Letters to the editor
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The Penn State trustees did what they had to do
While I sincerely believe that Penn State coach Joe Paterno was deserving of all the accolades that have been bestowed upon him this week (though more than a few Pitt fans are, no doubt, willing to add stubborn and arrogant to the list), I feel that the university's trustees deserve a bit of defending. What were they to do?
It seems as if the football program was harboring an accused serial child sexual predator for over a decade. Jerry Sandusky had total access to football facilities up to the day of his arrest. Given that fact, surely no one can actually believe that anyone in any way associated with Mr. Sandusky or the football program was somehow going to survive this, let alone the head of the program.
Cover-up might be too strong a word, but something very much like a cover-up was certainly going on. Would Mr. Sandusky have been able to last as long if he had been accused of trying to start a fire in that locker room that night? Probably not.
Penn State's board of trustees may not have gotten many things right. For instance, the trustees still seem to have more concern for the football program than they do for Mr. Sandusky's alleged victims or even the health of the university at large. The one thing the trustees did get right, however, was getting rid of everyone who might be tainted by suspicion.
If decency didn't drive them to this conclusion, then I assume it must have been their lawyers.
ERIN MARTIER
Vandergrift
He was Penn State
ESPN shot the first bullet in the assassination of Joe Paterno and did so for ratings and money. The Penn State board of trustees chambered the fatal round and did so out of pride and cowardice. I don't know which is worse.
Yes, I said assassination. Surely, the trustees see the link -- we all do.
Coach Joe Paterno may have passed away due to cancer, but this board hastened the effects. Now those of us who remain in a post-Paterno world are subjected to the musings and harsh judgments of a man every bit the superior to those purporting to be an authority on his ethics and morality. The funny thing is that he would have been the last to believe that statement.
What the trustees fail to grasp is that the Penn State ideal -- that bond we share that transcends sports and forever links family, education, community, philanthropy and athletics -- did not originate from some brilliant marketing campaign. It took a simple football coach to teach it, unite the vision and then live the example for more than 50 years.
Penn State is not about football, but it took a football coach to teach us that.
I am certain that via countless retellings of the trustees' decision to sacrifice our university's greatest ambassador, most influential leader and renowned humanitarian in defiance of due process that the true story is no longer recognizable. I hope that in their version they all possess the hero status they so unabashedly sought.
We are, and they will never be, Penn State.
TODD HAYNAL
Penn State Class of 2000
Las Vegas, Nev.
The writer is a native of Johnstown .
Franco, true friend
God bless you, Franco Harris, for standing by your friend (Joe Paterno) in very trying times. You are a man of conviction, and people across this country will remember you as much for this stance as they will for the Immaculate Reception.
DON DOBY
Charlotte, N.C.
Photographic gems
They've done it again. The front page of Tuesday's Post-Gazette carried a delightful small gem of a photo by Darrell Sapp. His photos are consistently artworks, and he seems to document our city during all its waking hours.
And in the Sports section, there was another winner by Peter Diana, who always captures the decisive moment in sports action. These two Post-Gazette photographers give us the best of two worlds.
CHARLES O'MAHONY
Crafton
Confused weather
With the advent of global warming, I propose that we rename this month of sun and gloom, temperature ups and downs as "Juneuary."
(We find our fun where we can.)
LISA HOLMAN
Squirrel Hill
CAS undermined
The same day the article "Advanced Classes in City High Schools No Longer Just for 'Gifted' Students" (Jan. 16) appeared, my son, a 2011 graduate of the Centers for Advanced Study program at Allderdice High School, called me. He wanted me to know that his second lecture in his evolution course at Kent State was word for word what he had learned from his teacher, Ed Flynn, in CAS Biology 2. He went on to tell me that many of his freshman classes were a review of what he learned in his CAS classes.
The Pittsburgh school board has indicated it wants to give good students an opportunity to enroll in college-level classes. What it forgot to mention is that not only are they dropping the caliber of student in these classes but they also are rewriting the curriculum to accommodate the new students.
The CAS program has allowed students who want to learn and plan on going to college to take college preparatory courses. The 2011 CAS graduates of Allderdice compare to any high school in the area. These graduates are currently in several Ivy League schools and many of the top public and private colleges in the country. This decision to dummy down the CAS program has put Pittsburgh Public Schools parents whose kids are bound for college in a real dilemma. They have to choose between keeping their children in public school so they can get the Pittsburgh Promise money for college or sending them to a high school that actually prepares them for a top public or private college or university.
I wonder if future parents of CAS graduates will receive phone calls from their college children telling them they were reviewing material they had learned in high school. The call will most likely be, "I need help. I have never seen this material before."
JOEL B. KUNDIN
Squirrel Hill
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First Published January 28, 2012 12:00 am
