The Jerry Sandusky sex abuse scandal that rocked Penn State University and football fans across the nation culminated this week in an unprecedented fine of $60 million against the school and severe sanctions for the Division I football program. The Nittany Lions are banned from the postseason for four years, will lose 20 football scholarships a year for four seasons and had 14 seasons of football victories from the late coach Joe Paterno vacated.
There's been no shortage of commentary on the issue: Was the NCAA too quick to make the decision? What will it mean for football? What does it mean for the legacy of Paterno?
But there's also the issue of how the Penn State community will now come together. Alums have responded in force, tweeting, posting photos and defending their school – not for the actions that occurred – but to show the rest of the world they won't let this scandal be their school's best known chapter.
Some have posted photos with the "WE ARE" Penn State chant but somewhat altered. One said: "Don't let people who don't know who 'we are' ... tell us who WE ARE." It has been a rallying cry of sorts, joining together alums from long ago with recent graduates. Many have been tweeting with the hashtag #WeAreAndAlwaysWillBe. Groups on Facebook have been created so alums and current students can share their views, including one called "We Are (still) Penn State."
"This is a group dedicated to healing the scars of the Jerry Sandusky scandal, recognizing and honor the victims and rebuilding the reputation of Penn State University and its football team as one of the premier institutions of higher learning and athletic tradition not only in the country but in the entire world," the group's page said. "We still believe that 'Success With Honor' is who we are, and that Coach Bill O'Brien is the best man to carry on that tradition on and off the field. The actions of an evil man and those that enabled and apologized for him do not define us, and it is our responsibility to write the next chapter in the history of Penn State."
Patterson Weaver, a lawyer who graduated from Penn State in 2001, posted a lengthy note on Facebook describing how he cannot reconcile what happened with the school he knows. Weaver said the world should know the actions of the few responsible should not define the culture of the university as a whole.
Weaver has given CNN permission to post his note in entirety below:
"Apparently, Sports Illustrated will run a cover this week that reads 'We Were Penn State.' Sports Illustrated and so many others clearly have no understanding of who We are. As a second-generation Penn State grad, I have grown up idolizing Penn State, Joe Paterno, and the excellent institution of higher learning that Penn State was, is, and will always be. I am one of hundreds of thousands that consider the Penn State community something unique and special. This goes beyond a football field. This goes beyond school pride. The culture at Penn State, in no small part because of Joe Paterno, taught all of us how to be better people, better friends, and better members of our families and our community.
"So how do I reconcile that with the allegations that a few individuals, including Joe Paterno, remained silent about the terrible actions of Sandusky? Honest answer is I can’t. The allegations do not gel with what each of us learned from our university, and yes, from Joe Paterno. Penn State has always been a beacon of how to do things the right way. Of putting academics and building quality young men and women ahead of fame and wins. I cannot reconcile these allegations with the culture that helped mold who I am. The culture that helped teach me that success is only sweet when done right. That a loss with integrity is better than a win without it. That who we are as men and women is more important than fleeting glory. I cannot reconcile what people are saying of my school with the school I lived and experienced.
"But then, that’s how I know that Penn State is what we all know it to be. The apparent actions of a few individuals were tragically void of ethical wisdom or compass. But they are not Penn State. I am Penn State. We are Penn State. All of us. The hundreds of thousands that have become better people because of our school and the unique community it fosters. I find it sadly amusing that the NCAA handed down such unprecedented sanctions partly to, apparently, try to change the culture at Penn State. Clearly they know nothing about the culture at Penn State.
"But they are not alone. The media and social media frenzy that has arisen around this tragedy contains a shocking amount of glee and venom. For years many from rival schools and society generally despised Penn State and Joe Paterno for building our reputation on the motto Success With Honor. For being so squeaky clean and selfless that the football team did not even put individual names on its jerseys. They looked at Penn State with disdain, as self-righteous and egotistical. This tragedy is exactly what they have hoped for. With glee they can point at the tragic moral misjudgments of a few individuals as supposed proof of a fundamental character flaw of the community as a whole. With delight they can scream from the rooftops, tearing their robes, that the whole university must be punished, that they must be made an example. And with their own self-righteousness, the NCAA demonstrated their moral superiority by acting as judge, jury, and executioner in handing down sanctions so unprecedented that, some say, they will not only spell the end to the football program as we know it but to the prestige and pride of the whole school.
"These individuals seem to want us alumni to stand on the highest hills, screaming in anguish as we rip and tear our degrees into a thousand pieces, burning our Penn State belongings, and then burying ourselves in the mud in shame as we screech, weep, and wail about how we must repent for attending such an institution, how we were once Penn State, once unique and admired, but no longer.
