It's been said that the only people who hate JoePa are Nazis and Pitt fans . I'll go ahead and assume you're still bitter about Joe ruining your perfect season in '81. No hard feelings though; it's not like this is the PennLive forum.
OK, this has
nothing to do with the comic, so I'm apologizing in advance.
[rant]
I
loathe football, I think I'm the only american who does. It's sole purpose at a school is generating revenue, and anyone who thinks otherwise is fooling themselves.
I'm an academic, and my first position out of grad school was at one of the 17 Penn State branch campuses. I was on the 6-year tenure track, and in year 6,
they changed the fucking rules for tenure. No grandfather clause. There were about 30 of us system wide that were torpedoed right out of the water. 1/5 of my
life, down the tubes. I sued (the school withheld info on the others, so we couldn't make it a class-action suit). I won a small settlement, but I'd moved on, and didn't want to go back to a school that mistreats its faculty the way Penn State does, especially after I found what a
real school is like.
And why can they do that? because - big secret, here - Penn State is
not a state school. They're
private, and even though they get some state funding (for the ag extension work they do), the state has no say in how the school's run. They can be the world's biggest assholes to their faculty and employees (and often are, I can give you several horror stories, two in my own family), and no one can do anything about it.
Remember, being big and popular does
not make you a good school. It can, however, make you a bully. And emblematic of that is paying an octogenarian who should've retired 20 years ago over a million dollars a year for doing next to nothing - his coaching staff does all the work. Hell, the team played better when he was out having his hip replaced! To me, he's a symbol of nearly everything that's wrong, not only with Penn State, but with America.
God, now I just want to punch him even more. Or maybe sneak a bazooka into a game. Not that I'd be able to stand going to one.
I need a beer. No, three beers.
And an atavan.
Fuck, I was actually shaking by the time I finished typing that. Dammit... sorry, you just stroked some raw nerves nine years after the original wound. Didn't know it was still open...