POLITICS AT PENN STATE

All right, I'm back to blogging. I have something to say. Sue me.

Anyone aware enough to have accessed this essay knows what has happened at Penn State, so let me not rehash it. The callousness and hypocrisy exposed here are odious. But it's the political angle rather than the moral that I'd like to examine.

The trustees' Wednesday night massacre that unanimously took down local god Joe Paterno and the university's high-octane president Graham Spanier, both terminations "effective immediately", was fraught with hazard yet probably unavoidable. Firing the 84-year-old JoePa with a phone call after his 46 years as head coach may have been meant to seem as brutal as it was, an object lesson because he is thought to have hidden the rape of children.

So we have the emotional impact of that charge at war with due process not only in court but in how we live and treat people. Sticky situations make for questionable decisions.

There are scads of alumni and Lions fans out there who must resent the hell out of what was done and how. They are high on the clean sporting atmosphere of this uniformly attractive place and cannot shift smoothly from imbibing it to simple rejection of the man who to them has personified all that is best in it. They will withhold donations to the school. And they will do so at a time when the scandal will also cost it donations, while the reactionary state administration, which has already slashed its funding, will be able to do more of the same hereafter with far greater impunity. Applications here will dwindle because of all this and therefore so will the quality of the students, already fairly mediocre. This university and this community are truly in crisis.

The trustees wanted to signal a sharp break from a now-tainted order of things and wanted still more to save the university as far as they could from lawsuits by showing that they will not be complicit in evil after the fact.

As far as I can make out, the origin of the problem may have been Joseph Paterno's concern for appearances, said by a respected local sports columnist to have been of control freak dimensions and to have entailed secrecy and lies to spare the football program from bad publicity about such matters as player injuries. As a personality he exudes humility and a kind of wise crotchetiness - "I love you all. Now go home and study!" That he required his players to perform well academically as well as athletically is both commendable fact and part of his legend. As the keeper of the dream, perhaps he felt he had to keep the scene idyllic to the eye, whatever the reality. As he did a lot of good for Penn State and the town, such a propensity could be hard for people to recognize, let alone accept. One thinks of a kind of cross between Mother Teresa and J. Edgar Hoover.

The T-shirt that says "State College: A Drinking Town With A Football Problem" may have gotten it right.

I find it believable that Jerry Sandusky's retirement at age 55 in '99, the year after he was nearly prosecuted on a child abuse charge, was not voluntary and that his failure to pursue a coaching job elsewhere may have reflected a threat to take down his reputation if he did. Speculation is that it was "the university" that did this, but it could have been Paterno on his own, especially if he knew or suspected more than others did. I have read in a letter from a reader of the local paper that he did not attend Sandusky's retirement party, which might be revealing.

This brings us to President Spanier's role in this. Undoubtedly talented, he was rampant here for over a decade and a half, into everything and busily expanding the university and evolving its ways. But the protesting students and others did not mention his sacrifice; it was only JoePa's that they cared about. Spanier, as it happens, is not likeable and will not be missed. He seems to have surrounded himself with yes men, which may have been his downfall. When the boss doesn't want to hear bad news, "team players" will try to shield him from it.

In my estimation, Spanier is smart enough to know that you can't cover up the acts of a serial abuser, if only because they are sure to be repeated. And I think he is also ruthless enough to have cut the bad spot out of the apple at once. I would expect him to have had the police chief on speed dial in case anyone mentioned a sex crime to him.

He said in his brief farewell statement that he had no knowledge of criminal acts. The trustees had to get him out regardless, as damage control; but I have to wonder if he was blindsided by Paterno and Athletic Director Tim Curley? If Paterno's attitude was "I'll handle this", most likely Curley went along with it, as Joe's stature was such that his word was law. What exactly they told Spanier is so far not clear.

Or maybe he knew all about it and signed off on everything that was done. His statement of total support for the two university officials indicted for perjury could have been meant to keep them from trading up by ratting him out; having such a large institution behind one is an incentive to be good soldiers. We don't yet know what he had in mind or what, if anything, he had to lose from their being candid.

What now? The acting president is another fellow who has been at State for years, and that won't do. The trustees want a nationwide search for a replacement. They had better complete it fast, and they no doubt realize that. A major advertiser bailed on today's Lions game, and the school is going to be bleeding money from its smashed name. They will have to bring in a turn-around specialist from outside, someone at odds with the entrenched culture of Penn State, preferably someone high-profile and very reputable.

Former Pennsylvania governors Tom Ridge, a bland Republican moderate who was the first secretary of homeland security, and Ed Rendell, an ebullient Democrat, might be excellent choices. It's hard to visualize Rendell departing his urban habitat for the middle of nowhere, yet one supposes he might if offered a free hand. Ridge is known to like State College and has been here often; he might take to the idea of settling into this quiet and friendly setting and using his people skills. Rendell, who brought Philadelphia back from near death as mayor, might welcome the even bigger challenge of raising the Titanic while it's sinking.

Here's what I anticipate, anyway. Whoever it is will come in and throw open the windows to let the sunlight and fresh air in, proclaiming accountability and openness and transparency, rah rah. While the athletic program will get special scrutiny, the whole school will be pounced on. People will be fired and replaced in droves. The ways things are done will be shaken up, often just for the sake of shaking them up.

Many of the results may be counterproductive, but you can bet the trustees won't interfere. They know everything depends on an image of thorough, even violent renewal. They have to get the fund-raising restored or everything else is, well, academic.

So again, as in the scandal itself, the innocent may suffer so the institution can thrive. That's politics as usual. See if you can get away from it even in a locale known as Happy Valley.