The "My Take on Happy Valley" Story

It was an ordinary day. Reading one of many stories that are in the local newspaper this morning about the NCAA dishing out some big-time penalties to the Penn State football program. I have written a few stories already about how I feel about the entire debacle that has happened and now I thought it was time for hopefully one final story. At first I thought some of the blame for JoePa getting fired was his own doing, but then I started to soften and felt like maybe he really didn't know what was going on. Well, I have changed back to my original thoughts and think that JoePa really blew it by not disclosing what he knew about the incidents of sexual abuse that his coach Jerry Sandusky was part of. It finally came out through the emails and hand-written letters that Joe didn't want the information about the abuse reported. So now his legacy has been tarnished forever, his statute and wall have been removed and his all-time game winning record has been destroyed. But, the punishment that was dished out to the proud Penn State players and new coaches was certainly not called for. They had no idea what was going on in the late 90s and should not pay the price for Joe and the other administrators that could have stopped it years ago. But, I can't stop here. I am placing quite a bit of the blame for all of this coming to light as late as it did on Tom Corbett. You know, the Governor of Pennsylvania who was the Attorney General while quite a bit of the abuse was occurring. He sat on this case for years until he finally was elected Governor. How much abuse occurred during this time? Would the punishment handed out by the NCAA been less if he had brought the case to light when he first knew about it? He didn't want to get the Penn State base riled while they still had big money to give him for his campaign and certainly didn't want to get on the wrong side of the Second Mile Charity, a significant donor to his run for Governor. Seems he is getting rather upset now when people bring this information to his attention. I just hope Mr. Governor gets his just due in the next election as the players and coaches did at Penn State. It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.