Monday, June 25, 2007

Joe Paterno: The Master at Work

According to this, "the last thing Joe Paterno wishes to discuss is his legacy." So we are here today to discuss it for him.

He's a master.

In April, after several members of his team busted into an apartment and attacked party-goers, Paterno was facing what appeared to be a disaster off and on the field. Six players were paraded in front of cameras as they entered court and branded as hooligans, but most important, Paterno faced losing safety Anthony Scirrotto, who called the posse to the apartment after a couple of non-footballers apparently laughed at his girlfriend.

But Paterno's preemptive strike of announcing that the entire team will be required to clean out Beaver Stadium after home games this fall worked. All but two of the players have been cleared and Scirrotto will be available when fall practice begins. If he gets suspended by Paterno it likely will be for one game, the Sept. 1 opener against dreaded Florida International. The next week, of course, something called Notre Dame comes to town.

Any way you look at it, you have to admire Paterno for pulling this one off.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's not clear to me why Scirrotto is still charged. The prosectution has not, to my knowledge, provided any evidence against him.

Anonymous said...

Laughed at his girlfriend? More like his girlfriend was tossed to the concrete by one of the three street thugs. One of the three street thugs also sucker punched Scirrotto in the face as he bent down to pick up his telephone that yet another one of the three street thugs slapped from his hand.

Not a single witness can even testify that Scirrotto was in the apartment at the time of the fight. Not a single witness can testify that Scirrotto did anything other than call his brother and Lydell Sargeant for back-up to keep the other two thugs out of it as Scirrotto settled the score with the thug that threw his girlfriend to the concrete and sucker punched him.

Don't let small things like the real facts get in the way of your editorializing.