I used to love Joe Pa.
First let me say that up through less than a year ago, I was an unapologetic defender of Joe Paterno. I played football my whole life and it's still my favorite sport. Joe Pa at one point, to me, was the epitome of everything right about football. When the Sandusky scandal was popular a few years ago, I thought it was insane to place blame on Paterno. When he was fired, I felt bad for him. When he had wins removed and his statue was taken down, I thought it was straight blasphemy. And when the wins and statue were brought back, I distinctly remember being ecstatic. I mention all of this because it's important to note that I wasn't really prone to being persuaded to join the Joe Pa hate train. With Penn State honoring their long-time head coach for the September 17 football game against Temple, I think it's only right that I share my relatively newfound mindset toward Paterno, based on a slew of wrongdoings by the legend.
Well there is the Sandusky thing.
Across the country right now, there is plenty of outcry against Penn State's decision to honor Joe Paterno. Many people are not OK with the fact that Paterno knew about Sandusky's habits that included molesting children and that Joe Pa did essentially nothing about it. I personally defended Paterno on this issue for quite some time, assuming him to be an honorable man who was placed into a difficult decision he didn't know how to handle. When you couple this situation with a couple of well-kept secrets about Paterno, it's really impossible to defend him as a human being any longer.
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He persistently backed a malicious coach.
If you don't now about the Rene Portland scandal, that's fair but you should read up on it. Portland was the Penn State women's basketball coach from 1980 to 2007. At the time Portland was hired, Paterno was calling the shots in the athletic department with hiring coaches. He essentially nominated, selected and hired Portland, and he even held a hype rally for Portland. The Penn State women's team was pretty good, and they had a pair of twins who were All-Americans. Portland depleted the twins of their desire to play basketball and ran them out of the program because she suspected them to be lesbians. From that point on, Portland had three clear "training rules:" no drinking, no drugs, and no lesbians. ("Training Rules" is a documentary about Portland that's DEFINITELY worth watching.) Portland often harassed players for lengths of time before she would officially kick them off the team, AND restrict them from the ability to transfer anywhere else. Portland's career ended in 2007 when it was clear she had too much legal trouble from players whom she'd formerly kicked off her teams - legal trouble led by mid-2000s star player Jennifer Harris. Throughout Portland's career, she made it clear even to the media that lesbians, or just an association with lesbians, would get players kicked off her team. Also throughout Portland's career, countless and continuous calls for her to be fired were hushed by Penn State, with Joe Paterno at the helm. Paterno relentlessly praised Portland and chose to make the decades-long harassment simply a bug swept under the rug.
Portland wasn't the only one oppressing lesbians.
While Rene Portland was ruining the lives of player after player, Paterno was helping push the anti-lesbian culture at Penn State. There were a large number of these instances, but the most prominent dealt with former Penn State softball coach Sue Rankin. Rankin was the softball coach at Penn State for 17 years, a tenure longer than most coaches of any college sport. The respect she deserved for her enduring loyalty was far from given to her. Rankin was, and still is, an activist among the LGBTQ community. During the Portland era, Rankin expressed her uneasiness with the growing anti-lesbian culture at Penn State (one that directly affected her too), and before long her time as coach was terminated. Paterno drove the university's culture and desire to keep any issues, such as the Rankin issue, quiet and far from the nation's eye.
The "Legacy"
I urge you to ask yourself if you can continue to defend Joe Paterno. I certainly used to defend him. An isolated event tends to be forgivable. When someone makes a mistake, people forgive them. When that person makes the same mistake, it seems like more of a choice than anything. And when those mistakes are simply immoral ones, they tend to be unforgivable. Paterno's behaviors were consistent throughout his decades of power. The Sandusky scandal is not an isolated event. Whatever case there was to be made assuming that were an isolated event is gone. Time and again, Paterno showed that his true colors are those of deceit, immorality and oppression in an attempt to make an entire public entity run in a way he thought was perfect.
