Five for Fighting’s John Ondrasik has a Sports Illustrated online column but can’t quite get into sports this week:
Considering the horror that is the Penn State scandal, I find it impossible to write an article discussing my favorite hockey team, the L.A. Kings, or any other sports topic. To do so would land somewhere between offensive and embarrassing.
Can any human being care about a hockey team’s losing streak after reading the Sandusky Grand Jury Report?
Do I criticize Terry Murray while Joe Paterno is joining a pep rally outside his house?
How is Dustin Penner a problem when PSU President Graham Spanier “unconditionally supports” his alleged perjurers while not recognizing victims and their families?
Where does ANYTHING matter when one of the nation’s holiest sports institutions harbored, enabled, and excused a monster who allegedly molested children for more than a decade?
Understandably, there has been a whirlwind of emotion and opinion regarding PSU. Here’s mine:
If what we know is what we think we know, Penn State Football should be shuttered. If the NCAA’s standard for the “Death Penalty” is SMU’s covering up of “recruiting violations” how can there every be another game at Happy Valley?
There will be a time to care about sports again, but it will take a while. What will help is those who are legally liable in the Sandusky case being brought to justice, those who are morally liable shamed by society, and the healing passage of time. (At least for those of us who were not personally affected.)