STATE COLLEGE, Pa.To the outsider, it appeared as if it was another Wednesday on the main campus of Penn State University. Students were hustling to class and then off to other activities just like any other fall weekend.
Exam time is quickly approaching, after all. After that comes the Thanksgiving break and trips back home where friends and family will surely have thousands of questions
What in the world is going on up there?
Well, everything. Wednesday, iconic football coach Joe Paterno announced he will retire at the end of the season in the wake of the sex-abuse scandal that has rocked the university. Paterno began coaching at Penn State in 1950 and took over the head coach job in 1966 and had no intention of retiring as late as Tuesday night. However, since Paternos longtime assistant and right-hand man, Jerry Sandusky, has been charged with sexually abusing eight boys over a 15-year span, and two top university officials (Tim Curley, the athletic director, and Gary Schultz, the senior vice president for finance and business) have been charged with perjury and failing to report to authorities what they knew of the allegations.
Meanwhile, the president of the university, Graham Spanier, very well could be out of his job before kickoff at Beaver Stadium on Saturday afternoon. There is also speculation that Paternos retirement could begin before the weekend.
As a result, news agencies from around the world have ravenously moved into the sleepy college town to report on the scandal. Seldom do they move out to the periphery.
These are interesting times for many of the college students on campus. They sit at the HUB in the center of campus and watch TV reports going on right outside their windows. They listen to things being reported about their coaches and teachers as if it were another show. What does it have to do with them? After all, many of them were infants when the alleged abuse by Sandusky occurred. Moreover, Paterno arrived at Penn State before many of the students parents were born.
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So really, does it matter if Joe Paterno is the coach of the football team? After all, when Paterno departswhenever that isthere will be plenty of candidates lining up to take over. Besides, isnt the university bigger than one man?
Were out here to support the players, said Michael Higgins, the vice president of the Paternoville encampment outside of Beaver Stadium. Theyre our classmates and they are the ones out there performing on the field. They are the ones ranked No. 12.
Higgins says he and his friends camp out at Gate A at the stadium beginning on Wednesday in order to get prime seats in the student section for Saturday. Often, a few of the players will come out to the encampmenta veritable Occupy Beaver Stadium, if you willto say hello and maybe even participate in the trash-can football games. Its good, clean fun and the kids have their laptops and books to keep up with their studies.
They even collect and donate money to charity and have changed up the White Out where the students wear white shirts for the game in the wake of the scandal. For this weekends game against Nebraska, the kids from Paternoville will have a Blue Out, with the hope of raising awareness for child abuse.
While its business as usual for most of the students, there is disappointment bubbling close to the surface. Judd Williams, the proprietor of Harpers mens clothing store on College Ave., says the only other time he remembers an encompassing feeling pervade the campus was after 911.
There is just a negative feeling around, he said.
Thats just not the way things are in the town they call, Happy Valley. No place is perfect, but for a community as large as Penn State, there is a unique unity and often it has nothing to do with football at all.
I know a different Penn State, Penn State alum Patty Horn Robinson said. Two weeks ago, I had the opportunity to meet some amazing students while doing on-campus interviews for my company. I met an optimistic and driven young woman putting herself through college in 3 years with a GPA of 3.94, and a quiet young man who was blazing the trail in his family by being the first to attend college.There were several others with similar stories facing everyday challenges while demonstrating integrity, leadership and collaboration.
This is the Penn State I know.
Indeed, football is a big part of life at Penn State. But to most of the students at Penn State, the sun will continue to shine even if the football team never plays another game.
E-mail John R. Finger at jfinger@comcastsportsnet.com