I think the Wall Street Journal went trolling with this College Football Grid of Shame. Not trolling buttoned-up hedge fund sheep eager to make a dime off the casino of American greed. No. They trolled Penn Staters. Hard.
Criticizing a Penn State student or fan (and, like everyone else in Pennsylvania, I know many) is like poking a hornet’s nest with a Bic pen– you’re hand will be way to close to the blowback. So, predictably, when the WSJ (or, The Journal, if you’ve attended a dressage competition) ranked Penn State as the most embarrassing school and somewhere probably not high enough in terms of powerhousity in D-I football, our friend Andrew Porter of The School Philly took the bait:
OK, fine. If you’re going to put sanctions in the criteria than Penn State has to be the most “embarrassing.” Can’t really argue that, but who cares? Ironically, it’s polar opposite in terms of how the fan base, the students, the alumni, the coaches, and the players at Penn State actually feel about their football team. Embarrassed? Seriously? Ha. All the sanctions did was bring Penn State closer together and make us a million times more prideful.
Honestly, I kind of like this chart. More motivation. More bulletin board material. Us and Against the World mentality, and that’s how we like it.
Rah, rah rah! Somewhere, a WS Journaler sits back and laughs– It’s too easy! It’s too easy, I tell you!
Anyway, every school is prideful, and I hate when Penn Staters act like theirs is the only school on Earth where people love the institution and its traditions. For some reason, students and alumni of virtually every other college understand that, hey, everyone feels this way. But whatever. The Wall Street Journal thing is a joke. They picked the low-hanging fruit to kick a school while it’s down, and that’s not very nice!
Meanwhile, Temple receives the chart’s Philly Tough Fighting Rocky Spirit Award— they finished as one of the weaklings but among the most admirable. Basically, hey, Owl, you try really hard and that’s cute, but you’re not very good.
My alma mater, Villanova, was not on the chart. They don’t have a D-I (A) football team. And yes in fact my grapes are sour.
29 Responses
I will take being on the far weak side, but equal with Army? I believe we destroyed them last year.
I told you not to go to the shitty overrated and overpriced joke of a school called Nova!!
1-AA ball is so much better than 1-A, cause playoffs
Nova does have a basketball coach who cheats on his wife with incoming freshman soccer players, before they start getting soccer legs and wearing Adidas sandals 24/7
I’d love to know what’s so embarrassing about Notre Dame
The guy who wrote the article said it was the manti teo fake girlfriend incident. With this know-it-all prick’s chart-making methodology I’m surprised Rutgers isn’t swimming down there with penn state, what with the Tyler clementi stuff probably still hanging over their heads
Oh, plus that big cover-up of their abusive basketball coach that got their AD fired (and almost their new president), and the new AD having a history of being abusive to her former team. Yeah this Wall Street journal writer is probably a Rutgers alum
Rutgers is in New Jersey. A certain amount of shame/scandal is to be accepted. If anything. Rutgers is about par when compared to the rest of the state.
Expected**
This grid is fucking stupid, mostly because of the subjective “ick” variable that douchebag McGee decided to throw in there, and also because it doesn’t seem to fully account for academic reputation/ranking. I’m sure a lot of the public ivies and top private research universities would cringe if they saw themselves ranked lower than temple or San Jose state on some chart published by the Wall Street journal. Apologies to temple because all my friends went there and owls rule
I know its been over a year since this whole mess was in the limelight, and im not saying staters should stand in the corner forever…but I still want to punch someone/thing hard when I hear that type of response from Penn Staters. Theyve been playing the martyr card ever since this whole thing started. And every time I hear it, or some shlub defend that fraud Paterno, I cant help but get really pissed because its just a slap in the face to the victims and general overall decency.
Judging by the fact that the fans seemed to have this type of response from the get go and put football waayyy too high on their list of priorities, they deserve every shit label they get. Not saying that they dont care about the victims, but the fact that a good faction of them defend Paterno, and the fact that they actually had the nerve to complain about a fuckin game during that investigation means that whether they like it or not, they were at least a small part of the problem up there.
“Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go attend mass”
Hypocrite.
Lol what a cheap response.
A) Im an atheist, so fuck that.
B) The analogy doesnt work because its not like the pope or the cardinals who enable the institutional failings and cover ups of ped-preists are so far removed from the individual churches that the ped-preists belong to. Itd be like blaming Penn State if it were Tom Corbett or the head of the NCAA were the ones who molested/covered up instead of Sandusky and the penn state brass. Totally different.
C) Were talking about football, not religion…Just the fact that Penn Staters fail to see the error in comparing their football program says it all. You cant fault worshippers ffor going to church during a ped scandal bbecause we’re talking about religion, not a game. Religion is a lifetime of strong emotional faith and service that sculpts a foundation for a persons entire moral compass and behavior. They get a pass and are in no way enablers of what the pope and his merry band of kiddiddlers do. Football is a fucking game.
Comparing their football program to religion says it all**
Actually it is a systematic coverup in the church, you moron. Their policy is if a priest gets caught, they move them to another parish. Dope.
Umm…I agree. Thats my point. People wayy above the individual congregations enabled those monsters. Worshippers dont enable them.
People directly involved and employed by penn state–not ncaa higher ups or the equivalent to the higher ups who simply transferred the priests–covered up the sandusky stuff. Penn state fans not only minimized that by bitching about football, a statue, and records wayyyy to early, but there is a large faction of staters who did, and still do, defend one of the men who arguably had the most power to do something but didnt. Most of these people probably never met paterno when he was alive, but they defend him as if hes their own flesh and blood…because of football. Its that kind of nonsense that makes staters look like fucking assholes.
