Comment
Print
Chase, East Rutherford, R-S Central and Thomas Jefferson all begin the fall sports season next week, most are anticipating football season.
On Monday, July 30th organized practice begins for Rutherford County schools as well as every school across the state.
Chase looks to prove last year was no fluke, sporting a 9-4 record. East Rutherford has the athletes to make an interesting club this season. R-S Central hopes that offseason work of getting stronger and faster will land them a playoff spot come November. And Thomas Jefferson will begin the Jerry Cash era as the new Gryphons coach. I will have more about the high school scene in the coming weeks.
While we are on the subject of football, I can’t imagine how the victims of the whole Penn Sate scandal feel. You could also say that in a sense with innocent Penn State fans, who feel ashamed of what has clouded the Central Pennsylvania school.
Iconic and legendary, that is how most would view well-known football coach Joe Paterno less than a year ago. Since former football assistant, Jerry Sandusky was accused and charged with in-house sex abuse crimes, Paterno was removed as coach shortly thereafter. Paterno then died two months following removal. While he had lung cancer, those who were closer to Paterno said that he passed away of a broken heart with all that had happened during those last few months in his life.
Sandusky was recently convicted of 45 abuse charges leaving the school with the biggest black eye an accredited college could receive.
Making it even worse, Penn State removed Paterno’s statue on the campus Sunday after an investigation turned up that Paterno knew more about the sex abuse and took no action. Before Paterno’s death, he did say that he reported it to Penn State internally, but nothing was ever done about it. Is Paterno guilty of not doing more about he situation? Ultimately yes. The removal of a statue that meant so much to a school is very shocking and a rare thing to see at this day and age.
However, in order for Penn State to move on, they said that they had no choice but to remove the statue. If the whole ordeal wasn’t bad enough, the school was hit with 60 million dollars worth of sanctions by the NCAA for covering it up and letting it go on.
Pile on 90 lost scholarships, a four year postseason ban and all wins vacated from 1998-2011 and that’s a punishment you probably will never see again in the NCAA.
In retrospect, it’s sad that a man who provided 409 victories to a college football program went down the way he did. Although, in new findings, you can’t help but acknowledge that Paterno being fired was the right thing to do a year ago. It’s hard to feel bad for those who concealed the dealings of this nature for so long. Paterno was dedicated and loved Penn State, but the facts are the facts. Unfortunately, Paterno will now be remembered for one thing and one thing only. Whether it is fair or not, that is beyond me. I am a little torn because Paterno builds up 46 years of a remarkable resume and reputation, then one major issue arises and it becomes too late to resolve. He had time to fix the problems years ago and that is the toughest thing to think about.
And lastly, some good news in local sports, congrats to Rutherfordton’s Junior League softball team in becoming state champions among Little League All-Star play this year. They came back to take two consecutive elimination games to win at the state level. They will travel to Fort Myers, Florida this weekend to play in regionals. I wish them a good showing and may they be safe in their travels.
Also, during the offseason, Maddox Stamey, who quarterbacked at East Rutherford and was a forward on the basketball team for the last two seasons is now a Wake Forest Demon Deacon. Stamey will serve as a walk on quarterback his freshman year. While he sits down the depth chart and will likely not play this season, he deserves to be at a good school considering all the academic accolades he has received over the years at East and he seemed pretty excited about the opportunity the last time we talked. No doubt in my mind that he will do good things there, but being their starter or backup is still very much down the road.