"But we won’t. The actions of a few do not define us. The knee-jerk reactions of others will not end us. Our school taught us more than organic chemistry and music theory. It taught us to persevere. To overcome. To succeed – with honor. That is who WE are. That is what WE are.
"On September 1, Penn State will play its first game of the season against Ohio University. I wish I could be there. I wish I could hear what the world will hear. The earth-shattering cries of more than a 100,000 people, echoing from Erie to Scranton, from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia, of WE ARE PENN STATE. The cheer will not be merely for football. It will be for all of us. It will be a declaration that we are more than this tragedy. That we will not go quietly into the night in despair and shame. That we will improve, overcome, persevere, and excel – with honor.
"So to those so gleeful over the tragedy and the repercussions that have befallen Penn State, to those that so happily write us off as defeated and finished, to those that want to discount and disparage our pride, tradition, and principle of Success With Honor, I have bad news.
"WE ARE, AND ALWAYS WILL BE, PENN STATE."
© 2012 Cable News Network. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
| Advertising practices | Advertise with us | About us | Work for us | Help
Dear "Martin" ... Penn Staters won't be applying to your toilet-cleaning business. PSU ranks top 20 in the nation for almost any undergrad program. Your loss.
While Mr. Weaver laments that there are many who are gleefully looking down on PSU, he writes as if he, in turn, is looking down on his school's detractors. Self-righteousness is self-righteousness whatever it's trying to set itself above. There should be no glee over the criminal actions that are harming a great university. But there should be no denial that the same university did do a great wrong. Like it or not your university was damaged. But there should be glee in seeing PSU right itself, and take this chance to show that its greatness was always in the education it provided and not in its football program.
No one is saying every person at PSU knew what was happening for 14 years. But the fact is that the culture was ripe for this type of cover-up, just as it is at any large organization.
But THIS...this is what shows, with awful clarity, that no, so many of you still do not get it:
"Penn State versus the World"
If that actually gets waved as a banner in September, I can only pray that someone has the foresight to match it with one saying "Penn State versus the Children."
Only a spoiled, vain, narcissistic, navel-gazing mentality would even come up with such a thing. If that's *really* "Penn State" then I see why it took so long to solve the problem.
EVERY year at the end of THON they raise a sign that says "FOR THE CHILDREN" last year it came with a check for over $10.7 million dollrs. All to fight pediatric cancer. You probably haven't seen that sign because you are too busy hating.. look for the sign again .. It will come with another big check.. "FOR THE CHILDREN" educate yourself. You will feel better.
Penn State alumni are just as disgusting as Sandusky. They are just embarised the rest of the world now sees who they really are and what they represent. They are sick brainwashed losers from a second rate school.
IElisabeth – I'm an alum, not disgusting, not sick, nor a brainwashed loser. See http://www.thon.org as a small sample of who we really are and what we represent.
The cognitive dissonance is strong in these comments.
When Paterno broke his record last Nov guess who was sitting in the President's box??? You guessed it...Friggin Sandusky!!! Makes me sick! They are all about "We Are" and they could give a crap about those poor children. I hope their Football program never recovers!!! It's like a sick cult.
To the moderator. Please notice that e-mail was corrected from .me to gmail.
Penn State is nothing more than a third rate state run school for academically challenged students that can't get accepted to Villanova or Lehigh Universities. Everyone here in Pennsylvania knows it. We all accept it. The only people in denial are the PSU alumni.
Actually, I visited Lehigh and didn't even bother applying once I got my acceptance from PSU for civil engineering. I also had the option to play football at smaller schools and picked PSU for its educational value and didn't play football.
Yes Bill that is why Penn State is listed as one of the best 100 universities in the world.
Excuse me, Bill! I'd love to hear more about how Penn State is a school filled with academically challenged students. That's not generalizing at all.
Oh Bill, oh poor confused Bill. Please look up the PSU record before posting such silly things. You are so wrong that I actually had to laugh.
You are, of course, joking, n'est pas? It's comments like these that cause serious folks to dismiss a lot of of the debate to pure histrionics and hyperbole.
Bill: I bet your deodorant bill must be very high to kill your b.o. since you appear to be so full of b.s. I was accepted into Cornell with full scholarship, yet I chose Penn State. It is one of the best things I did. My kid had full scholarship to Lehigh with a 35 ACT and 2340 SAT – and several phone calls from Lehigh; finally chose Columbia, with PSU a close second.
