I am, we are

 Let's preface this: I am a Penn State student.

Photo courtesy of amesphotos.com

I resolved I wasn't going to say anything in public for two reasons. One, I don't believe in broadcasting anything that's an angry rant and not well thought out. Two, because it seems like everything there is to say has been said, by people much smarter, people much dumber, and people more highly publicized than I. I didn't see the point. However, people have been asking my opinion lately, and Facebook posts are agitating me. My uncle called yesterday to ask how my dad was doing, and he asked specifically to talk to me because he wanted to know where I stood on the whole situation. I reason that I'm more middle-of-the-road than a lot of people, and I do deserve to have my opinion heard. So let's do this, and I'll try to keep it brief.

I don't give a damn about a statue. I don't give a damn about one man's supposed saintliness or "legacy." What I DO care about are the victims, and what I also care about is the well-being of my university.

We've all said about a million times how much we feel for the victims, and I completely agree, but I think we're not quite grasping that enough because it's so remote from the majority of the population. Yes, we all say we're sorry and this should never happen again, because we don't know quite how to respond. Pedophilia is something you don't hear about in day-to-day life. Its horrors are unspeakable. Even now I'm using cliches because I don't know much about it. You know about rape? Multiply that by about a thousand. I'm told that's the extent of pedophila trauma for the victims.

I am not belittling that in any way. On the contrary, I have an enormous amount of respect for the brave men who came forward at Jerry Sandusky's trial and told their stories so that he could be brought to justice. But unless you're a victim yourself, or you've talked to a victim, or you were in that courtroom, you're not going to fully understand the extent of what happened to them. We're not all trained psychologists. I hope that, someday in the future, one or two of them will be brave enough to write a book, or speak out, so that we can begin to understand the horror. But for now, although we all know it's terrible, we can't grasp how terrible, so we donate money and say conciliatory things and look for someone to lay our ignorance and blame on.

And that leaves Penn State, Graham Spanier, Tim Curley, Gary Schultz, and Joe Paterno.

I will never say that any of these men were unjustly accused in the Freeh report. I will never say that Joe Paterno is going to hell and that his bad deeds cancel out all of his good ones. I can see both sides. And while I think football overshadows a lot at my school, let me also point out that I received a grant through the Paterno Fellows Program that made studying abroad in Berlin last year a lot, lot easier. I think Freeh and President Rodney Erickson have been remarkably fair in their judgments, although there is always going to be some bias, and I think the media saw what they wanted to see in the Freeh report. Freeh remarked that Joe Paterno made a terrible decision. He also said the man had done a lot of good. How do you reconcile both those statements?

I didn't decide to go to Penn State because of Joe Paterno. I didn't decide to go to Penn State because of the football program.

I went to Penn State because it was in-state tuition for a really excellent education. That was my entire reasoning.

Three years later, Penn State is still a center for academic excellence, and it's my home. And when people threaten either one of those things, it makes me angry.

Both sides are frustrating me right now. The Paterno family needs to learn to be silent and acknowledge guilt. The students need to learn that they're not making things look good for anyone by protesting the removal of a bronze idol. (And, for the record, I thought Erickson's remarks about removing the statue but keeping the name on the library were very fair and justified. But no one makes a big deal out of a library.)

The newspaper columnists and TV commentators and ordinary US citizens need to learn that this was a leadership scandal, an abuse of power, in the face of one terrible man. The students and professors and staff and community members knew nothing. And we make up most of the university. Consequently, Penn State should not "burn to the ground," as one person suggested, nor are all Penn State students going to hell for being pedophile enablers, as others have said, nor are we all despicable citizens. I normally know when I've done something wrong, and I do not feel despicable.

And as a student who can recognize that Joe Paterno did something wrong, who believes that we as a university need to change, I think we've stepped up to the plate. We fired Paterno and Spanier. Schultz and Curley are going to trial. We ourselves commissioned the Freeh report. We donated to RAINN and took various measures to ensure this would never happen again. We've trained our employees all about the Cleary Act. We effectively cleaned out the football program. What does all this say? We're committed to change. Football is not the only thing that's important to us. If it was, we would have denied everything and kept Paterno.

