Playing the game is the right thing to do

Saturday’s game in Happy Valley, Pa., between No. 19 Nebraska and No. 12 Penn state has a “the show must go on” feeling.


In case you have been living in a cave the last 72 hours, Nittany Lions head coach Joe Paterno was fired by the Penn State board of trustees Wednesday night despite saying he would retire as coach after the football season ended, brought down by the growing furor over the handling of child sex abuse allegations against an assistant coach. Penn State President Graham Spanier was also ousted. I won’t go into details because you can read my previous blog entry: http://napavince.blogspot.com/2011/11/huskers-head-to-penn-state-but-will.html I also made my feelings for Paterno abundantly clear. Plus, you can get all the coverage you want by the ESPN talking heads.

Nebraska athletic director Tom Osborne, who is also a coaching peer of Paterno, issued a statement regarding Saturday's game with Penn State:

“I am saddened to learn of the recent events at Penn State and we will continue to monitor the developments on their campus. We will hold the alleged victims and all those involved in our thoughts and prayers.

“We have had a number of inquiries from fans regarding the circumstances at Penn State and the conditions they might expect in attending the game. UNL Chief of Police Owen Yardley is in touch with the Penn State police department and we have talked with interim Penn State Athletic Director Mark Sherburne. We have visited with Penn State security and we understand they are enhancing their security efforts for Saturday’s game and are taking extra precautions to ensure that all players, coaches and fans are treated in a respectful way. We also appreciate that there is a student-led effort at Penn State to respectfully welcome Nebraska fans to Beaver Stadium and into the Big Ten Conference. We know that our fans will reciprocate and display good sportsmanship toward Penn State’s fans and players.”

According to the Lincoln Journal Star, Osborne told a crowd of reporters Thursday evening he has not spoken with Paterno since he was fired as Penn State's coach on Wednesday.

"I might try to give him a call tomorrow," Osborne said.

Osborne was asked what he thought about the situation with Paterno.

"Well, this is difficult, for everybody, for everybody who knows Joe, everybody who cares about Joe, difficult," Osborne said. "But it is what it is. I just don't know enough of the facts of what happened. I don't know if anybody knows everything that has happened. We tend in our culture to rush to judgment. I feel bad about him and his family. I feel bad about the people who were victimized, very bad about them. I work with kids a lot and that's something we have to all be concerned about is our children."

Not surprising, Osborne took the high road. On another note, there had been rumors that the game might get cancelled due to the volatility of the situation that included student demonstrations as well as a TV news van being tipped over. Questions have also been posed in terms of should the game be held at a neutral site? Should Nebraska fans fear for their safety?

I don’t mean this to be crass but there is no ryhme or reason why the game should not be played and with this short of notice would it really be practical to move the game?

From a human standpoint, yes, it will be hard to watch the game and not be thinking about the victims and what a sick son of a bitch Jerry Sandusky, the former longtime Penn State defensive coordinator who allegedly committed these heinous crimes of sexual misconduct. Sandusky needs to have the crap beaten out of him and fed to the vultures.

However, there are more salient reasons why paying the game is the right thing to do. LJS columnist Steve Sipple wrote that “They should play the game as a gesture of compassion to the victims in a child sexual-abuse scandal that rocked the Penn State campus this week following a grand jury's indictment of former PSU defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky. He has been charged with molesting eight boys over a 15-year span, with some of the alleged assaults occurring at the Nittany Lions' football complex.”

Now that we have established what a sick puke Sandusky is, the reason you play the game is because the football players on both rosters didn’t do anything wrong. Let them play and don’t penalize them for the wrongdoing of others. The individuals involved in these events are gone. I do not see how cancelling the game would have served any justice. Some say football is so small when compared to these horrific events and they are correct. However, these unspeakable things take place everyday in this country. Penn State’s issues took place over 10 years ago and the individuals involved are out.