My problem is, I see pretty much everyone who's insisting Dear Old JoePa did nothing wrong as complacent in manufacturing such a culture, and feel they should be punished to some degree. Jimmy McGallant, who just set up a sports pub because sports town to rake in some cash, couldn't care much about who wins? I feel sorry for him. Johnny McGoofus, who openly worships Paterno and considers this entire punishment atrocious because "he helped us win all those games?" Burn.
Well, y'know, I doubt there are many people who would actually FRAME it like that -- people aren't that honest and upfront about irrational hero worship.
I certainly think people blubbering about how JoePa didn't deserve the purely symbolic gesture of removing his statue are, shall we say, lacking in perspective. But that doesn't mean I wish financial ruin on them.
Per the "worse than the Death Penalty" talk -- tough call. Long-term, maybe, but where the Death Penalty would have had immediate consequences this strikes me as more of a gradual ramping down. People are still going to go to bars to watch games even if their team sucks and will never make the playoffs (trust me, I went to Northern Arizona); team stores will still sell shirts and hats (though I imagine they'll take a hit on things like player jerseys, bobbleheads, etc. if there are no star players). Things are going to be tougher in an already-strained economy, but a football town doesn't become not-a-football-town overnight.
Per reactions from the general public around Penn State: well, I hope the sample of soundbites NPR has chosen to play are representative, because they make me feel pretty positive about the whole thing. There was one person who had me shouting "FUCK YOU!" at the radio as she whimpered about how Poor Old Joe Paterno didn't deserve to have all those numbers in a book changed after he died, but after that there were TWO people whose reaction was along the lines of "Well, you know, it's too bad and it's going to hurt, but this is what had to happen." (And then this morning an emotional student complaining that this punishes unrelated programs and people who had nothing to do with the situation, which is also a valid and sympathetic point to make, though I still fall squarely in the "it had to be done" camp.)
But yeah, idol worship. Putting the adoration of a fetish above all other concerns including basic human decency. I guess part of my problem with people talking about how football needs to be punished somehow is that it's not really football's fault; football is a derpy game that maybe sort of vaguely simulates battlefield tactics. The real problem is the culture of adoration that's coalesced it in the absence of adoration over actual war heroes.
And man, our culture's pretty bad, but it doesn't even compare to the culture around the other kind of football. People have been murdered.
On the whole I'd say using sport as a proxy for warfare is a pretty damn positive thing, but yeah obviously this is one of a great many cases of it being taken way too far.
There are big positives about sports as a Grand Uniter, though. Things like the Olympics and the World Cup have an immense power to get people who hate each other's guts to set aside their differences, come together, and share an appreciation of a thing.
And in most cases, I'd say that can be achieved WITHOUT deifying athletes and coaches. But some active deterrent to same is a pretty good idea.
