Penn State tragedy -- I didn't get it right last week

Tweet

One week ago when I wrote my first (of two) columns - here and here - on Joe Paterno and the tragedy at Penn State quite a few people—including my wife—felt that I didn’t put enough emphasis on what is by far the most tragic aspect of the whole debacle, which is what happened to at least eight young boys and, in all likelihood, far more than that.

I plead guilty—with an explanation.

Some people have speculated that I was just looking at it from the jock perspective, wondering what this would do to Paterno and Penn State rather than focusing more on the victims. Actually, that’s not true. I made a cardinal error: I assumed it was a given that the most tragic aspect of what was going on was what had been done to the boys and the fact that it could have been stopped years ago and wasn’t.

You know the old cliché about what happens when you assume.

That was mistake number one. Mistake number two—now that I have the benefit of seven days hindsight—was clearly my bias towards Paterno. Or, more specifically, my inability to wrestle to the ground the notion that someone I had put on a pedestal for so long could have fallen and crashed from that pedestal so hard.

My bias here wasn’t personal as it might have been with any number of basketball coaches or a small handful of football coaches—specifically those I’ve worked with on book projects and come to know well. I’ve met Paterno, interviewed Paterno, but can hardly claim to know him.

But I’ve admired him and his program since I was a kid. Growing up in New York City there were three college football teams I followed with passion: Columbia, Army and Penn State. I always enjoyed Paterno’s acerbic wit and his insistence that his players go to class and graduate and learn about more than football. I also liked the fact that everyone around Penn State always called him, ‘Joe,’ in a world where most coaches wear the title of ‘Coach,’ as if it was inherited at birth.

As far back as 1999 I wanted to do a book on Paterno. Right around the time that Jerry Sandusky was ‘retiring,’ I wrote Paterno a letter asking him for an audience so I could try to convince him to grant me access that fall to do a book. My request in the letter was simple: Don’t say no, just say you’ll listen. I honestly believed if I could get in the room with him and explain to him how little time I would actually need with him once the season started that I would have a shot.

I never got the chance. I still have the letter he wrote to me in response. It wasn’t a two-line blow-off, it took up an entire page. It was still a blow-off, but it was one that made me feel not totally rejected. He explained the timing of my request was bad because he was launching several non-football projects. He knew my work, respected my work but this wasn’t the right time. The added touch was a handwritten sentence at the bottom of the page: “Really enjoy listening to you on NPR.”

I knew Paterno was a Republican. But he listened to NPR. That was impressive too.

I was, needless to say, disappointed. Paterno was going to turn 73 at the end of that season and I thought the ’99 team might be his last chance to make a run at a national championship. Actually a loss to Minnesota after an 8-0 start began a five year spiral that climaxed when President Graham Spanier went to Paterno’s house to suggest he retire and apparently got thrown out of the house.

Good for Joe I thought back then. If anyone deserved to plan his own exit it was Paterno.

As I’ve written here before I took another swipe at getting in to see Paterno three years ago. Thanks to my friend Malcolm Moran who now teaches at Penn State (and wrote a wonderful piece in the Sunday New York Times on the mood up there on Saturday) I had lunch with a marketing guy named Guido D’Elia who had become very close to Paterno and had become his un-official gatekeeper.

D’Elia was, to put it politely, dismissive of the idea and of me. Paterno wasn’t ready to do legacy stuff he explained, even at 82. When I told him that I hoped he’d be ready soon and I’d like to have the chance to talk to him sooner rather than later about it, D’Elia said, “We’ll put you on the list.”

(I did a google search this morning to see if D’Elia’s name has surfaced at all in the last week. I found nothing. I find that strange).

The day wasn’t a complete loss though. Malcolm had arranged for he and I to do a two-man ‘forum,’ that night discussing journalism and college athletics. One of the people who showed up was Jay Paterno. Malcolm introduced us and we chatted for a few minutes. No doubt strictly to be courteous, Jay said, “Hey, if I can ever be of any help to you, here’s my contact info.”

He handed me his card. In one of the great upsets of the last 50 years I somehow didn’t lose it. I have lost more important phone numbers than perhaps anyone in history. Last year, after Penn State’s season was over, I dug out the card and contacted Jay. I told him I was looking for help and asked if we could have lunch—which we did.

