For me personally, as I have related to many friends, I have to compare this time in my Penn State life to the Charles Dickens novel, “Tale of Two Cities.”
“It is the best of times; it is the worst of times.”
The “best of times” because of our new $89 million Pegula Ice Arena getting formal approval to begin construction and restoration of varsity status for the men after 66 years and new women’s program.
It is “the worst of times” because of the Sandusky scandal. Let me emphasize that again, the Sandusky scandal.
I owe a great debt to coach Joe Paterno and it was a tremendous honor getting to know him and to work with him over the past 30 years (where did the time go?). His “Grand Experiment” inspired millions, showed the nation that “student-athlete” meant just that and the academic record is irrefutable. All of the teams at Penn State aspired to the ideals that JoePa championed including the Icer teams that I coached.
In full disclosure I wasn’t always a JoePa fan.
Three days into my freshman year in 1978, I learned that a decision was made to turn the existing ice rink into an indoor practice AstroTurf field for football. I called home and told my parents I wanted to transfer. I was crushed.
As it turned out and with Joe’s support, a temporary outdoor rink was constructed on the location of the current outdoor AstroTurf football practice field adjacent to Hastings road. Additional funding was made available from PSU to help support our team, which spent the next two years playing on the road with “home games” at the Skatium in Mechanicsburg, Pa., while money was being raised for the Greenberg Indoor Sports Complex which would include a new state of the art hockey rink with a planned 4,500 seat main arena.
As the deadline drew closer it became obvious that the cost of completing the new rink was far greater than the money raised, and given the economy of that time, a decision was made to cut the arena size to 1,100 seats and finish the project on a smaller scale.
So in my junior year, the “new” ice rink opened to a packed house and hockey returned to campus after a two-and-a-half year hiatus. As a senior at PSU, I was president and captain of the Ice Hockey Club during Joe’s time in the dual role of athletic director and coach. My boss, Vance McCullough, our faculty advisor, professor Bob “Duke” Hettema, myself, and others pressed then football coach and athletic director Joe Paterno hard to elevate hockey to varsity status.
While very supportive, Joe said the financials just did not work. The economy was struggling in those days with interest rates in the 15-18 percent range and Penn State was in its infancy as a fundraising entity.
Coach pointed out that they had just made the very difficult decision to drop rifle and bowling as varsity sports to save money and re-allocate resources. It would be tough to add hockey given that environment. We pressed Joe pointing out that hockey, hot off the 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey team’s “Miracle of Lake Placid,” was poised to become an incredibly popular sport in our state.
You could see the pain in his eyes as he toiled over the decision, but I give him credit because without the kind of philanthropic gift that the Pegulas just recently gave to us, hockey would have been a burden on an already tight athletics budget. We simply couldn’t generate the ticket revenue that the recently completed 1,100-seat Greenberg Ice Rink (1981) needed to pay for the operations costs.
Being an Ivy League grad (Brown has a storied history in college hockey), Joe agreed that at that time and in certain pockets of the country, hockey was a terrific intercollegiate sport. But Pennsylvania was still in its infancy, relatively speaking, as a hockey state. So while he liked hockey (a belief he shared with many over the years including a public acknowledgement at a 2009 State College Quarterback Club lunch), he knew the economics of that era just didn’t work.
As a result of my meetings with Joe Paterno “the AD,” I asked him if he would write a letter of recommendation for me as I began my job search in the area of professional sports. It was his letter to the Penguins team president at that time, Paul Martha (former Steeler and Pitt standout whom Joe had recruited as a running back) that helped me land my first job with the Penguins.
Enough about what Joe did for me personally. I am but one of millions he inspired and many thousands he assisted directly or indirectly. He helped make PSU as an athletic department, PSU as a university and all of college athletics better. He should be remembered first and foremost for all the great things he achieved and the people he made better (including me).
In the long haul, his place of honor in history should far outlive and outweigh the Sandusky scandal. I know not all will agree but 61 years and thousands of lives helped certainly deserves as much praise as any condemnation for a yet to be tried scandal.
Like everyone, Coach had his crosses to bear and as he said himself, he wished he had done more. He emphasized that the alleged victims need our prayers and our attention and that study of child abuse has a higher priority in our world will be the result of all this pain.
There is plenty of blame to spread around about how this tragedy has been handled. But in the end, none of these people should have been subjected to the unprecedented media character assassination and public trial as has been the case. Welcome to the Twitter age where accountability in journalism is non-existent.
What has frustrated me most as a Penn Stater is how poorly this scandal has been handled by so many and how it could happen on our watch? If the way the university is governed is in need of review then so be it. A good, independent assessment every now and then is a good thing. There are a lot of good, bright people who I respect and consider mentors and friends that have been caught up in this tragedy, and it is a lesson to us all that we must be on our toes at all times for the greater good.
You may be surprised to hear that I am very concerned at the emphasis we as a society place on athletics. Easy to assume that as a lifelong coach and sport administrator to hear me say that, but who better to understand it than those of us living in this world. If you have read any of my previous articles, you know where I stand on how out of control youth sports has become in our society.
Jeffrey Immelt, CEO of General Electric, was recently quoted at a conference saying, “More people will graduate in the USA with sports-exercise degrees than electrical engineering degrees. So if we want to be the massage capital of the world, we’re well on our way.”
I have been working with a group of professors from a broad range of academic units here trying to create an “Institute for the Study of the Role of Sport in Society.” In my humble opinion, athletics at all levels from youth, amateur, scholastic, collegiate, Olympic and professional need to be reformed.
Sport as an industry is the 10th largest in the world, greater than the automobile industry and the motion picture industry. Yet very little scholarly resources are spent on studying its impact on society. I do not blindly believe that “sport builds character.” After a lifetime in and around sports as a participant, coach, administrator and fan, I am of the camp that “sport reveals character.” Sport can have a very positive role if it is done in the proper context.
The Greeks called the ideal life “Arête” — the blending of body, mind and soul. According to Robert Fagles translation of “The Odyssey,” this led to the thought that athletics had to be present in order to obtain arête. It did not need to consume one’s life, merely exercise the body into the right condition for arête, just like the mind and soul would be exercised by other means. In other words, put athletics into the proper perspective.
In my eyes, that is what Coach Paterno’s “Grand Experiment” was really all about. Develop young men into educated, motivated role models who tried to do the right thing. Yes, some of his student-athletes might go on to make a living playing professional sports. But he aspired to see all of them be at their peak physically, mentally and spiritually. It didn’t always work out that way because we are human and we have our failings. Coach was in the arena trying to mold young men to the best of his ability.
One of the best teachers and mentors I have ever had, Coach Bob Ford, sent me this reminder:
“A man is more than his failings.”
So at the end of the day we should remember Joe’s overwhelming legacy of good to outshine this scandal.
If our penance at PSU, and also part of Joe’s lasting legacy, is that we cause a paradigm shift on how society recognizes and deals with child abuse; the role sport plays in society; and how we govern our university for service to the “greater good,” then Joe’s legacy will only be further enhanced.
In Coach Paterno’s case he was much more than his failings, and the world is a better place as a result.
In Charles Dickens’ words: “It is a far, far better thing I do than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest I go to than I have ever known.”
R.I.P. JVP.