I grew up in the Philly area, if you want to see a sports program that ran the school go back and look at the history of Villanova's basketball program.
Villanova and Lehigh are good schools but they are snob schools for rich kids. Villanova has an enrollment of 10,500 and costs $41,000 for tution and fees plus another $11,000 for room and board for an annual cost of $52,000. Lehigh has an enrollment of just under 5,000. It's tution and fees are $42,000 and room and board costs also around $11,000 for a total of $53,000. Penn State has an enrollment of over 85,000 students with a cost of half. It sserves a much different market
Lehigh and Villanova better than Penn State? Haha. Hahahaha. Ahahahahaha.... maybe you meant to say "costs tens of thousands more for absolutely no reason..."
I grew up in Pennsylvania and graduated from Penn State. Your moronic observation is duly noted……
If one of those attacked by Sandusky was a football player I am sure Paterno would have taken action to get rid of the pervert. Since it was just poor kids who had no value to him or the program keep it quiet to protect the coach and the football program. Not one time in that blog did he mention the victims of Sandusky. Another alumni protecting Penn State to heck with the poor kids, they don't matter to us
You buy the media's kool aid then and haven't read an ounce of anything regarding what PSU has done to combat child abuse since this all came out in November. We've done tons and the national media doesn't cover an ounce of it.
Exactly why the lot of them need to be jailed. Paterno probably croaked at the thought. Maybe they will have a different view once they are on the receiving end.
The victims should sue the school into oblivion.
Of course Penn State is more than Sandusky... and the other "Nittany Liars", ....just like Germany is more than Hitler. But loyal Penn Sate fans should also be condemning Sandusky and the cover up just as loudly as their defending Penn State's positive traditions, and I'm not hearing that from some of the alums here.
Guess they were well aware and did nothing either. These Alums are just talking heads for the administration office trying to defend the dogma.
Well said Not All Docs Play Golf. It would be nice to hear more PSU fans and alums admit that a terrible thing happened, that the culture of the university must be changed so that it does not happen again and take their punishment without crying. Instead we get the PSU alum that called the NCAA sanctions another 9/11.
I wish someone would explain exactly and s
It's because of viewpoints of the likes of Mr. Patterson that the NCAA had to hit PSU as hard as it did.
"Penn State has always been a beacon of how to do things the right way. Of putting academics and building quality young men and women ahead of fame and wins".
If this is so true, then why is he so upset about the effective shutting down of their football program, the same program that put football wins ahead of everything, including ethics and morality (you call that Success with Honor??)? Your value as a Penn State alum should not be measured through the success or failure of your football team. The NCAA sanctions are trying to teach them a lesson, one of football second, academics, honor and integrity first. The problem is not that a few evil individuals did horrible things, it's that all of Penn State created an environment that let those individuals get away with it. This should be a time for reflection for Penn State and about taking a good hard look at their priorities. Until they can prove that they, as an organization and community, are bigger than some stupid football team, they will always be defined by the actions of a select evil few.
That's why Penn State has an 85% graduation rate. The NCAA is trying to cover up it's corruption of college sports for money. Why esle did they decide to have a national championship? Go look at the graduation rates at other colleges. Ohio Stae 60%, Oklahoma 40%, Auburn's basketball program 27%. Don't see any actions against them for being a pump and dump university.
Wow this is such an amazing post. Every single Penn State alum should read this over and over until they understand.
Everyone knows Penn State is just a state ran college for "student athletes" and for those that can't get accepted to a better school. New student acceptance rate is over 50 percent. If you enroll at Penn State, and aren't a mongooloid, then you will most likely be accepted and fit in fine.
Ben a little disappointed with your rejection letter are you????? you should have known a GED wasn't going to get you in.
The majority of the people in NEPA are still defending Joe Paterno I haven't seen one post defending Paterno and sympathizing with the kids that were abused.
Amen to Weaver. Penn State may be nothing more than football to those who don't truly know Penn State, but Penn State has always been so much more than that. Penn State is home to the largest student run philanthropic organization in the world – PSU THON. These students put their hearts and souls into fundraising to support families fighting pediatric cancers and have raised millions of dollars over the years – nearly 10.7 million last year. They and so many more are shining examples of 'WE ARE PENN STATE'.
Exactly – it has nothing to do with Penn State a whole. That is the reason all the sanctions and actions are coming down on the football program – the disgrace of the school. Not their academics, lifestyle, or other sports – just the disgrace of a football program.
Dude, get over yourself. Its a school, nothing else. Now get back to work.