There’s a touch of fascism, and a touch of Stalinism, in this account of life on the ground in Happy Valley.
[I] happened to spend a season in Ukraine, of all places, during the year immediately following Sandusky’s indictment and conviction and Paterno’s firing and death. Just as Odysseus had to journey inland until he encountered people who had never seen an oar before, I went where no one had ever heard of Sandusky or Paterno.
It was enormously refreshing. I paid no attention to Penn State football that fall. Before I went away, I found myself agreeing with those who insisted that the Sandusky case was not, strictly speaking, a football scandal, and that the NCAA therefore overstepped its authority and punished the innocent when it voided all those victories and took away all those scholarships.
From my vantage point in Ukraine, such burning questions cooled to room temperature. The victory total was a notation in a record book. Whether Penn State would now win most of its games or half of them or only a few of them for the next few seasons no longer mattered. As long as everybody has fun and nobody gets hurt, right?
Alas, when I returned from my year away I found Nittany Nation to be as avid as ever. I found it particularly strange to see how fans fawned over new coach James Franklin after the departure of Paterno’s successor, Bill O’Brien, for the NFL.
I could see how, after Paterno’s astonishingly long and successful tenure, the faithful might have transferred their allegiance to O’Brien, hoping for a similarly glorious career. Thus we had “O’Brien’s Lions” and “Billieve” T-shirts. But when O’Brien bolted after two years, I would have thought it would have been clear to all what an anomaly Paterno’s 46-year career was. Most coaches, like most employees in any industry, are loyal until they get a better offer. Best not to get too emotionally invested.
And yet, when Franklin arrived from Vanderbilt, fans flocked to the local airport hoping for a glimpse of His Eminence. Local emporia were quick to hawk a new set of not very clever “Franklions” T-shirts.
Up goes the statue of the Beloved Leader; down goes the statue of the Beloved Leader. Weeping in the streets.
New Beloved Leader.
New statue.
July 3rd, 2014 at 5:29PM
UD, Thanks for posting this. I’ve always enjoyed Russell Frank’s writing and I had no idea that he’d returned from sabbatical and was back at it. He’s written a weekly column for a local online site for years. You can peruse the archives here. I highly recommend his chronicles of the woo people.
July 3rd, 2014 at 8:52PM
veblen: chronicles of the woo people sounds wonderful – reminds me of sam harris telling deepak chopra his ideas are “woo-woo.” i’ll check it out.