and insightful.
Sorry that so many people can’t see past the specifics to the general point you were trying to make; but then, that kind of validates your general point…
Posted by Yahzi | November 30, 2011, 9:10 pmI just dont understand this “small town” mentality. As someone who lives here and actually knows Joe–believe me he is not the warm and fuzzy everyone thinks he is. He’s a cantankerous (sp?) arrogant full of himself old man. This was JoePa’s house and please dont think for a minute that he didnt know all about the 1998 investigation involving his then current defensive coordinator. University Police, State College Police, Children and Youth, all the way up to Ray Gricar knew but somebody “forgot” to tell Joe? Really? He’s not your sweet old grandfather, if it was his grandson (who’s in elementary school here in the SCASD) that Sandusky was “showering” with, I wonder what he would have done then? Yes, he’s done a lot for PSU (as evidenced by his name on the library, bronze statues, etc) but not a whole lot for little boys whom he’s not related to.
And yes, there are many others who did nothing but JoePa is the one who’s everybodies hero/god, is he not? He’s the “Success With Honor” guy right?
THATS why he had to go. He didnt put his money where he mouth was. He put it in the bank and, his wifes name.
Posted by David | December 1, 2011, 12:48 pmsorry for the spelling and grammatical errors. I really should use spell check.
Posted by David | December 1, 2011, 12:52 pmThe handyman called, there’s a tool missing from the shed, although after reading this steaming heap of crap, I think I’ve found it.
Posted by TJ | December 2, 2011, 9:29 amI don’t think that the big picture issue is the culture of the “small town” or not. It seems child abuse (and the response to it) can happen wherever there is a power structure that the perpetrator can use to prey on relatively defenseless victims. To me this seems an organizational type of issue, where there were not adequate safeguards to ensure appropriate reporting of the events.
But this could happen anywhere-schools, churches, any number of other sports organizations, etc. It happens in big cities and small towns alike. It just happened to be in State College this time around-with a figurehead to direct our scorn onto. Also, if I recall currectly, Penn State students are 40% from Pittsburgh and 40% from Philly-so the student body as a whole isn’t really “small town” mentality.
To clarify your assertion that PSU students are “more likely to riot” than your average college student. Perhaps college students in cities, who go home on weekends, but “sports riots” can happen at many universities with big sports followings – Notre Dame, OSU, Michigan, Duke, etc. I have yet to read about anything inherent about the PSU community that leads to riots. Perhaps then you might then also say that in an event like this that it would also be easier to have a candlelight vigil? (which did far outnumber the rioters, by the way). And I wonder if the riot wasn’t also sparked as much by the method of the firing rather than the firing itself.
Regarding Paterno, there was clearly a major organizational failure and the tragedy of many victims here. Paterno noted in retrospect he should have done more. I’m not sure that “In retrospect” implies-that he could have done more and didn’t try to do more, or that he tried to do more but couldn’t (for legal reasons, perhaps?). After all the police did investigate Sandusky in 1998, and both Gricar and Corbett as Attorney Generals of PA knew about the case but didn’t pursue it.
If he didn’t do enough to follow up morally then he will have to face his conscience and perhaps the law. But what he exactly did to follow up is yet unknown-although many assumed that he didn’t from a document that wouldn’t necessarily include that info (as a prosecution argument). To borrow from another phrase – in this specific issue absence of evidence is not yet necessarily evidence of absence. When his side of the story emerges then that will be the time to judge.
Posted by Alan | December 2, 2011, 9:47 amThis is one of the worst articles I’ve ever read. This guy is truly clueless.
Posted by Bill | December 2, 2011, 10:08 am