James,
Wow buddy you really need to relax. My guess is you’ve always hated penn state and this is just a perfect reason for you to go on this long winded profanity laced diatribe spewing absolute nonsense. Do yourself a favor….take a deep breathe….call your doctor….get some meds and ask him what he thinks about anger management classes. #weare
I understand what you’re saying in some ways, but I also think you’re being completely close minded here. It pisses me off as an alumni when I see complete morons like Franco Harris crusading for Paterno. Believe me, the majority of alumni, especially those who are younger like myself, aren’t interested in defending what Paterno or any of those other scumbags did. However, there is a huge difference between not wanting the entire university and its alumni as cult members who don’t give a shit about the victims. That’s simply not true, last I checked they didn’t have the alumni vote on whether Sandusky’s hideous crimes should be covered up. So yeah, I have a big problem with people like yourself who choose to blame an entire university and all those associated with it for horrible things that a handful of people did. It’s a lot easier to point your vitriol towards a giant entity rather than at the individuals who actually perpetrated these crimes, Paterno included. As far as everybody associated with the school puts football way too high on their priorities list? What does that even mean, have you never heard of the SEC before? Athletics programs have way too much sway over the rest of the school at basically every big time D-1 University in this country. Don’t try to tell yourself that Penn State is the only place that it’s a problem. Just think a little harder about it, that’s all.
Ok…first of all, were not talking about the SEC or whoever else…Youre right, theyre terrible too. I think we can all agree about that. Just look at the story that just came out about Aron Hernandez. Youre right…and your point is? Im criticizing Penn State, not those other places. They werent involved in this scandal so im not really sure how theyre relevant.
Also, I said im not labeling the entire fanbase as not caring. I said a large faction of them simply prioritized football too much during that whole debacle. Maybe we know different alumni but I know people of all ages who went/go there, and it just seemed like there was this unnecessarily defensive reaction when this whole thing came to light. Not just with the paterno nuts, of which there were plenty, but with people acting as if people were unjustly attacking them. From the very beginning, all i heard was, “Dont worry staters, they cant put us down, We Are. Strong. Blah blah blah”. And they were saying all that despite the fact that no one was attacking them.The focus would’ve just stayed on those responsible if a lot of the fans werent foaming at the mouth. Ive always thought the fans were overzealous in their pride and often called them cultists (jokingly), but I wouldnt have focused any ire towards them during the sandusky thing if they werent raging over a game. There wouldnt be any backlash against the fans/alumni, and they wouldn’t be labeled as cult members, if there wasnt a crazed reaction of people defending a statue or worrying about NCAA sanctions while the gory details of the case were still coming out. It wasnt just a small fringe of people, it was a very large, and very vocal group.
I went to PSU Kyle. I went to school there because my friends did and the solid education and it was pretty cheap says my father who paid for it all. I sold all my football tickets for cheap booze and that Afghani cush and whip its, LOVED WHIPITS. Had sex with a TON of chicks, love chicks. Didn’t join a frat, had a great time. Graduated. Got a good job. Now all our alumi think its us against the world. haha I don’t get it, just go on with your life. But anywho WTF if up with the golf tournament.
time to suck todays dick!
This graph is another attempt at the national media to kick a great institution when it’s down. The current players and current coaches have NOTHING to do with the despicable acts that took place for years. So why would Penn State be ranked as embarrasing? If anything, the team has a new identiy, new traditions and is not too bad on the field. I am as proud as hell to have gone to Penn State, simply because I received a great education and have a great sports program to root for. The “Journal” can suck my blue and white testicles.
I never went to college, so all this rah-rah, alma mater pride nonsense is lost on me.
College was a great experience that I wouldn’t trade for anything, but too many kids today who don’t belong in college are pushed to go by parents, teachers, society, etc.
Other options like the service or trade schools are great for a lot of kids.
Ever try to get a plumber to come to your house? You’ll wait a week and then pay $ 100 just to have him walk in the door. Same with electricians. Very noble professions that don’t require a college education.
Wow, I’m in awe of this troll job.
Kyle, you lost all credibility on the PSU issue when you started praising Vicky Triponey. She wasn’t hated just by the football program, she was hated by EVERY GROUP ON CAMPUS! She had been fired from UCONN for being a complete control freak, but she did not change her ways at PSU. Whats hilarious is that you, a blogger/wannabe journalist, praising a control freak who wanted to censor student radio and newspapers. She also stripped student government of its (already laughably limited) powers. But she’s a hero because she had an ax to grind for being fired (which had NOTHING to do with Paterno/Football) and WSJ didn’t look into her background.
All you need to look at to see that this graph is a joke is to look where U of Miami is. Powerhouse with a strong reputation? No. The program has a horrible reputation and should be down next to Penn State.
I’m not going around the mountain with this topic again. The shit that went down at PSU had nothing to do with football and winning and until I see UNC, Miami, Oregon, and Johnny Manziel get punished for breaking ACTUAL NCAA bylaws I will continue to believe the sanctions were the biggest sack of PR crap I have ever seen thrown. If PSU was all about football and winning paterno would have been forcibly retired in his 70’s. Doesn’t matter tho, PSU is on its way to a football powerhouse once again with a fantastic head coach. The big ten wishes paterno was still bumbling along on the sidelines when they see what BOB is gonna throw at them. Still waiting for the second mile, CYS, DPW, to explain why they did nothing when they had multiple reports that Sandusky was a pedophile. Don’t the taxpayers pay these government programs millions to protect the children of the state?
Why is Army on the most admirable axis yet Navy is among the more embarrassing? That makes very little sense.
Keep up, will you?
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-57600686-504083/navy-football-rape-case-phone-recording-played-at-u.s-naval-academy-sex-assault-hearing/
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