Today the NCAA decided the fate of the Penn State football program. While we're still hurt beyond words, and I don't agree with everything the organization has decided upon, I find the sanctions fair overall. And to those who say we still should have gotten the death penalty, consider this: It wouldn't be fair to the players, old and new, those looking forward to their senior year and those who have just been recruited. It wouldn't be fair to the Blue Band members or the cheerleaders or the gymnasts or the Blue Sapphire. It wouldn't be fair to the students who need something to rally behind after this whole mess. It would't be fair to the Board of Trustees, who just hired the new coaching staff, and to said coaching staff themselves. It wouldn't be fair to the merchants of downtown State College, who rely on football weekends for needed revenue. They're actually the people I'm most concerned about. And it wouldn't be fair to everyone at the university who has helped to make the changes listed above. To the people who decry us for only caring about football I say, You made us this way, and now you denounce it.  Shame on you. We were built up as a football school. Who says we can't be a good football school once again?

We've been punished enough this year, which is probably why some of the students have overreacted. You, former hippies and Kent State sympathizers and rebels, you remember what it's like to be students. We've been punished by the media and the NCAA and most of all by our own leaders, who let us down. But America loves to punish people. We're obsessed as a culture with punishment. "No pain, no gain," is the American way. And that's why people won't stop until Penn State is, not on its knees, as we are now, but ground into dust.

But then, it wasn't the death penalty. And other schools in the past have been punished in the same way, albeit not to this extreme. We should expect nothing else. 

Yes, it hurts. It hurts terribly. It feels like being told that your grandfather, a man you trusted your entire life, was actually a serial killer. And yes, we trusted these men. My friends went caroling at Joepa's house. Graham Spanier did magic tricks backstage at one of my concerts. We all have these stories. That's why I can understand the overwhelming urge to defend them, especially Joe Paterno. Because unlike the horror of pedophila, this is a feeling most of us can grasp, and we're clinging on to it.

No wonder we're all obsessed with JoePa, for better or for worse, the media and the citizens and the students. But he's dead. He can't be punished anymore, and whether you think that's a good thing or a bad thing, it's a fact. You're only punishing his family, the students, the professors, the community--those of us who did nothing wrong. But again, remember. America is obsessed with punishment.

Please, do me and the rest of the university a favor, and let's break that cycle. I'm not saying "forgive us all our trespasses," even. But even sitting down for a minute and reflecting that the students had nothing to do with this? Refusing to join in the Penn State bashing at work? That's a step in the right direction.

For the rest of my fellow students: go take a walk. Do some yoga. Run a 5K, and donate the money to RAINN. Go sit at your high school football stadium and scream at the top of your lungs. Get it out. It's over and done. Our leaders failed us. The anguish is out. The judgment has been passed down. It's time to let the healing begin, if people will let us. Stop defending Joe Paterno and get on with your lives. For a really excellent essay about moving forward, I recommend reading this. Ian is currently the drum major of the Penn State Blue Band, and he and I were in concert choir together in previous years, but I never knew he was also such a talented writer. I find his remarks incredibly fair, considering his position.

For the past weeks, I've felt like I've been between two people screaming at the top of their lungs, and all I want to do is put my hands over my ears and scream Stop it, stop it, stop it! Let's hope that, with these sanctions, we can end this. I will return to "dear old State" this fall to continue my education--the reason I was there in the first place. We must remember that Penn State and Joe Paterno are separate entities, as hard as that is. Joe Paterno was a man, with all of a man's strengths and flaws. We are not Joe Paterno. We are Penn State. And I am proud to be a Penn Stater.

And let's remember, this didn't necessarily have to be a Penn State problem. This could have happened at Ohio State, or Alabama, or Oregon, or any other football school in the country. The exact same thing. And then where would the blame be?

And, even before we are, remember: I am, I am, I am.