I liked him instantly. He was smart, funny and totally un-impressed with himself. He was (is) also a Democrat who had worked for President Obama in ’08. Naturally I liked that too. I asked Jay to do one thing for me: Get me in to see his father. He said he would talk to him as soon as he came back from vacation.

Unfortunately (or, perhaps fortunately) unbeknownst to Jay, his father was already making a book deal with Joe Posnanski. I could hardly blame him for choosing Joe who he knew a lot better than me and who is very damn good. My guess was that my pal Guido was behind that deal but I honestly don’t know.

So that’s the background. I’ve been a Paterno fan for a long time and thought he’d make a fascinating book subject. Clearly I was right about that but not for the reasons I thought. I think I may have been in a little bit of denial a week ago about Paterno’s culpability. And, I’ll also admit that, then—as now—I can’t help but think about Jay Paterno.

He’s gone from having a bright future in coaching or politics (he was being encouraged by a number of important Democrats to run for Congress next year if his dad retired) to a future that is now completely murky. If feeling badly about that makes me a bad guy, so be it.

I hate this story in every possible way. I hate it first and foremost for those kids and their families who have been to hell and back and yet their journey’s far from over. I hate it on a much different level for The Penn State players and for all the Penn State people who honestly believed their program and their coach WERE different from the other big time programs. As I said this morning in The Post, I talked to a long-time coach last week, not someone close to Paterno at all and he said this: “If you ask me the list of all the big-time coaches I am absolutely certain don’t cheat here it is: Joe Paterno.”

Of course this went way beyond cheating. It is, without doubt, the worst thing that has ever happened in college athletics. That’s not to diminish the death of Len Bias 25 years ago or the murder of Patrick Dennehy eight years ago or the death of any college athlete. This involved innocent children being abused repeatedly and it is a story that is going to go on and on for years to come.

I didn’t get it right last week. I’m not sure I’ll ever get it right. In fact, I’m not sure there IS a right here. Just an awful lot of wrongs.

My newest book, to be published Dec. 5th, is now available for pre-order: One on One-- Behind the Scenes with the Greats in the Game 

Washington Post column: Penn State scandal threatens one of sports’ greatest legacies

Tweet

My article from The Washington Post on the Penn State scandal ---

“Tragic” is the single most over-used word in sports Almost nothing that takes place within the context of sports is a tragedy. There is no such thing as a tragic loss or even a tragic injury.

What is happening right now at Penn State is, if not tragic, well beyond sad.

If the sexual abuse and assault charges brought by a Pennsylvania grand jury against former Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky prove to be true on any level, then this will be the single worst thing that has happened in college sports in just about forever.

That’s not to diminish what happened at Baylor in 2003, when one basketball player killed another. Or the death of any athlete, on the field or off.

Th Penn State case could prove tragic in a completely different way, because it involves Joe Paterno. No football coach has meant more to his sport in the past 50 years than Paterno, and his 409 victories at Penn State are only a small part of why he is who he is. In an era when so much is wrong with college athletics, Paterno always has stood for all that is righ.

When USC, Ohio State, Miami and North Carolina are caught cheating in one way or another, most people roll their eyes and say, ‘Here we go again.’ When public records from a lawsuit allege that an agent was bankrolling a basketball player and his mother starting when the kid was 14, the reaction is more eye-rolling. The university presidents publicly wring their hands, declare they’re shocked cheating is going on and go back to counting their money.

Click here for the rest of the column: Penn State scandal threatens one of sports’ greatest legacies



My newest book is now available for pre-order: One on One-- Behind the Scenes with the Greats in the Game 

This week's radio segments (The Sports Reporters, The Gas Man)

Wednesday I joined The Sports Reporters in my normal time slot (5:25 ET on Wednesday's). Click the permalink, then the link below, to listen to the segment from this week.  We spent a great deal of the time this week discussing Tiger Woods and the possible disintegration of his lower body, including whether his workout regimen and subsequent weight gain may have been a hindrance instead of help over the years. After Tiger we moved on to the hiring of Ed DeChellis at Navy, and where Penn State basketball may be headed. Paterno and Bob Knight on the same campus?

