My season at PSU

I'll never forget my last game as a PSU reporter.

I'm sure Joe Paterno won't either.

It was the last game for both of us, but ole' JoePa didn't know it at the time. He had just become the all time winningest coach in Division 1 football history and received a nice plaque from Graham Spanier, Tim Curley and the rest of the Penn State dignitary in Happy Valley.

But the smiles would be short lived.

Just a week later the news broke about the travesty that occured at Penn State and the non-response the upper echelon of the university apparently gave the perpetrator. It was sad for everyone -- not just Penn Staters -- because it painted a picture of college atheltics being higher in scale than the lives of the victims. College football has its fair share of critics and detractors, but this case is especially heinous and especially frightening.

My opportunity to further my career as a sports writer was all of a sudden thrown into a perspective, showing me that what I plan to do really only centers on a couple of athletes playing a game on a field. It has no real effect on world events. These games won't stop wars or solve global problems. They really only serve to entertain. To hear about these children being jeopardizes makes one sick and disgusted. It made me feel dirty just being in the same room with those abhorrent men.

I guess my career will continue as planned, but I won't be so naive in the future to think what I am doing changing something. Maybe I can entertain my readers; maybe I can touch a chord inside of them. But my time at PSU will remind me that there's only so much I can do with my writing.