This past weekend the Penn State football team closed out
its 8-4 season with an over-time win against Wisconsin. Of the four losses, two were against major
teams (Ohio State and Nebraska) and two were the first games of the season, when the
team was taking baby steps after the year-long media blitzkrieg over the nightmarish Sandusky situation. I recall
how awful I felt after the second loss to Virginia, when the team clearly
played well on the road, should have won, but got torpedoed by special teams
play, particularly numerous missed field goals by placekicker Sam Ficken, who
was replacing Anthony Fera, one of the high-profile starters who left the team
under the NCAA open-door policy.
There was a lot of black humor floating around, with the
team 0-2 and headed for the dismal season that everyone was
predicting, and a lot of people were hoping for as some type of karmic
punishment for the university. There were
jokes about Ficken trying to commit suicide the morning following the game, but
the six times he fired the pistol, he missed wide right.
Well, a strange thing happened after that. Ficken was still the kicker, and it took him
a few more frustrating games to get his bearings. (He eventually won the game against
Wisconsin.) Those first few games when
he still could barely function as a place kicker, the team rallied around
him. He wasn’t ignored, or treated like
an outcast. Guys would gather around him,
pat him on the back, tell him not to give up because he was needed. Coach O’Brien didn’t give up on him, kept him
in there despite fans calling for his head (although I suspect the team’s
penchant for routinely going for it on fourth down had a lot to do with this).
Ficken is emblematic of the team, the program and the season
itself. He failed terribly, and he hung
around. And he got better, as did the
team, visibly with each passing week. To
the point where a team everyone had left for dead ended up having a solid
season, far better than anyone had hoped for or predicted. While not a perfect season, it was enough to
show everyone Penn State football was not going to be a wasteland of harsh NCAA
sanctions and marquee players jumping ship every other week. It was crucial for the program to have a
season like this, with nearly every game receiving more media coverage than it warranted,
and the entire country seeing that these guys were fighting every step of the
way, growing more confident with each game.
It was the perfect advertisement for recruits: a team that in no
uncertain terms had been told to go fuck itself by the NCAA (and the sports
world at large) managing to have a solid year against enormous odds. An exciting team with a no-holds-barred
offense and traditionally solid defense.
From a fan’s point of view?
Barring the two years Paterno guided them to national championships,
this was the most rewarding season I’ve had as a fan. In ways, it was more rewarding, not just because
the team overcame such steep odds, but because Bill O’Brien clearly fell in
love with the town and program, sensed the community was behind him as head
coach and made the best possible transition from what can only be described as
a world of shit to a competitive football program still facing sanctions that
are going to make his job difficult for years to come. Where once I could never imagine a Penn State
football team without Joe Paterno, I now look forward to the next decade with
Bill O’Brien.
Even before the world of shit blew into town, I was hoping
Paterno would hang it up. It seemed
clear that his offensive and defensive coordinators were running the show, and
he was hanging around because he simply couldn’t envision life without being
the head coach of a powerful Division I-A college football program. As much as I had trained myself to dislike
Paterno’s main competitor Bobby Bowden, I couldn’t help but see the guy in
retirement and think, “Bowden has it right: relax, rest on your laurels, god
damn it, in your 70s, with nothing to prove to anyone anymore. Go fishing and dote on the
grandchildren. That’s what you’re
supposed to do.”
And he stayed too long, too!
Knowing when to leave is an art form worth cultivating.
I don’t know. Should
I feel guilt-ridden now that I’m still part of the “Penn State football culture
that glorifies sports over academics, even over morality”? I’m still not quite sure what people mean by
that, what judgment they hope to impart over someone who either goes to,
watches or listens to these games. (I’ve
spent the past two seasons listening on the radio as I had no cable TV while
living in temporary housing after the house fire.) I sure don’t feel like a lesser human being
for being a fan. I know I’m not. This team had nothing to do with that
shit. Frankly, the only person in the
whole program who did was Paterno, and from what I’ve seen thus far, his
greatest sin was not being proactive enough and using his power to correct a wrong
situation with a former coach still using his premises.
I’ve got no mea culpa regarding the Sandusky situation. It was a horrible thing to happen on anyone’s
watch, and we’re going to learn a lot more in the new year about what really
happened. I’m sure the moral vanguards
who were carrying on earlier this year are going to start tree-stump speechifying
again come January and the upcoming trials.
It’s been pure pleasure the past few months to have these jerk-offs butt
out and let the football team stand or fall on its own merits. I’m sure there have been many other moral crises
since then requiring the profound wisdom and guidance of the sort only hack newspaper
columnists can provide. I suspect after
the trials they’ll be gone for good from the Penn State landscape, unless it’s
to write puff pieces about what a decent man O’Brien is, the same way they did
about Paterno for decades, and then wonder why there was a culture of reverence
surrounding him.
This has been a great season to be Penn State football
fan. Which I surely did not see
coming. After the first two games, I
thought, “Here were go. This team is
going to suck and have a lopsided losing record. All these dogshit sports columnists who
crucified Paterno are going to take it a step further and make some stupid,
hackneyed connection between the Sandusky mess and how poorly the team
performed this year, and will do so for years to come, as spiritual punishment
for men of power who did nothing when they had the responsibility to correct a
horribly criminal situation.”
Well, that didn’t happen.
I saw my team move forward into a new era (with a coach everyone thought
was nuts for accepting the job), play with heart, against all odds, with the
world hoping they would fail. They
didn’t, and they reinforced that it makes sense to go on living with a
vengeance when you’ve been left for dead, unless you quit all together, which
more than a few people suggested was a viable option for this team and football
program. I’m glad these guys didn’t.
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