Click here to listen to the segment: The Sports Reporters
 
-----------

Also Wednesday I joined The Gas Man in my normal weekly spot. This week we discussed the Seattle Sounders and the MLS, including a story of mine while covering the earlier rendition of the Sounders,  followed by a look at the success of the MLS including the smart choice of stadium size the league has gone with. After the soccer talk we moved on to the franchises in New York, including the amazing events that the Mets and Wilpon find themselves in, including a quick a look at the Yankees, Rangers and Islanders.

Click here to listen to the segment: The Gas Man

This trip leads to stories on my late friend John Morris on his time at Penn State, the PGA Tour

So here I am at The Players Championship for the first time in 11 years. The last time I was here was (obviously) 1999 when “The Majors,” had just come out and the main reason I came was to do book promotion work since a lot of the golf media was in town for the event. It also helped that The Final Four was in St. Petersburg that year so I stayed until Saturday morning and then made the drive across the state in plenty of time for the semifinals.

In those days I stayed with my friends John and Kitty Morris. John was in charge of public relations for The PGA Tour in those days and was someone I had known since my early days at The Washington Post when he had been Penn State’s sports information director. More important, he had the complete trust of Joe Paterno, so if John told Joe you were okay, Joe would treat you accordingly.

The first time I interviewed Paterno was in 1979. I was the Maryland beat writer for The Post and, back then, Maryland played (and lost to) Penn State every year. I was sent up to State College the week of the game to talk to players and to Paterno. Even back then Paterno could be cranky and he wasn’t in an especially good mood at that point because a couple of players had gotten in trouble during the offseason and the team was off to a lousy start. In fact, it is possible the Nittany Lions had already lost twice going into the Maryland game.

I knew all this when I called John to arrange to see Paterno and the players. “The players are no problem,” John said. “As it happens our two best players, Bruce Clark and Matt Millen, are probably our two best talkers. Joe is going to insist I only schedule you for 15 minutes.”

“Fifteen minutes!” I said. “I need more than 15 minutes.”

“I know,” John said soothingly—soothing was always one of his best things. “Don’t worry. You go in there, get him talking and you’ll get all the time you want. I’ll make sure he doesn’t have anything pressing on the schedule right after you.”

I wasn’t all that happy with that arrangement but John turned out to be right. I asked Paterno something about ethics in college football and off he went for about 45 minutes.

Years later, when John moved to the tour, he played a major role in convincing Deane Beman that it was better to talk to the media than to battle the media and he continually pushed players to be more open and more cooperative. I still remember sitting on one of John’s rookie seminars when he was explaining why a player should always talk to the media before doing anything else if he was asked to do so.

“But what if there’s something I really want to work on over on the range first?” one of the rookies asked.

“Work on it second,” John said. “The range will still be there when you finish with the media. Chances are it won’t be the other way around.”

John always had heart problems. Early in 2000 he announced that he and Kitty were moving to Baltimore because he was on a list at Johns Hopkins for a heart transplant. Over the next 18 months I got to see him often. If he was angry or bitter about his situation he never showed it. His sense of humor never waned even a little bit. He was always a great story teller—and a treasure trove of Paterno stories—and he found one of the best hamburger joints I’ve ever been to right near the Hopkins campus.

They never found him a heart. He died in June, 2001. At his funeral, people were encouraged to just get up and tell stories about John. Paterno stood up at the exact same time as another man. This was coming off one of the bad years that led people at Penn State to try to push him into retirement.

“You go ahead coach,” the other man said.

“Thanks,” Paterno said. “First time I’ve gotten a call in a long time.”

It’s hard even now to drive in the gate at The Tournament Players Club and go past the tour’s offices without thinking of John. Since I was last here for the tournament the clubhouse has been entirely rebuilt and the tour has continued to try to make this tournament as prestigious as it possibly can. The money is huge—the purse is just under $10 million this year—and the golf course has gotten better over time although it will never be great no matter how many testimonials from players are put on the wall of the media building.

Of course back when I used to come semi-regularly the tournament was in March, which meant it had to compete with the NCAA basketball tournament. It was also seen by a lot of players as a warm-up to The Masters, which made the folks at The Tour a little bit nuts. I remember one year when Greg Norman had to withdraw, his agent put out a statement saying, “Greg is very disappointed. He always looks forward to The Players as an ideal warm-up for The Masters.”

