This is brilliant. I stole it from a buddy who would probably prefer not to have his name here.

Ok, so I waited until all the evidence came out to make an informed and educated opinion about the whole Penn State (not Jerry Sandusky) scandal. I absolutely have no affiliation to Penn State, nor does Joe Paterno mean anything more to me than a football coach, mean anything more to me than Dan Balysma or Greg Popovich.

When football becomes more important than innocent rape victims, people need to step back and check their priorities. After reading the report, it is clear that there was a systematic failure, created not least of all by the cult of personality that surrounds Joe Paterno and gives some sort of fundamental existential value to the education received at the university , to overlook the atrocities that occurred since the 90s.

We are talking about an administration, and sports program, who in 2007, when football players beat the shit out of kids in an off campus apartment, sought to punish the players involved just enough so that they could still play football. The lady who tried to properly punish the players got death threats from administrators, students, and alumni.

How dare she!!! It's like she didn't want the team to win a championship or something! We can't have that!

We are talking about a football coach who was approached by a grad student who witnessed a "life changing" experience in a locker room involving rape and told his boss...who did their best to cover it up. GAHHH this baffles me.

I read this comment on ESPN, though while perverse,raises a thought provoking question:

"If Joe Pa held down the kids while Sandusky did his thing, people would still make excuses for him."

At what point, at how many mistakes, does one tend to lose respect for Joe Paterno. Because even despite the evidence in the Freeh report, what are the things we do not know about the proceedings behind the scenes surrounding the Penn State scandal. Why did Tom Corbett receive over 200,000 dollars from the Second Mile foundation after 2001 and did nothing to pursue the charges (that were eventually dropped)? Why did the original investigator "disappear" during the investigation? Why, if Joe Paterno didn't "know how to" use email, did he Skype with recruits during the off season. Why, as evidence suggests, if Joe Paterno routinely went around the chain of command to affect change in campus incidents, nothing was done in this instance? Why did EVERYONE change their stories between the initial emails, later emails, the original subpoena'd testimony, the reports to the paper, and the Sandusky trial? I could be here for days, if anyone wants me to continue...

Speaking of the trial late last year, Paterno, when asked about why he didn't immediately report the abuse, said "I didn't want to interfere with anyone's weekend."

Yep, someone's weekend. You know what I'm doing this weekend? Sleeping in late, going golfing, hanging out with my girlfriend....AND NOT GETTING RAPED.

The only way I can ever...I mean ever...look back and not throw up on myself when thinking about what happened is if the damn statue comes down, Curley/Spanier/Schultz are sent to prison, the college's colors change, and the motto goes away. The accepted/encouraged/widespread/delusional culture forced and allowed people to put the ideology above of rational thought and the well being of our nation's children. Everything that happened to Joe Paterno since the first known abuse to victim 6, from the "good things" he did, the money he made, to the football games he won, came to him on the backs of raped children. He doesn't deserve my respect.

This is the first and last thing I'm going to publicly say about this or anything related to Penn State. This has weighed on my chest since last year. I'm sorry if this offended anyone, but that was not the intention. My feelings do not spill over to the education, service work, or students who have done nothing wrong; what I"m trying to say is that a sadness is deserved for Joe Paterno's fall in front of everyone's eyes. But for me, making apologies is downright reprehensible.