In Retrospect: Why Penn State should have had their football team removed.

Penn State will never learn from the Joe Paterno era and the mistakes that he made. Sure, there will probably never be another Sandusky situation but Penn State Football is still the most important part of Penn State University. Even though the school claims that they are now one team across 31 sports and 34 campuses (even though each campus has their own sports teams), they still celebrate their football team like nothing happened. The ribbons on the uniform do not mean anything and neither do all the awareness announcements. They also had military appreciation day this past weekend and what does that mean, it was just a ploy to gain positive attention and don't forget about the extra money it brings in to sell camo Penn State shirts to the 40,000 students. The students are still taught that football is more important and once those students become alumni, and a couple of them make it rich and then in turn control the university you can bet your ass that the football team will be able to get away with whatever the hell it wants to again.  Maybe the school shouldn't have the team removed but they could possibly tone it down a little bit. Cut out a bit of the band that is only there because of Joe Paterno, make the game only accessible to students and alumni (allow one guest each) and even though there should be enough to fill that stadium, you would be surprised how empty that stadium that again is only there because of Joe Paterno. They should also remove scholarships completely from the football team to make the school realize that they are an institution of higher education (and a damned good one) first and a football program last.

Steroids and the Hall of Fame

This article isn't only about steroids and the hall of fame but also cheating and wins. Not only are people trying to prevent Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire from entering the hall of fame, some of them want their names stricken from the record book just as the NCAA has done with both Bobby Bowden and Joe Paterno. The fact is, those games and those home runs happened and they happened during official sporting contests.

 Let's start with the NCAA, are you trying to tell me that Joe Paterno doesn't have the most wins in Division 1 College Football? Well there is no way you will ever disassociate his name with that record, no one ever looks at your official record book online. They go to wikipedia or google and they just find the first list of names and Joe Paterno's name will be on that list about half the time. People will remember who Joe Paterno was and yet I get what you were trying to do, it doesn't mean anything. UMASS will always hang up the banners that you tried to take away and FSU fans will always remember those games that Bobby Bowden won but apparently were never played. I understand that you are trying to make the best out of a situation but there has to be another way. I may not have the answer for you but it is not here, the kids deserve to say that they won those games.

That's not the only
thing he had

Next with baseball, we all know that the names will never be stricken from the record book but those guys are simply not going to be allowed into the Hall of Fame. Those players deserve to be there even if it means that their plaque will mention that they were associated with steroids. Barry Bonds did great things for baseball, if you don't remember everyone was trying to watch #756, he may have done it by cheating but a lot of people cheated and he still hit the most home runs in the history of baseball. I remember watching those games and seeing how great he was, and you are trying to tell me that he does not deserve to be a member of the hall of fame.

First Day of College Football: The Fall of the Navy Midshipmen, Penn State, and Misericordia(Even though there's just began)

Greatest Tackle in the History of Mankind

Well this was the first day of the 2012 college football season and instead of talking about all of the action from today I am going to focus on some of the games that meant most to me. As a lifelong fan of the Naval Academy it was heart breaking get destroyed in Ireland against Notre Dame. Oddly it seemed like Navy was the Irish and Notre Dame were the British. Penn State played its first game under new head coach Bill O'Brien and although they started off hot, they were just not able to finish. Meanwhile, the Gettysburg Bullets started their season off on a high note with a score that was just a little lopsided.

Ricky Dobbs

Navy's performance in their 50-10 loss was surprising to me, since my grandfather went their and my Dad went to Penn State but hated Joe Paterno, I always rooted for Navy and I just must have been lucky the past few years. Craig Candeto was the first Navy quarterback that I deeply remembered and that was because of his performance in an Army-Navy game quite a few a years ago and then he was followed by the solid  but not quite Candeto Aaron Polanco, he was the quarterback on some of the more successful Navy teams but it wasn't because of him. After that there was Lamar Owens who had real ability and a real team behind him. He later got in trouble with the law for an unspeakable good, but no one wants to think of one of their child hood idles as a sinner, so I have no problem forgetting about it and just looking at his accomplishments as quarterback. After Lamar there was the Hawaiian that will be known as Kaipo-Noa, who I spent some of the best Saturdays of my childhood idolizing. His back-ups name was Bryant and that is all I remember about him except for that he would come in late in games when Kaipo was tired and do alright, he was such an asset they had him play slotback and even return punts. Ricky Dobbs was next in line and he was the most skilled of the bunch, the one problem was that his team wasn't as good as previous incarnations and coach Paul Johnson left the new coach just wasn't able to do the job.

Craig Candeto

But coaches and quarterbacks weren't the only assets on the Navy teams during those years. Fullbacks such as Kyle Eckel, Adam Ballard, and Eric Kettani were such stalwarts in the backfield that it really helped the quarterback use the option offense to the best of their abilities. Slotbacks like Reggie Campbell and the current senior Gee Gee Greene will always have a place in my heart. I watched them play so many games and I might not remember all of them but I do remember them losing to Notre Dame on a last second field goal even though they blocked the kick. I remember when they sacked Jimmy Claussen for that one win (as well as Ram Vela diving for that tackle). I also remember them beating Mizzouri and losing to Texas Tech. I also remember their first lost to a service academy in 4 years last year (I think it was last year) and I will always remember this game against Notre Dame. They no longer had that swagger about them like they use to, no matter what the score was they would try to kill the ball carrier on each play but it just doesn't look like the same team. The kids use to be hungry and now they are always outmatched. Sure, they were always slower and weaker, but now they don't even look like they compete. Notre Dame may be a good team, but no Navy team I ever loved would lose like that.

Bill O'Brien

Off to Penn State now, since now half of me is a Penn State fan, I didn't get to watch much of the game but I'm sure the score doesn't tell the whole story. Penn State still has heart and talent, they just only have 30 minutes of it. There is no doubt that Penn State's starting 22 is better than Ohio's 22, its just that in football you need about 22 guys on each side of the ball to win the game. PSU just couldn't rotate their defensive line and that ended up hurting them in the second half (almost as much as the fact that their quarterback sucks). This might be a long year for Penn State fans but at least the kids are trying and the school may have gotten the short end of the stick not just on the punishment they were handed but on the people they chose to trust, the same thing could of happened to Bobby Bowden but it didn't.

Off to my true team, the Gettysburg Bullets. The only way to describe going to a Gettysburg College football game is to watch alumni talk about how much money their parents spent to send them there. Seriously, that is what this school is famous for, sure we are all going to have jobs when we graduate because this is a really good school, but everyone here is either upper middle class or upper middle class. Now the game was a blowout because it was Misericordia's first football game ever. I give the kids credit just for going out there every play they were getting stomped on. My floormate/middle linebacker Kodie had a great day (I'm sure kids at Penn State could say they live on the same floor as a football player). The score was 43-0 at halftime which I left at then watched the soccer team win 2-0.

Yes, we have really ugly uniforms

It is now safe to say that I am a Gettysburg fan and a Penn State observer, I don't think that I will be rooting for Navy anymore just because they are not the team that I use to root for. I don't know how Gettysburg season will shape up but now I am a part of that upper middle class G-Burg tradition, so I will root for them the whole way. Penn State will just be interesting to watch and I still think I will root for Navy when they play on the 15th, I just don't think I'll watch them play another game all year.