Ouch. So now the tournament is in May, which means it isn’t a Masters warm-up and isn’t competing for eyeballs with the basketball tournament. It is, however, HOT—and humid. Of course it can be hot and humid here in March but not AS hot and humid. The players don’t seem to mind the heat. Personally, I can’t stand it, but I’m not playing and no one really cares if I’m miserable walking around the golf course—why should they?

There’s certainly plenty to talk about this week that’s for sure: Has Tiger Woods fired Hank Haney? (Word on the range is yes). Did he really give those golf clubs from his Tiger Slam that showed up on e-bay to his Titleist guy? (Word among the equipment reps is absolutely even though Tiger has semi-denied it). “The clubs are in my garage,” he said. WHICH clubs—there were two sets he used.

Can Phil Mickelson pass Woods this week and become number one in the world? Can Rory McIlroy come close to what he did in Charlotte last week? Can my guy Paul Goydos play well? (Okay maybe only I care about that). When will, “Moment of Glory,” be in bookstores. (next week. Okay, maybe only I care about that one too)?

Anyway, I’m off to do Golf Channel and then get out on the golf course for as long as I can take the heat. The only thing I can promise is that John Morris will be on my mind.

Review of the weekend – bowl games, outdoor hockey, college basketball and a 4am firing

Let’s start today with the big news of the weekend: The Islanders, after blowing a three goal lead on Saturday night, won a shootout against the Atlanta Thrashers to pick up two critical points.

Okay, just kidding. But I love having the NHL center ice package even though watching the Islanders some nights is about as much fun as listening to Mark Jones say that one of Navy’s football players will be reporting to “Quan-TEE-co,” this spring. Several people pointed out to me on Friday that I forgot to mention that one. I’m also told that Jones and his partner Bob Davie showed up in the TV booth not long before kickoff and didn’t have time to go through the usual ritual of having the SID’s (at least the Navy SID) make sure they knew how to pronounce all the players names.

Thus Davie managed to mispronounce the name of (his words) “the greatest captain in Navy football history,” Ross Posposil. Or, as Davie called him, “Poposil.”

Oh, one more thing: a friend who is a Missouri fan tells me they botched a number of Missouri players’ names too so let’s give them points for consistency. Then, during The Alamo Bowl, Davie kept going on about the “passion,” of the Texas Tech fans because they’re all so angry about Mike Leach being fired. What I heard directed at Adam James didn’t exactly sound like passion.

Okay, let’s move on to a review of the first three days of the New Year.

And, for a moment, let’s stay with hockey.

When the NHL started the “Winter Classic,” in 2008 I thought it was terrific. The whole spectacle worked. I also thought that by the third year or the fourth year the uniqueness would wear off and it would become an over-hyped regular season hockey game.

At least for me, it hasn’t happened yet.

Friday afternoon I kept wanting to hit the remote and switch back to Penn State-LSU or Florida State-West Virginia because both those games certainly had intriguing story lines and, in the case of Penn State-LSU a dramatic ending. But the setting—hockey in Fenway Park!—was just irresistible. The NHL and NBC have gotten lucky with the weather each year: cold enough to make it really feel like a game on a rink somewhere in Canada but not so much snow that you couldn’t play.

That said, the whole concept just works. Even though I can’t help but curse the day Mike Milbury decided to draft Rick DiPietro with the No. 1 pick, seeing him skate over to Bob Costas and talk about playing outdoors as a kid was cool. There was also the added bonus of a very good game between the Flyers and Bruins. Word is next year’s game will be between The Washington Capitals and Pittsburgh Penguins, probably in Pittsburgh because the risk of warm weather in DC is too great (not this year that’s for sure). If it is at all possible, I’m going.

Switching to the football games, the highlight of Penn State-LSU was hearing Joe Paterno screaming at Erin Andrews, “come on, let’s go, let’s go,” when Brad Nessler was a tad slow throwing it down to her for the mandatory (dull) halftime interview. That’s one thing about Joe, he is almost ALWAYS in curmudgeon mode.

A friend of mine tells a story about being at a dinner with Joe one night a couple of years ago. The appetizer was some kind of bruschetta and when the teen-age waitress—thinking Joe was finished—started to clear his plate he screamed at her, “What do you think you’re doing! I’m not finished here yet!” Poor kid apparently almost fainted.

