The Penn State Nittany Lions have recovered. After Joe Paterno nearly destroyed the program in his effort to cover up for a monster, forcing the NCAA to take action, the Penn State Board of Trustees and the new administration have risen it from the ashes.
The NCAA has lifted the postseason ban on Penn State immediately, meaning they can compete for championships this year. All of the Penn State sanctions will be lifted by 2015. And the only reason this is the case is due to the board.
The board that fired Paterno, overhauled the department, and accepted the penalties that the NCAA was forced to hand down two years ago, has finally resurrected the athletic department. If they listened to the hundreds of thousands of Paterno-minions, this program would be in much worse shape.
Of course, let’s not forget that Paterno supporters were defensive of Jerry Sandusky until they were forced to accept the truth. Simply read the comments from the first news report of the Sandusky investigation in March of 2011 here.
Unfortunately, these people screamed the loudest at Penn State and embarrassed the program. They don’t care how many victims there were of such disgusting crimes, they only cared about saving the legacy of their God and his right-hand angel. When the right-hand angel fell, they still had to protect their God. It made the sanctions levied against the program much easier to accept because who cared about the feelings of those who would defend somebody who covered up for such an awful crime?
But thankfully, the board took the opposite approach. They didn’t care about saving Paterno, they cared about saving the school and the athletic department and making sure this would never happen again.
Consider that all of the bad that has come on the program had nothing to do with the board.
Make no mistake about it, the sanctions were coming no matter what. The shame to Paterno’s legacy was coming no matter what. The public embarrassment was coming no matter what. But this courageous board did not fight it. Instead, they accepted the punishment, accepted that the Penn State administration grossly neglected its duties, including Paterno, and did their best to clean up the image of the program.
The result is a bunch of Penn State fans screaming at them for not trying harder to defend the legacy of somebody who covered up for a child molester. It was more important that Paterno’s legacy be saved than it was for the program to resurrect itself to those people.
But the board didn’t listen. One of its members, David Joyner, was not going to stand for the legacy of somebody who in the eyes of the public is equally as guilty as Sandusky himself.
And while many involved with the Penn State program showed their true colors, the board’s willingness to cooperate with the sanctions is the reason they have been lifted.
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The administration, players, and coaches have done everything asked of them. Head coach James Franklin has done an incredible job of being patient and cooperative. The NCAA saw this and appreciated it. The NCAA lifted the postseason ban because of it.
So please, Penn State community, stop being delusional that the board could have stopped the negativity that fell on the program. All they could do was deal with it, and thanks to how they dealt with it, your program is now back to competing for championships two years later. And it has a coach who actually works and is hands-on, caring more about the program than himself.
Maybe you should appreciate that instead of constantly crying about the fact that Paterno is not the God you wanted to worship.
Especially when you consider the fact that your team has a great chance to win the Big Ten this year with how bad the conference is, being barely above a mid-major conference.
Oops. Now, delusional Nittany Lions will attack me not just for criticizing Paterno; many of them probably think the Big Ten isn’t a pathetic conference either.