Quit Idolizing Sports Figures

Quit idolizing sports figures, stars athletes, anyone involved in sport as if they are this mythological creature who only serve the purpose to allow people to live through their childhood dreams. I've idolized sports figure, sure. Three of them in totality: Michael Jordan, Kevin Garnett, and Tony Dungy. That's it. Those all came when I was 8-12 years old, you know, a kid. Athletics are designed to entertain. Athletes do not serve any other purpose once they step off that field or court. I do not get at all this 'drama' surrounding Joe Paterno. If this guy was a cop or dentist or a car dealer nobody would care about him, and this story would be a blip on a local news channel. But because there is something so pure about the sport of football, that real men are created on this battlefield, and football coaches are gods among mere mortals is ridiculous to even fathom. For the past 5-6 years I've been able to make the distinction between the player/coach that is on the field with the player/coach that is off the field. I admire the athletic beauty of sport which was one of the major reasons why I fell in love with sports in the first place: athletic competition. When I see people on my screen doing amazing things in the realm of sport, I admire those actions and the drive and determination and pure athleticism of those actions, say like MJ in The Flu game. But once these people step off that playing surface, they enter into their own reality, the reality created without any care for the reality that we as fans wish is true. I love Michael Jordan the basketball player. I do not want to meet Michael Jordan the person, because I've heard some pretty damaging stories about MJ the person. Same goes for Kevin Garnett. Why is it that in sports, we get so connected to these images that we create of these people who we will never meet in real life, and then feel let down when they don't live up to that image? Funny thing is, I want to be a coach. That isn't a hypocritical statement at all, and if you think it is all I gotta say is stop being dumb. I am not interested in gaining fans, I am interested in teaching people the games that I have grown to love, that being basketball, football, or track. The relationships and bonds that I formed with my coaches in high school are relationships that shaped me as a person, in the exact same mold the relationships that I have been fortunate to make with teachers throughout my life from grade school to college. That's the thing, I was personally affected by someone because I knew them, not because of what I thought I knew through a TV screen or radio speakers.

Going back to this whole Joe Paterno debacle, if this were me or you in this same exact situation, I don't care about anything else besides the welfare of the children involved. Why is it that what is getting lost in all of this is the ACTUAL victims? Does anyone care about these people? Or is it because this dude won a whole bunch of football games he deserves to ride out on some white horse on his own terms? This isn't about Joe Paterno, this isn't about Penn St, this isn't about anything other than the victims of this heinous crime. There's a reason why child rapists get worked ten times over in prison; it is the worst possible thing that can be done on the face of this Earth, point, blank, period. I have no sympathy for anyone involved who knew about what was going down, or even who caught a whiff of what was going down and didn't do anything about it. In this situation, when we are talking about child molestation and child rape, anyone who knew something and then who didn't do everything humanly possible to make sure the person doing the actions is placed in handcuffs on the way to jail deserves to get raked over the coals. Joe Paterno doesn't deserve anything other than living the rest of his life knowing that they were what, something like 8 kids all around the age of ten-years-old that were being molested and raped by a coach on his staff, and he didn't do anything to protect those children and stop what was happening.

Title dictates behavior, and if you want to be a head coach in any setting you gotta be ready to deal with a helluvalot more than showing up 5 minutes before practices and games. How young were we when we started playing ball? 4? 5? How many times did our parents drop us off at a practice throughout our entire lives? It ain't about my kid wants to play baseball or football, here ya go, it's I'm putting my trust into you, as the head coach of this team my kid plays on, to watch after my son, my daughter. There's a lot more responsibilities that come with being a head coach in any form, it just ain't about picking kids to run around on a field for awhile while a ball bounces. These responsibilities seem to only get mentioned whenever people see fit to implement the argument. Why is it that when Pete Carroll or Jim Tressel got busted, for things they knew or didn't know, that the blame game was placed directly on their shoulders? Lack of institutional control. But yet, because it is this guy, Joe Paterno, who seemed to be this pure, golden figure, it's different, because people do not want to have to tear down the image that they have built up over their entire lives because someone who 99% of people haven't met and only know in the context of football coach did something bad. Grow up. Life isn't all about sports. You want to idolize someone idolize your parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles. The idols in my life are my parents, grandparents, and all of my aunts and uncles, especially the ones who raised me when shit got bad. I wasn't asking Tony Dungy or Jon Gruden or Phil Jackson to be my idol and raise me cause I thought the dudes coached a sport pretty damn good.

Biggest thing I can say is this: there is nothing larger than life. Sports are not larger than life. Jobs are not larger than life, families, friends, whatever, there is nothing larger than life. Stop making people within sports larger than life personas. There are plenty of arguments that can be made, like Paterno was "just following the law for what he was supposed to do". Some laws in life are just screwed up; there's a reason why O.J. Simpson didn't go to jail for murder. I don't want to make it sound like I am talking directly to Paterno, but you are not above life, Mr. Paterno. Your place, your legacy, your job, those are not larger than life. There are certain situations where I can understand where you don't want to break rank and file, but we are talking about you having the knowledge that one of your assistants is having sex with a ten-year-old boy in a shower at your practice facility and you did not do anything other than follow this "rank and file" order. The ball is going to get rolling. There are already new reports this morning about how this scumbag, and I'm not even going to give him the honor to even refer to him by name, pimped out these kids, these kids who were already at-risk who needed somebody to watch over and take care of them, that this dirtball pimped out kids to rich donors. This isn't about having a moral obligation or a social obligation or whatever, this is about having the obligation to protect these children in any way possible, not just by following "rank and file". Instead, the brand of Penn St football was protected, the brand of Joe Paterno.

Let me ask you this: If you believe Paterno is not in the wrong here, that he followed what he had to do, where is the line drawn then? Where do we draw the line as a society if it isn't at at-risk children getting molested, raped, and pimped out? To quote Bomani Jones, and he was talking about paying college athletes when he said this but it is applicable in this situation, "If you do not agree with me you are wrong".