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Tuesday, October 09, 2007

Panic in the Streets



Even the most blindly adoring Penn State football fans are beginning to get the picture. They're upset.

From a couple of fan websites:



'The good news just keeps flowing like sewage to the treatment plant. Apparently there was a fight on campus ...last Saturday night. [Another website] is reporting several football players were involved .... I can't wait for the details from this to come out.

Can someone please take control of this team? Where are the captains? Where is the leadership? I wish I could say the coaches need to buckle down on them, but how can you expect the players to act like gentlemen when the head coach is supposedly running innocent people off the road in his vehicle because they are driving too slow? [It's still in the rumor stage, but the rumor is that sainted coach Paterno lost it the other night... after running people off the road, he reportedly shrieked at them: "Do you know who I am?"...] This entire season is a complete disaster. ...[T]here is absolutely nothing I like about this team. They had all the promise in the world and they are throwing it away with their drinking and fighting on Saturday nights.

Pack it in for 2007 folks. This program needs to be purged. Any player or coach that causes another disturbance needs to be booted from the team. That includes the guy at the top. We cannot stand for this. I would rather lose with dignity than win with this. I am calling on the University and coaches to weed out the bad apples right now. I don't care if we only have 60 guys on scholarship next year. We cannot have this type of team if we hope to achieve the goals we all set for this program.'



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'...At the very least, a sizable number of football players seem to be out of control at times. While it ain't Oklahoma under that rollicking, gun-toting Barry Switzer, "lack of institutional control" is a phrase that comes to mind. And I don't mean NCAA violations, just that the football team seems to have a collective mind and will of its own, and sometimes it seems to me that the coaches are asleep at the wheel.

I realize that "boys will be boys," but at what point do they grow up? How many brawls will it take? How many police blotters will have to be filled? Coaches can't hold their hands 24/7. Is it the babying these players get from their first steps? Is it the enabling behavior they receive from being treated like gods because they have a talent for a GAME?...'


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Hard to keep up. This just in.

'Police are investigating a sexual assault on the Penn State, University Park campus. Police said a Penn State football player is the prime suspect. His name has not been released.

The woman who filed the report said she was raped in a Nittany Dorm Complex room early Friday morning. Penn State police confirmed that they have a suspect and that alcohol was a factor. Police have released few other details.

Police said the woman knew the man and reported the rape immediately Friday morning.'