Random thoughts about the Penn State scandal

In the fall of 1983 and while hanging out at my fraternity house -- I wasn't in school at the time -- I became somewhat friendly with a Pitt sophomore woman who started visiting us regularly. She and I even went out a couple of times, and eventually she decided to pledge our "little sister" program. Keep in mind that I had a deserved reputation there of not just being a straight-edge but standing up for moral values.

One night I saw her in the room of one of my brothers who had a reputation of being a lech and saw a look on her face that, perhaps, she didn't want something to happen. This time, however, I think I panicked and ended up doing nothing, and I'm not sure why. Bottom line, she never came back after the next year, and I never saw her again.

I never did find out what happened that night and am not sure if I ever want to know, but in that instant I betrayed my highest principles.

In one sense I can thus identify with Mike McQueary, the former Penn State quarterback who, as a graduate assistant in 2002, witnessed now-retired assistant coach Jerry Sandusky sodomizing a boy in the shower but never went to the police -- an inaction which eventually cost head coach Joe Paterno and university president Graham Spanier their jobs, with athletic director Tim Curley stepping down because Sandusky had been engaging in that kind of behavior since the mid-1990s, according to some sources.

Was McQueary motivated by fear of unpopularity, not being taken seriously or the potential loss of his job? We may soon find out.

-- Many folks have complained for years that Paterno, who will be 85 next month, had been a coach at Penn State since 1950 and got the top job in 1966, had been there for too long. In 2004 he was asked to step down but responded, essentially, "Get lost" -- the team was still winning and graduating players, so he still had all the leverage.

I never took such longevity seriously until last week because it seemed that Paterno may have been bigger than the program -- and that was a real problem because things could be, and in this case certainly were, swept under the rug.

Contrast this with its former chief rival Pitt, which in Paterno's tenure as head coach has had, by my count, 12 head coaches. Last year after pushing out Dave Wannstedt the administration hired Michael Haygood, formerly with Miami University; however, after two weeks he was let go the day after he was busted on domestic-abuse charges. Paterno had not wanted to play Pitt because he couldn't get Penn State into the Big East Conference, whose main sport then was basketball, while admitting Pitt. That may change now.

-- The Sandusky scandal will hurt Penn State in another way that isn't yet obvious to most: With African-Americans. The main campus has always had a reputation, deserved or not, of being inhospitable to people of color; minority enrollment was the lowest of just about any school I looked at in the late 1970s, and it has always had trouble fielding a consistently competitive men's basketball team.

You see, Sandusky founded the "Second Mile Foundation," which helped underprivileged kids in that area and through which he found his victims, and it turns out that one boy who stepped forward was black. (It's suspected, but not yet proven, that other of the boys he abused were also African-American. Why? Because they were often fatherless and thus emotionally vulnerable.)

-- On Facebook one person blamed "liberals" for the fact that such a scandal could take place, quoting a militant gay group's alleged motto "Sex at eight before it's too late!" Here's the problem: Pedophilia is about power, not really sex, and has gone on for thousands of years (with the Roman Catholic Church especially suffering a black eye for the behavior of a number of priests).

Pitt vs. Penn State -- it never was all that

When this former basketball player was growing up in Pittsburgh, I learned the history of high school hoops and especially its great players. (I won't mention any of their names here because they won't mean anything to most of you.) Up until the 1980s the Dapper Dan Roundball Classic, originally pitting the best players in Pennsylvania against the best of the rest of the country, was played here at what is now the Mellon Arena; I knew two guys, one of which was a junior-high teammate, who played in it. When it came to college they went to the University of Pittsburgh, Duquesne University, some schools in Philadelphia and even others across the country.

But one place none of them attended: Penn State. And that's why I think the "rivalry" between the two schools has been overhyped.

Recently, Penn State football coach Joe Paterno signed for a home-and-home series for his school to play Rutgers University in New Jersey, stoking the anger of Pitt fans because Paterno decided long ago not to renew the rivalry in football. Paterno has given all these excuses -- "we need more home games, we need to recruit in other areas" -- but won't come clean on the real impetus for his refusal to play Pitt.

And men's basketball was at the heart of it.

In the early 1980s, when Paterno also was serving as State's athletic director, he applied for membership in the young but already-successful Big East Conference, then-basketball driven. The hope was to get State on TV and play top teams on a consistent basis, thus making it more attractive to potential recruits.

You see, State's main campus, which literally is in the geographic center of Pennsylvania and very rural, has a reputation, deserved or not, of being inhospitable to African-Americans; according to the College Board, in the late 1970s only 3 percent of State students were minorities. As a result, it has a hard time recruiting not only in Pittsburgh but also in Philadelphia, where most of the good players are, and the program has always languished in relative obscurity with very few fans outside of its immediate locale.

Trouble was, the conference -- all of whose members even today are in major television markets or steeped in basketball tradition -- didn't see State as a good fit because it fit neither category, so a majority of schools said no.

Paterno then came up with the idea of an Eastern all-sports conference that would include State, Pitt, West Virginia University, Rutgers, Temple -- and Boston College and Syracuse, two charter Big East members and the only ones at the time with Division I football programs. The conference didn't like that, so it successfully courted Pitt, which of course is in a major TV market, and in the process collapsing Paterno's plans.

Paterno has had it in for Pitt ever since. After he got State into the Big Ten in 1993, he announed that there was "no room for Pitt" on the football schedule. (The two schools last played in 2000.)

In the nearly nine years since the schools last played football it finally hit me, who grew up a Penn State fan but attended Pitt and now a Pitt basketball season ticket-holder, that the rivalry was never that strong in the first place. You see, a good college rivalry -- say, Michigan-Ohio State, Georgia-Georgia Tech, Southern California-UCLA, Texas-Texas A&M -- should include grudge matches in every sport; that's what makes them compelling. Having also attended Georgia Tech, I saw up close that even a game of tiddlywinks with UGa would draw a crowd. (And to this day I root for whomever Georgia plays.)

But Pitt's primary men's basketball rival has always been Duquesne, and you can't simply build history over a period of just a few years; as I mentioned, State's basketball program has always been an afterthought because few players came from the Pittsburgh area. (It cancelled its own series with Pitt because the last five games weren't competitive, Pitt winning each game handily.) Other sports also don't generate the fan interest.

In December 2004 I made my one and only visit to State College for the basketball game. I was able to buy a ticket at the gate (the attendant, seeing me wearing Pitt gear, said, "Enjoy the game -- but not too much"), and when I got into the Bryce Jordan Center (which is as nice as, if not nicer than, the Petersen Events Center) I noticed thousands of fans disguised as empty seats. And even today, while Pitt is now fielding top-20 teams in an always-sold out arena and went to the Elite Eight, State is still struggling to get players and establish a fan base -- and this despite winning the National Invitation Tournament last month.

So maybe trying to rekindle this rivalry is not worth the hassle. Pitt has something going with West Virginia, which is closer anyway, even a catchy nickname ("the Backyard Brawl"). Besides, due to Big Ten rules, any football game against Penn State would have to come very early in the season. Yes, Pitt vs. Penn State football does have a history -- and that's apparently where it will remain. And probably should.