I
was pretty burnt out on news on PSU (and that without much consumption
of it: I get news burnout pretty fast, especially with horrible things
that don't affect my life or the lives of anyone I know), so it's pretty
odd that I listened to an entire hour of PSU on NPR the other day. But
the show was different from the typical investigative journalism focused
on discovering and broadcasting the lurid details of something that
titillates us by horrifying us. It was bookended by rebroadcasts of a
PSU story from 2009. As someone who is baffled and intrigued by the
profound depths of sports fanaticism, I was engrossed.
(In case I have friends unfamiliar with the situation, Penn State University - PSU - is an American university in Pennsylvania with a very popular American football program, which until recently was led by Coach Joe Paterno, a venerable, grandfatherly man as widely acclaimed for his moral integrity and wisdom as for his skill at coaching football. Then it was revealed that one of his assistants had been sexually abusing young boys, and it seems that Paterno was told about it and did nothing but pass along the information to the PSU administration.)
So why did PSU students riot in favor of Paterno? The answer to that question may seem too obvious: because they are horrible, horrible people. But even if that's true, there's more to the story than that, and that's what is interesting, and perhaps even enlightening. The only way to set the context for the student body's response to the PSU scandal is to delve deeply into what it means to be a PSU football fan.
PSU football is big. Not just big business; not just big crowds; perhaps we need to delve even more deeply - what drives a person to become a fanatic, a devotee of a sports team? Why do men paint their chests to attend a game? Why do patriotism and the World Cup go hand in hand? And for crying out loud, what's the deal with hooliganism? Why is it so important to our lives and happiness to follow the team we love, win or lose, through every play, every at-bat, every shot on goal?
People live their whole lives trying to cure their gnawing sense of isolation.
So why wouldn't the Bushwackers band together to raise hell when F.C. lose? Why wouldn't our national identity be associated with our sports identity? Why wouldn't a man paint his chest to fit in with the multitude who secretly wonder if they love their metafamily (and thus fit in as well) as much as he does? It's no mystery when you realize that we all long to have a sense of belonging to something larger than ourselves. And we don't get that anywhere else.
So what is the deal with Joe Paterno? He was like a father (or grandpa) not just to the people he had met and engaged in person, but to thousands of PSU students and alumni, sports fans who saw him as the cornerstone of the identity they made for themselves with PSU football. He was a great coach. He was a mentor to his players. If anybody really deserved the adulation of college football heroism, it was JoePa, the man who insisted on "Success with Honor" and commanded a squad with exceptionally high grades, class attendance, and graduation, in a demographic (NCAA Division I football players) not known for those qualities. Is it any wonder that PSU football fans don't know how to behave when confronted with the likelihood that Paterno was careless with the safety and the innocence of children?
What would we do if someone whose integrity and wisdom were crucial to our identity turned out to be someone who could not be trusted? Maybe we would shield him from blame in our own minds and take to the streets with whomever shares our social identity. This is not to excuse or rationalize the behavior of PSU football fans. This is just an attempt to get us to think about sports fandom and social identity in general: why do we identify with groups? Do we sacrifice our individualism for them? What do we gain from being part of a group that is devoted to a certain mix of colors being worn by strangers as they play a game? Is it all just an excuse for camaraderie that we have otherwise neglected, balkanizing our communities and our spirits in the relentless push for greater and greater technology and wealth? Are we more likely to do things that we regret if we slide effortlessly into the socially acceptable sports rivalries for our identity, instead of consciously identifying with our communities and families for their own sake?
There are no easy answers, but we are well on our way to finding better answers if we start asking better questions.
(In case I have friends unfamiliar with the situation, Penn State University - PSU - is an American university in Pennsylvania with a very popular American football program, which until recently was led by Coach Joe Paterno, a venerable, grandfatherly man as widely acclaimed for his moral integrity and wisdom as for his skill at coaching football. Then it was revealed that one of his assistants had been sexually abusing young boys, and it seems that Paterno was told about it and did nothing but pass along the information to the PSU administration.)
So why did PSU students riot in favor of Paterno? The answer to that question may seem too obvious: because they are horrible, horrible people. But even if that's true, there's more to the story than that, and that's what is interesting, and perhaps even enlightening. The only way to set the context for the student body's response to the PSU scandal is to delve deeply into what it means to be a PSU football fan.
PSU football is big. Not just big business; not just big crowds; perhaps we need to delve even more deeply - what drives a person to become a fanatic, a devotee of a sports team? Why do men paint their chests to attend a game? Why do patriotism and the World Cup go hand in hand? And for crying out loud, what's the deal with hooliganism? Why is it so important to our lives and happiness to follow the team we love, win or lose, through every play, every at-bat, every shot on goal?
People live their whole lives trying to cure their gnawing sense of isolation.
So why wouldn't the Bushwackers band together to raise hell when F.C. lose? Why wouldn't our national identity be associated with our sports identity? Why wouldn't a man paint his chest to fit in with the multitude who secretly wonder if they love their metafamily (and thus fit in as well) as much as he does? It's no mystery when you realize that we all long to have a sense of belonging to something larger than ourselves. And we don't get that anywhere else.
So what is the deal with Joe Paterno? He was like a father (or grandpa) not just to the people he had met and engaged in person, but to thousands of PSU students and alumni, sports fans who saw him as the cornerstone of the identity they made for themselves with PSU football. He was a great coach. He was a mentor to his players. If anybody really deserved the adulation of college football heroism, it was JoePa, the man who insisted on "Success with Honor" and commanded a squad with exceptionally high grades, class attendance, and graduation, in a demographic (NCAA Division I football players) not known for those qualities. Is it any wonder that PSU football fans don't know how to behave when confronted with the likelihood that Paterno was careless with the safety and the innocence of children?
What would we do if someone whose integrity and wisdom were crucial to our identity turned out to be someone who could not be trusted? Maybe we would shield him from blame in our own minds and take to the streets with whomever shares our social identity. This is not to excuse or rationalize the behavior of PSU football fans. This is just an attempt to get us to think about sports fandom and social identity in general: why do we identify with groups? Do we sacrifice our individualism for them? What do we gain from being part of a group that is devoted to a certain mix of colors being worn by strangers as they play a game? Is it all just an excuse for camaraderie that we have otherwise neglected, balkanizing our communities and our spirits in the relentless push for greater and greater technology and wealth? Are we more likely to do things that we regret if we slide effortlessly into the socially acceptable sports rivalries for our identity, instead of consciously identifying with our communities and families for their own sake?
There are no easy answers, but we are well on our way to finding better answers if we start asking better questions.
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