A reader writes:
I live on the West Coast and woke up to Wednesday's
to my horror that it was a photo of the Penn State riots. I thought when reading the New York Time's coverage that the rioters, like the handful of anarchists who ruined the Oakland OWS march, did not represent the sentiments of the majority of Penn State students. So very wrong. How could thousands of students take to the streets in support of a man who shielded a pedophile and let this boy and many others suffer? Specifically, I would ask those young men in the crowd who were ten years old in 2002: If it were you, if you were the victim, would you be satisfied when dear old JoPA told you he did all he could, he told his boss and that the matter was out of his hands? What an astonishing lack of empathy, mercy and compassion this contempt and scorn for the weak, for victims who could not protect themselves. But I guess winning makes its own rules.
I want to wake up and see this caption: Penn State Students March in the Thousands to Demand Cancellation of the Football Season.
Another writes:
Ten years of war? No riot. Massive budget cuts? No riot. Increased tuition and fees? No riot. Massive sex abuse scandal? No riot. Fire an 84-year-old football coach? Riot. There's something wrong here.
Many readers are downplaying the riot:
While the display on Wednesday night was ugly, I would be very surprised if that pro-Joe sentiment doesn't start to evaporate very quickly. There were interviews with other students who said that while they were very sad about it all, and the loss of stature of someone they perceived to be an icon, they felt he was in the wrong and his removal was correct. I would fully expect that sentiment to grow and many of the people involved in the mob to feel ashamed of it very soon.
A lot of these kids reacted how kids do, with emotion first and thought second. This man has been an icon in PA for 60+ YEARS. And to suddenly find out that he may not be the person his mythology has made him out to be has to be an enormous shock to these students. For many, he and the virtue he represented may have been why they chose to go to Penn State in the first place. That is not about football. That is about the culture of hard work, study and honesty that they thought he illustrated.
The exposure of past events is incredibly shocking, and with a lot of these kids that have spent lifetimes looking up to him, dropping that reverence is not something that can happen instantaneously. The brain needs some time to process and adjust to what is a tremendous loss to their understanding of the world around them, and everything they've ever known. It will come, and you are too fast to make a snap judgement about their "moral climate."
Another:
While the Penn State culture is certainly intertwined with football, the school is also a hardcore party school where excessive drinking is an issue. (There is even an episode of This American Life on Penn State's status as the nation's #1 party school – it's worth a listen.) I can't help but wonder how much of the disruption and destruction was really a protest about Joe Paterno and how much was a party that grew too big and escalated.
Another:
I’ve lived in State College and worked at Penn State for more than 20 years. It's a big place, with more than 40,000 students. So, there are a whole range of student reactions. I’ve even had student tell me they’ve never watched, much less been to, a Penn State game. Even the ones that were out in the streets last night had many motivations. Many are mad that Paterno was fired, but other are more angry about the fact that the others – Curley, Schultz, and McQueary – were not.
The feeling is much more shock and something I can't even say beyond sadness. Seriously, I'm weeping at my keyboard for half of the day during these past several days, so I cannot imagine combining that with the energy, alcohol, and the emotional control of late adolescence.
This place has always believed that it was a little special and different, with the arrogance that entails. And, while I never believed it to the extent that the true blue and white do, I did think that we at least tried, more often than not, and more often than other places, to do things the right way. Now, not only to not believe that, but to contemplate that this place could have been the absolute worst cesspool of college sports, and maybe the biggest college scandal of any type at any time? Try to imagine that feeling.
What you saw the other night was certainly representative of a segment of Penn State, and really of all the football mad coach crazy culture we've created in D1. Penn State has that in spades. But, you probably did not see the kids standing quietly at JoePa's statue to honor the good things he did during his career here. You probably didn't see the students crying at a candlelight vigil for the victims. And you didn't see the students, faculty, staff, and community members just trying to comprehend the horror and how we could have let it happen here. There are a lot of wonderful people here, and they just don't make good CNN and ESPN footage, so you don't see them. (If you want to get a good sense of student views, check out the blog Onward State and their twitter feed @onwardstate.)
So, Andrew, I ask that you and your readers consider putting down the broad brush and do what you often do to understand and explain. There are many good people here who have been as horrified as you and your readers about what happened to children here and how we could have let it happen.
(Photo: A news van is flipped over as students and those in the community fill the streets and react after football head coach Joe Paterno was fired during the Penn State Board of Trustees Press Conference, in downtown Penn State, in the early morning hours of November 10, 2011 in State College, Pennsylvania. By Patrick Smith/Getty Images)
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