Blue White Illustrated

February 2017

Penn State Sports Magazine

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Rose Bowl reaction shows PSU's recovery isn't complete A mid the euphoria and expressions of admiration for what the 2016 team unexpectedly accomplished in re- turning Penn State to the elite ranks of college football and restoring the pride of a scandal-plagued community, one cannot avoid the fact that we are still a fractured family. It has been five tortuous, agonizing and frustrating years since the walls came crumbling down around this seemingly idyllic place we once lovingly called Happy Valley. Yet, today, there is still no end to the controversy that has soiled the reputation and image of Penn State. Because of the initial public narrative that ensued and progressed upon the grand jury indictment of formerly well- respected assistant coach Jerry San- dusky in November 2011, Penn State has been branded as a school with a corrupt football culture. Nothing James Franklin and his players have done has overcome that belief in the eyes of many. That was quite evident as the 2016 season magically progressed and cli- maxed in what was celebrated in the col- lege football world as one of the most entertaining Rose Bowls of all time. Social media, principally Twitter, con- tinued to disparage or disregard what Trace McSorley, Saquon Barkley and their teammates were doing on the field and attacked Penn State. One Nittany Lion fan en route to the Rose Bowl on Jan. 2 tweeted, "Just passed a large sign draped over an overpass that read 'Joe Knew, Lets Go Pedo State'…" Another posted a photo from Pasadena report- edly from a tailgate sponsored by a USC alumni chapter that had a large piñata display depicting a derogatory connec- tion between Joe Paterno, Sandusky and the Nittany Lion mascot. A friend who follows internet message boards told me the USC ones were loaded with hateful anti-Penn State material referring to the scandal. It's a familiar tableau that has been repeated ad nauseam over the past five years by rival fans. Hardly a week has passed during that time without some in the media regurgi- tating the initial narrative spawned by the overnight firing of Paterno as head coach for reasons that are still question- able, the release of the Freeh report, with its dubious conclusions, and the unprecedented sanctions imposed by the NCAA and Big Ten. It never ends, for there is something that always triggers a rash of headlines, radio and TV talk show verbiage and in- ternet chatter reminding the public of the continuing Sandusky saga. The Rose Bowl was not even a week old when The Philadelphia Inquirer broke a story that spread quickly about the scandal-re- lated financial costs to Penn State total- ing a quarter of a billion dollars so far with no end in sight. A vast segment of the media doesn't want to know any more and refuses to dig any deeper into the revelations from court documents and other sources that cast much of the news stemming from the scandal in a far different light. It is far too complicated and a waste of their time. Charles Pierce, writing for SI.com on Dec. 4, epitomized this hostile attitude when he observed: "For reasons too fa- miliar to elaborate here, Penn State and its football team have spent the last five years under a deep, dark cloud of its own manufacture. Jerry Sandusky was a sex- ual predator and, as institutions, Penn State and Penn State football enabled him in his crimes. That is the verdict of history and it is not disputable, despite the best efforts of one of America's most fervent fan bases to induce historical amnesia and declare itself, with con- summate hubris, the real victim in the situation." Some in the media believe the animus toward Penn State kept the Lions out of the four-team playoff for the national championship. Thomas Boswell, the re- spected columnist of The Washington Post, wrote in his blog on Nov. 28, "It's nice that the program has righted itself. But the Paterno-Sandusky scandal – which still seems like it happened yes- terday – isn't going to warm people's hearts toward the idea of PSU having a shot at the national title so soon." Obviously, the 12-person playoff com- mittee would never admit that the stigma of the scandal was a factor in its thinking. But in the last couple of weeks of its deliberations, there was a subtle redefinition of the criteria that nega- tively affected the rising Nittany Lions. At one point before Penn State beat Wisconsin in the Big Ten Championship Game, league commissioner Jim Delany, who is not a committee member, at- tempted to rationalize the committee's reasoning for possibly not taking his own conference champion, should Penn State – then rated behind Ohio State, Michigan and Wisconsin – win the title. "I lost that battle [for conference cham- pions] four years ago," Delany said. Even after Penn State beat Wisconsin, he re- fused to publicly support his own cham- pion over Ohio State. Then there was the playoff commit- tee's move to change some of its own critical rules while debating the merits of the potential playoff participants. Tom Fornelli, the veteran college football writer for CBS Sports, summed it up in his blog prior to the Big Ten Champi- onship Game when Penn State was still rated No. 7: "The committee has said a lot of things about what it considers over the last three seasons. They've talked about game control, resumes, head-to- head results and teams improving as the season went on. Yet for some reason, when it comes to Penn State, the com- mittee doesn't seem to pay any attention to these things. It's still hung up on the team's two early-season losses – one to No. 5 Michigan by 39 points and a three- point loss on the road to a Pitt team

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