Worshiping someone who enabled child rape makes a group of people fundamentally worse than those who do no such thing.
I fully believe that statement.
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- Thread starter mercer_buckeye
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Worshiping someone who enabled child rape makes a group of people fundamentally worse than those who do no such thing.
I fully believe that statement.
Comparing the states of Ohio and Pennsylvania =/= comparing Ohio State and Penn State fans. Not even close. Ohio State is in Columbus, which has a population of almost 840,000, of which only less than 8% are OSU on-campus students, and is not rurally isolated. State College, on the other hand, has a population of just over 150,000, of which almost a third are PSU on-campus students, and is very rurally isolated. The State College environment is the perfect petri dish for its current culture of denial and rejection of outside input...
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409fold
All-American
That is true. State College and Columbus are rather different places. State College's "Ohio doppleganger" is Athens. Nice enough place, but definitely not Columbus.
That said, most Penn State students and alums do/did not grow up in State College. They grow up in places like Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Erie or Allentown --- which are a lot like Cleveland, Cincinnati, Toledo or Dayton.
Why would a radical transformation occur when they turn graduate High School and move to State College?
Maybe I should start looking around at the Ohio Bobcats I know. Are they more likely to become cult members?
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It happens before they get done with high school. It happens when they're children and they watch how their parents behave in regards to Penn State.
And we aren't talking just alums. It's the fanbase as a whole.
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409fold
All-American
I see.
Though that begs the question --- what about those children's parents? Who influenced them?
Pennsylvania and Ohio are very similar states culturally. Pennsylvania and Ohio are both states that have a lot of residents that like football. Penn State and Ohio State are both historically very good at football. Given all the above, Penn State fans and Ohio State fans should be very similar.
Yet 90% of Penn State football fans are bat-shit crazy and 10% of Ohio State football fans are bat-shit crazy.
What was the root cause of this "great divergence"?
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Penn State fans buying into "success with honor" for decades and attaching so much self worth to it that they can't deal with the reality of it all being a sham?
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Delaware Buck
Heisman
It has nothing to do with geography. Some of the most cultish penn state fans I've ever met were from NJ. It has everything to do with worshiping a messianic football coach who told his believers to 'follow me and we'll win the right way'. When you tie your own self esteem to that ideal there is no way to be rational.
We were at an event in NYC last year with some investment bank folks. These are well adjusted, white collar types in their 30's & 40's that make good money and have what most people would define as success. As soon as the conversation went to college football it comes out that 3 of them are PSU guys all from the Philly area. We have some light conversation about wins & losses and 'conspiracy with refs'. We do all agree the B1G refs stink but they of course see a bias against PSU. Then the subject of Pedterno comes up and it's like they flipped a switch. I heard... he was railroaded by the BOT, he did his job reporting everything what do people want, they need to return that statue ASAP..." At some point I just walked away shaking my head and didn't return to that group. And the same scenario has played out at youth sporting events, church functions, charity functions, neighborhood meetings and work functions. It's the same pattern repeated over and over.
We were at an event in NYC last year with some investment bank folks. These are well adjusted, white collar types in their 30's & 40's that make good money and have what most people would define as success. As soon as the conversation went to college football it comes out that 3 of them are PSU guys all from the Philly area. We have some light conversation about wins & losses and 'conspiracy with refs'. We do all agree the B1G refs stink but they of course see a bias against PSU. Then the subject of Pedterno comes up and it's like they flipped a switch. I heard... he was railroaded by the BOT, he did his job reporting everything what do people want, they need to return that statue ASAP..." At some point I just walked away shaking my head and didn't return to that group. And the same scenario has played out at youth sporting events, church functions, charity functions, neighborhood meetings and work functions. It's the same pattern repeated over and over.
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409fold
All-American
OK, let's run with that.
Your words: (1) It has nothing to do with geography, (2) it has "everything to do" with a "messianic football coach" who "told his believers" "follow me and we'll win the right way."
Michigan almost hired Joe Paterno in December 1968. If that happened, I assume (since "it has nothing to do with geography") Michigan fans would have fallen victim to the "messianic football coach", right?
Extending that --- if, ANY school had their football coach drop dead in December 1968 (God forbid) and then hired Joe Paterno --- same thing, right?
If I'm reading your hypothesis correctly, Pennsylvanians are simply victims of a messianic football coach?
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Roundabout
Senior
I think 409 is closer to the cultist thinking then he wants us to believe... so many things to say.... but would be preaching to the choir with 99 percent of the folks in this thread and the 1 percent (or 1) is to blind to admit to the Penn State culture.
Penn State would have said that Woody was right to hit the guy on the sideline and should get a raise for it. Didn't Michigan fire the coach after Bo for being drunk and hitting on a waitress or something? The waitress would have had to go into protective custody and the coach would have gotten another raise. Tressel is still loved, but most fans knew he had to go.... In no case are the overwhelming majority trying to tell other fan bases 5 years later how the coach was railroaded by the Admin of the school...
Penn State would have said that Woody was right to hit the guy on the sideline and should get a raise for it. Didn't Michigan fire the coach after Bo for being drunk and hitting on a waitress or something? The waitress would have had to go into protective custody and the coach would have gotten another raise. Tressel is still loved, but most fans knew he had to go.... In no case are the overwhelming majority trying to tell other fan bases 5 years later how the coach was railroaded by the Admin of the school...
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It's a sad commentary on the human mind. Consider, Warren Jeffs in doing prison time for child sexual assault and yet I've seen estimates that the s.o.b. still has something like 10,000 active followers. The population of our planet is what space aliens watch when they don't want to pay for episodes of The Kardashians.
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Delaware Buck
Heisman
So many strawmen here it's hard to know where to start. Again it's not geography per se it's buying into the message, lock, stock and barrel and making it part of a person's self esteem - "we're better than everyone else because we do it the right way. Joe said so and therefore I can NEVER believe that Joe has any blood on his hands for what happened over those 40 years. If fact I don't think the university is to blame at all..." Where geography comes in is that scUM is located close to a major media market & there is certainly more media/investigation scrutiny than could have ever been applied in bumble fvck state college. So those forces would likely have been very different. But the other stuff is all unrelated and hypothetical. There is no way answer if it would have happened elsewhere the exact same way - the variables are too different.
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