Penn State AD charged with perjury -- *UPDATE 2* Sandusky Arrested Again

Not intended as a shot at you in particular, Shot, you just happened to be the one who articulated it here, and you are hardly alone among sports fans in having feelings like this...

But lord, I will never understand this. He was a goddamn football coach.

The notion that winning is tied to some kind of higher moral calling is just so utterly bizarre to me. There have been coaches and players I've admired. There have never been any sports figures where my "belief system" would even be part of the discussion.

True believers in anything kind of scare me. But in a coach, or an athletic program? I just don't even get how that happens.

 

I mostly agree with you... unless it was his own kids.

 

Shrug. I suppose that's possible, but the only way anyone would ever know is if they came forward.

 

If it happened and it gets revealed so be it, but God how utterly depressing to think about.

For big such a huge flagship university in a large industrial state, Penn State is incredibly isolated, and much more so in the 70s and 80s. Not only is it a long way from bigger cities, but it is a haul through mountainous terrain. Washington State is the only Power 5 school I can think of that's more isolated, maybe Arkansas back in the day.

 

Paterno loyalists are amazing.

... is utterly ridiculous.

Belief system? In what? In a football coach who condoned raping boys?

 

Having been to all three universities, you're absolutely correct.

Arkansas was probably more isolated before the new airport and I-540, thanks to Walmart money.

Pullman will always be isolated. Unless it picks up and moves three hours west.

Had a business trip to State College a few years back, right after the discovery. Tiny airport with three gates, in the mountains. While it's on an interstate (I-99), it definitely feels like it's own small world.

 

Pennsylvania in general is amazingly desolate for a populous eastern state. There's a few moderately-sized cities like Allentown, Harrisburg and Erie, but by and large the swath between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh is nothing but woods and mountains.
If I truly fuck up in this lifetime and wind up in hell, I'm pretty sure my punishment will consist of driving across I-80 in Pennsylvania for all of eternity.

 

Don't you live in South Podunk?

 

Yeah, but I grew up in North Podunk.

My sister went to college in Nebraska, and for three or four years we'd drive out to take her to school or pick her up. We lived in New Jersey, so we had to traverse the entirety of Pennsylvania. We could have taken the Pennsylvania Turnpike for an extra $20 dollars and shaved three hours off the trip. Instead my parents, being the cheap rocket scientists that they were, insisted on taking the toll-free I-80 -- which required a two-hour drive just to get to I-80 and another six across northern Pennsylvania.
I hate that damn road. It took for-fucking-ever, and there ain't a damn thing up there to break up the monotony. Just another valley, another mountain, another river 200 feet below you. There's not even any towns. The exits were also numbered in sequential order back then, which didn't help. Nothing like driving 150 miles and only being at Exit 12.
Beyond that, it was some sort of weird space-time loop. I drove part of the way when I got older and had the cruise control set at 75 mph for two hours straight. I checked the odometer, and somehow we had driven exactly 100 miles. I think we were abducted by aliens and just don't remember it.
Another time, I saw a sign for Williamsport, 39 miles ahead. Twenty minutes later I saw another sign for Williamsport, 42 miles ahead.
Some years later, a buddy and I took a road trip to Ohio and went on the turnpike. Zipped across that state in 5 1/2 hours. I wanted to kick my dad's ass.

 

In the early 80s, we wound up making a handful of trips from Tennessee to DuBois, including a disastrous short-term move there. (My mom, who may not have ever stepped foot out of the former Confederacy before this, left my dad and took us kids back south after 7-8 months. He followed us back by the next spring.)

At any rate, my dad's preferred route, which I can only chalk up to lunacy, was to follow I-81 to the outskirts of Harrisburg, then wind his way up US 322 (which was four-laned only sporadically) past Lewistown and State College (which from our angle of approach seemed to consist of a lone Arby's). By the time we got to I-80 (very near its highest elevation east of the Rockies) it was looked upon as a positive mercy.

 

When I was driving back south to go to school, I eventually figured out I didn't even need to go through most of Pennsylvania. I missed the turnoff for the turnpike one time and was in Philadelphia before I realized it, so I just kept driving to Baltimore and got on I-70. That was a happy day. Even the turnpike kind of sucks. No medians, just cane rails, until you get past Harrisburg. It's like driving through a construction zone for 100 miles.
Pennsylvania sucks.

 

Gettysburg is cool and there's some good food around Lancaster, but yeah, Pennsylvania mostly sucks.