About 1 hr East of you but it's all solid Nitter country!
Yup doctors, educators, lawyers, business people, social workers, etc most deny PSU football or the U have anything to do with the issue!
People who haven't experienced it don't understand how off base these people are especially when a few of them get together and the topic comes up.
Oh, that's absolutely true.
I have told this story before. I was at a wedding a few years ago in York, PA. It was my wife's college roommate's wedding. They met at Penn State.
The bride's father spent the entire father of the bride speech going on and on about how incredibly proud he was that his daughter graduated from Penn State and how she was marrying another Penn Stater, so he knew the young man was of high moral fiber.
That's not a joke, that is honestly what he said and he CLEARLY was not kidding. Also, he talked about Penn State like his daughter had graduated from Harvard. Jokingly, I turned to my wife at one point and said, "He realizes she went to Penn State, not Penn, right." My wife smiled and I thought some of the others would laugh but they did not.
He then proceeded to rant about the NCAA's sanctions and what "they did to Joe." This was literally during the father of the bride speech. Also, he was getting cheers. It was completely bizarre on every level.
I am not kidding when I say that it was basically a razor's edge whether or not he was going to break down crying. Ultimately, he kept it together but it was close.... and it was so, so weird… and also so, so hilarious.
As the wedding wound down, we ended up in a smaller group of mostly her college friends and their husbands/boyfriends.
I have known most of those people for a long time and have always gotten along with them. In a few instances I would even go so far as to call them friends, rather than my wife's friend's husband. I was in fantasy football leagues and NCAA tournament brackets with some of those guys. We all even went to the beach the year before and had a good time.
Anyway, we are all sitting around the table at the end of the night and again the topic of sanctions comes up.
You have to understand that everyone, myself included, had had a lot of drinks at that point and was tired.
However, the conversation kept getting more and more ridiculous. It was paranoid, it was conspiratorial, and it was incredibly arrogant.
My wife, knowing that her husband has strong opinions on this issue, is literally grabbing my leg underneath the table as if to say, "I know, I know. But not here and not now."
She does that a lot with me and she's almost always right. I fully intended to hold my water there.
In deference to her, I kept my mouth shut through most of it and I was even trying to make light of it. However, they wanted to talk about it and they were not in a joking mood. Basically, they wanted to commiserate and I just didn't want to hear it because I think that's a ludicrously narrow perspective on that situation.
Then it turned to whether or not the "victims" - and TWO of them used air quotes to describe the victims - were really victims at all, opining that they were likely doing all of this for the money.
At that point, the dog broke free from his chain and bit the living shitt out of everyone. It was ugly - definitely not one of my prouder moments.
I didn't yell or anything like that – at least not by my standard – but I was very stern with them and I made it perfectly clear to everyone that had spoken that I thought they were all way off base.
I also opined that the mentality they were showing is exactly why something like that could happen at Penn State.
I was right. I knew I was right and more importantly so too did they. A few of them tried to object but I know that entire situation backwards and forwards and I just crush them with common sense reactions.
I would ask them things like, "Do you honestly think Paterno didn't know about the 1998 investigation? He's the biggest cheese in that town but he doesn't know that his defensive coordinator is under investigation for child molestation?"
I then followed up with, "Do you know when Sandusky retired? Following the 1998 football season, that's when. In retrospect, doesn't that seem curious to you?
"So, assuming that Paterno knew about 1998, because he very clearly did, how could he possibly react to McQueary's allegations the way he did and still be considered a victim in this in any way? You could use a lot of words to describe Paterno but 'victim' (and you had better believe that I used air quotes) would be near the bottom of my list.
"Further, why would he wait several days to mention it to anyone so as not to 'ruin anybody's weekend?'
"I mean, if this was not a credible accusation or there was no prior suspicion, that's one thing. However, this would've been at least the second time he had heard this allegation.
"Any normal human being would've been on the phone with the chief of police in that moment. Instead, who did he call? Who did he spend the rest of the weekend with? He spent it with his attorney son and his personal attorney trying to figure out what the hell they could do to cover their asses but not blow the lid off this thing.
There are no legitimate answers to those questions because anyone with a brain understands that when put in that context, which is the only honest way to approach the entire situation, it is extremely clear exactly what happened there. Now, not everyone has the character to admit it, but everyone knows the truth - even those pretending otherwise.
After a few minutes of just scoffing at their weak responses, everyone just shut down. A bunch of them got up from the table and walked away all pissed off and others just refused to even look at me. In other words, they were every bit as disgusted with me as I was with them.
What was there really to say?
After a few more minutes of awkward silence, my wife excused us and we headed back to our room.
Somewhat surprisingly, once we got to our room, my wife told me I was absolutely right and that she was not at all upset with me for voicing my opinion. She said they were all acting like monsters and they needed to be hammered there. I agreed with her but I was very surprised that was her position.
The next morning, we all went down to breakfast before hitting the road and it was so awkward.
People wouldn't even look at me. Literally, my wife and I sat all by ourselves. The bride and her husband came over briefly but that was it.
The next year everyone went on another beach vacation and they never called us. A few of them have visited Pittsburgh and have opted to stay in hotels rather than with us – as had always happened previously.
I'm sure that the consensus among that group is that I am a maniac because I had the temerity to tell the truth.
Honestly, it doesn't really bother me. However, I do feel badly for how it has impacted my wife. Those are long time friends of hers and she values those relationships.
Still, we have two little ones so we are pretty busy anyway. Also, only one of them lives close to Pittsburgh so it's not like we were going to see them often anyway. Maybe in time she will patch things up with her friends? Truthfully, she should go hang out with them by herself – I don't care. That's probably best for everyone.
However, I've thought about it many times and the truth is I did not say one thing that night in York that I don't believe to be true and I really don't regret standing up for the truth there.
