An open letter to Penn State alumni and boosters

Dear Penn State Alumni, Boosters and Joe Paterno Zealots,

I understand your passion for your university — our university (journalism graduate here, class of ’06) — and the lengthy memories you have from your time as students at Penn State. I know for a lot of you, the reason you went to the university or even knew of its existence is because of famed, disgraced head football coach Joe Paterno — myself included, to an extent — and I know you think his high-profile mistake(s) should not undo the generations worth of good he did, which is why many of you are the ones pushing to honor the fallen legend and restore a statue of a man who helped shape the university.

But what you’re doing is shortsighted and selfish. You see, we know that the university must placate the desires of the alumni, particularly the old, wealthy alumni, along with the boosters — the people who donate money to the university in order to keep up with the Joneses and provide a solid education to students — so the university and athletic department must make these hollow “honor” celebrations for a man who by his own admission does not deserve praise. If the powers that be decide to abide by the wishes of many current students and practically the entire outside world, moving beyond Paterno and looking toward the future well-being of the school, you threaten to pull funding or use your political power to get board members and presidents who share your same viewpoints.

How selfish of you. Your donations and support for your university should be about the current and future students of Penn State. Instead, you are making it all about your own wishes, your own selfish desire to ensure your memories of a man you admired are restored.

Never mind that students don’t want to honor the man. After all, their Penn State "is a Penn State without Joe Paterno,” and every future class’s PSU will be a university without the deceased coach. Furthermore, the more you force the university’s hand in honoring a man who admitted himself he’d wish he’d done more to stop a child predator from harming more children — instead of the bare minimum or, even worse, allegedly ignoring reports as early as 1976 — the more you put a stain on the current students and future students of the university. No matter what good the university does, the students and graduates will always get that sideways look when they say they go to or graduated from Penn State, followed by badgering questions about what they think of Paterno. They don’t want or need that, don’t want or need Paterno’s legacy restored, and they’re really the ones who should matter when it comes to your support for the university.

Instead, you are putting the well-being of a deceased man’s legacy ahead of the well-being of the university, of the students and teachers and alumni who realize this is a man who is no longer worthy of praise — just as that man himself, in one capacity or another, put his own legacy and well-being above the well-being of innocent children who then had their innocence taken away. When the entire world and many inside the family believe it’s wrong, it’s not because “they don’t understand and just want to bring down Penn State.” It’s because they’re right. A growing number of young alumni are just as disgusted as the students who worked on that editorial and the millions of people casting judgment from the outside.

Yet you keep going on, demanding Paterno’s legacy be restored, demanding honorary ceremonies, video tributes and everything in between. You demand these things for your own selfish reasons, forever keeping the university in the past, staining the legacy of students and alumni everywhere, people who had nothing to do with the atrocities committed on their campus and beyond, people who want nothing to do with it. But you won’t let them, all because you want your memories to remain pure, despite evidence to the contrary, and you’re willing to threaten to pull your support and dollars if you don’t get your way.

How selfish of you. How do you expect the university to heal and move on if all you can worry about is a man who’s been proven to be a false prophet? When a man who built his reputation on morality shows a shockingly horrid indifference to morality, he no longer deserves future recognition, no matter how many great things he’s done. His moral indifference played a hand in endangering children, and no amount of money or libraries or buildings can erase that. You don’t get to determine Joe Paterno’s legacy — his actions already have made that determination for all of us.

So stop this zealous campaign so the current and future students can make this university stand on its own. For decades, Joe Paterno and Penn State were synonymous. Today, they still are, and that’s no longer a good thing. The more you continue to push your selfish agenda, the more the university will be stuck in the past. And no matter how fond your memories are of that place and that man, they don’t erase the fact that your actions continue to bring a bad name to the university you claim to love so dearly.

Joe Paterno turned out to not be the man we all thought he was. It’s time to accept that and think about the well-being of the victims and the university, not the legacy of a dead man who does not deserve a rewriting of history.

You claim, each and every Saturday and beyond, that “We are Penn State.” It’s clear from your selfish wishes that that statement is no longer inclusive of the students who go there and the alumni who want the best for the future of the university. You may “be Penn State,” but you don’t care about Penn State. You care about Joe Paterno, just like, it turns out, Joe Paterno cared more about Joe Paterno than he did Penn State and the surrounding community.

Sincerely,

Joe Boland
Editor, Yardbarker 
Pennsylvania State University, Class of 2006