Penn State Riots

I called it yesterday and although it happened a bit earlier than I expected, the Penn State students took a bad situation and made it worse.  As you can see from the picture on the right, last night the Penn State students took to the streets and left a path of destruction in their wake.


The catalyst was a press conference at 10pm EST last night where the Penn State Board of Trustees fired Joe Pateno ending his 62 year run on the sidelines for the football team.  All day was known that the Board was meeting last night where it was expect that the University President, Spanier, would be fired and that they would also address Paterno's future as well.  Paterno made his opinion known mid-day when he released a personal press release that stated he was going to step down at the end of the season but would coach the rest of the games.  A key component of his statement was,

Penn State students take over

At this moment the Board of Trustees should not spend a single minute discussing my status. They have far more important matters to address. I want to make this as easy for them as I possibly can.

While his stated goal was to make it easier for the Board, in effect this statement told the public what he wanted and dared the Board to defy him.  He got his answer a few hours later and the students hit the streets.

I wholeheartedly agree with the Board's decision and I'm pretty sure a large majority of Americans agree.  This morning ESPN reported that Joe wants to meet with the press and get his side out.  The ESPN sources said his message was that "Paterno recalls McQueary "vaguely" referencing "fondling" or "touching" or "horsing around" by Sandusky and a youth. But Paterno never had the understanding that McQueary had witnessed a "sodomy" or "rape.""  The sad thing is his statement to the Grand Jury also said that he could tell that was McQueary traumatized by what he saw and it was bad enough that JoePa thought it necessary to tell his boss..  I'm not sure how he believes clarifying that is going to improve his situation as I'm pretty sure everyone understands what he is saying but doesn't agree that passing it up the line to his superiors and never following up was an appropriate response.

The Board did the right thing.  They failed in a couple of other ways.  


First they fired JoePa on the phone.  I understand their reasoning as the timeline was short and visiting his home in person would have turned into a media circus.  Still, they should have seen this issue coming and asked him to attend the meeting so they could let him know what was going on either way.  I'm sure they thought of that and figured that would turn into a circus as well.  They are probably right but it doesn't seem proper to end a 61 year career with a phone call.


Another issue is that they didn't alert the local police of the press conference and instruct them to be on heightened alert in case of a student outburst.  Perhaps they didn't do this because that action would be stating that Paterno might be fired and they didn't want to tip their hand.  The lack of preparation had consequences as after the announcement the students hit the streets en masse and the police scrambled to get the situation under control.  It took a few hours as the student mob got so large they had to call for reinforcements from neighboring counties before they felt they were able to act.  In the meantime, television vans were overturned, windows were smashed and general lawlessness took over the campus.  This went on for about 3 hours until the police took action and took back the streets though it might also be true that the students got tired and went to bed.


The actions of the students have brought shame on their university and shown the world that the insular world in Happy Valley can be just as violent as any other campus.  I really feel for the football team in this situation as they have worked hard and performed well on the field.  Now they will be going into a big matchup with a new coach and will be cheered on by 100,000 angry alumni.  As a Buckeye fan I am rooting for a loss but I hope their fans respect their team enough to be on their best behavior before and after the game.  


Either way, I hope the Board of trustees have learned their lesson and bring in a large force to control the drunken masses.  Else, they risk a repeat of last night's sad events.