E-Mails Suggest Paterno Role in Silence on Sandusky

[ASTalumna06]

Originally Posted by 33girl

Will everyone stop jumping down ASTAlumna06's throat if she qualifies her statements with "In the Northeast"?

Thank you!

Originally Posted by Greek_or_Geek?

I think you need to get out more then. Start with maybe visits to Alabama and Mississippi. Then you might be able to comprehend how spectacularly commonplace Penn State's relationship to its public is.

I need to get out more? In the last 10 years, I've lived in 4 different states, and in just the last 2 years, I've traveled to 10+ others for both business and pleasure. "Getting out" isn't a problem for me.

Originally Posted by AXOmom

The sorority analogy wasn't actually directed at anything you said - it was directed more at what several PSU posters in this thread and another on this same subject have said over the past few months. I don't think this means any of them or you condone the actions taken by Penn State's administration - I'm just saying that on some level - the "it's just different here" or "our relationship to our school is special" can be dangerous and can lead to those actions.

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As Greek or Geek suggested, you need to spend some time in a state where the opposite of your Boston experience is true - a state where the university and specifically the university's football program is pretty much all there is for many reasons (once again I offer up Nebraska). Or they're raised in a culture where college football qualifies as a religous belief system (Texas). What seems unique and unusual to you would seem expected and standard for them.

Originally Posted by thewasher418

May I introduce you to my home state (Louisiana), where people who have NEVER SET FOOT in Baton Rouge, never went to ANY college or went to another one (like I did), live and breathe LSU football. This is not unique.

Originally Posted by AXOmom

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Instead I would hope that if many pointed out to us a particular situation we believe is unique to us really isn't and we should broaden our horizons a bit before drawing that conclusion - we would consider that our previous assumptions might be incorrect and adjust them.

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She said she grew up in the northeast and she stated that the type of relationship between Pennsylvania and Penn State doesn't exist there. That I understood, and I stated that I could see where that would be the case. All I suggested was this probably explained why the situation in Pennsylvania seemed unique to her, but if she had spent time in another part of the country she probably wouldn't find that to be the case, and she should probably do that before making the assumption that it is a unique situation.

Can someone please point out to me where I said that Penn State's situation is unique? Where did I say that there are no other schools in the country that can compare to PSU?

I originally agreed with als463's response to this:

Originally Posted by AXOmom

There may be some players who have always dreamed of playing at Penn State and who will choose to go there, walk-on, and play there even if it means going into debt, and if so, hey, kudos to them, but honestly I can think of very few instances, outside of a Harvard or Yale or a school with a religous emphasis (Notre Dame, BYU) where a talented kid with other good options would choose to go as a walk on, particularly if it meant four years of student debt, rather than take a scholarship offer to another school and I can't think of many parents, regardless of how many generations went to that school, that would let them. Now, if the only other offers they had were to much smaller programs or vastly inferior schools and they knew they had no NFL potential, they just wanted to try and play football while they were in school because they love playing - then I could see that scenario, but that player is unlikely to be of much help to Penn State in the Big 10.

... and basically said that with the Penn State pride I've seen among students, alumni, and PA residents, I wouldn't be so quick to assume that every parent of a football player would turn their child away from playing at PSU.