Flashing forward to the end of the game: I am really tired of officials not using common sense and then falling back on the letter of the law (or the rules) as an excuse. Down 19-17, LSU had moved the ball to midfield with about 20 seconds remaining—maybe it was 25, I don’t remember exactly—and one of the Penn State players was doing exactly what he should do in that situation: lying on top of the ball for as long as he could to keep the clock running. One of the LSU linemen tried to move him off the ball and got nailed with a 15-yard penalty that, for all intents and purposes, ended the game.

Basically, the officials made LSU pay for their not taking control at that moment. As soon as they saw the Penn State kid clearly not getting off the ball, they should have stopped the clock, gotten him up and then re-started the clock right away. No penalty either way, let the kids decide who wins. It would still have been a long shot for LSU to get into position for a field goal, get their field goal unit on the field (with no time outs left) and get a kick off in the mud to win. But there was a CHANCE and the officials, basically being lazy, took it away from them.

That said, I was glad to see both old coaches—Paterno and Bobby Bowden—win.

Bowden, as you might expect, was all class all day. It’s a shame the same can’t be said for the people running Florida State who kicked him out the door and couldn’t bring themselves to give him one more season as if he hasn’t done enough for the school to merit that. The spear toss was magical and Bowden’s wife Ann coming into his press conference to say, “it’s time to go honey,” was almost a perfect metaphor: Bobby Bowden always had time for everybody.

Back to field goal kickers for a moment. I really felt for the Northwestern kid who missed the three field goals in The Outback Bowl (is it over yet?) but much worse for Ben Hartman, the kicker from East Carolina. He had two chances from 39 yards to win The Liberty Bowl for his team in the final 67 seconds of regulation and then missed a 35-yarder in overtime opening the door for Arkansas to win the game, 20-17.

Hartman was a very good kicker at ECU but there’s no doubt it is going to be hard for him to forget the last game of his college career. I really feel for kickers at moments like that. I still vividly remember Ryan Bucchianeri, who as a Navy freshman in 1993 missed an 18-yarder at the buzzer that would have won the Army-Navy game. Even though Bucchianeri talked to the media afterwards and took full responsibility for the miss—it was a very wet field and a tough angle—but his response was simply, “I have to make that kick,” the miss haunted him during his entire time as a Midshipman.

I noticed in the Sunday paper that Hartman had not spoken to the media afterwards. I was curious who made the call: did the kid simply not want to do it? Did Skip Holtz, his coach make the decision? I dropped a note to Tom McLellan, the associate AD in charge of PR at East Carolina and asked him the question.

Tom not only got right back to me, he took the hit for the decision. He said he had made a judgment on the spot that Hartman was in no condition—emotionally—to speak to the media at that moment. I don’t disagree with Tom at all. His first job is to protect the players UNLESS they’ve done something really wrong like cheating on a test or getting arrested. This wasn’t close to that: he missed three kicks. No crime was committed.

Having said that, as I said to Tom later, I actually think Hartman might have benefited if he’d talked. Even if he broke down and cried, people would have respected him for giving it a shot. I’m also frequently amazed by athletes’ ability to handle themselves with grace under that kind of pressure. More often it is college athletes who do well in those moments because they haven’t been nearly as spoiled or over-protected as the pros (See James, Lebron).

Bottom line in it all is this: I had no vested interest in who won the game but my heart goes out to Ben Hartman.

One basketball note for the day: Did anyone see the 70-foot shot that Chandler Parsons hit at the buzzer to give Florida a 62-61 overtime win over North Carolina State? I happened to be watching, in part because State Coach Sidney Lowe was doing exactly what I would have done in that situation: fouling with a three point lead in the final 10 seconds and not letting Florida get off a tying three point shot. (Two hours later Xavier would allow Wake Forest to take a three in the last 12 seconds of overtime and would get burned by the decision).

Unfortunately, because Parsons threw in a miracle shot—which was RIGHT on line all the way and was, naturally, his only field goal of the game—coaches will now cite that as a reason not to foul. They’ll be wrong. Lowe got it right. He—and his players—just got amazingly unlucky.

There is so much more to talk about: the Redskins firing (at 4 o’clock in the morning) of Jim Zorn and their hiring (no doubt) of Mike Shanahan; the team formerly known as the Bullets and gun play; Kansas’ remarkable performance on Saturday at Temple and—did I mention the Islanders won in a shootout out?

More on that—okay, not the Islanders—tomorrow.