In today’s ADD social media news feed climate, even the biggest stories of the year can come and go in a matter of days. That’s why in the wake of Jason Collins, Manti T’eo, ESPN’s Tim Tebow love affair, Titus Young’s wild week, etc. etc., it feels to me like the Jerry Sandusky/Penn State scandal happened a decade ago. But it wasn’t even one year ago that Sandusky was found guilty of 45 of 48 charges in his sexual abuse trial, and there are still three former Penn State administrators awaiting their trials, despite their best efforts to have their cases tossed.

Naturally, the news still lingers in the hearts and minds of PSU alumni, students and football fans, so it makes sense that they would all still have many questions about how everything went down. And where there are questions, there are conspiracies like, say, Joe Paterno still being alive. At least that’s one man’s theory, according to a letter received by ESPN’s Bob Ley.

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I’m sure there’s other sports stuff going on, like that one legendary basketball player who got hurt or that expensive baseball pitcher who was beat up, but I’m a simple kind of fella and I can’t help but stop and point when I see something that’s reaaaaaaaaally stupid. And nothing tickles my fancy more than when people fall for fake Onion headlines.

In this case, the Onion article in question was “Jerry Sandusky Horrified By Behavior Of Rutgers Basketball Coach” from April 3, and as you can see nobody reads anything but headlines anymore. I could try to write the most eloquent and thought-provoking piece ever written by man (key word is try, folks) and it could very well win every literary and journalistic prize in existence, but if I used a headline like “Doo doo smoothies 2-for-1 at IKEA cafeteria leads to pope’s resignation” at least 5 people would comment something like, “F*ck you, Obama!”

In conclusion, this is still the best thing ever produced by the Onion.

(H/T to Literally Unbelievable)

After a year of life-ruining scandal, a conviction on 45 counts of sexual abuse, a thousand ill-advised punchlines and too many fines and sanctions to remember, the victims of the Jerry Sandusky horror might be able to rest a little easier.

The sentencing on Sandusky’s convictions went down this morning, to the tune of at least 30 years in prison.

At 10:09 a.m., Sandusky stood at the front of the courtroom in a bright red jumpsuit with his back to his wife and four of his children. Judge John M. Cleland told the 68-year old that the sentence of at least 30 years, but not more than 60 years, meant he would be in prison “for the rest of your life.” Sandusky looked down for a moment, then back at the judge. The courtroom was quiet.

The sentencing took less than 90 minutes, but it provides yet another moment of closure for Sandusky’s victims, along with a community that has been stunned by one of the most devastating, high-profile scandals to hit higher education. (via Washington Post)

Just like the Penn State fines, this isn’t “enough,” it’s not “fair,” and it doesn’t make anything “right”. It’s not a happy moment to read about this guy being sentenced to 30-60 years in jail for the terrible things he did to people (and the terrible shockwaves he sent throughout an entire organization), much in the same way you shouldn’t pull that “HE’LL GET KILLED IN PRISON I BET HEH HEH” card. None of this is happy or funny. It’s sad, it never stops being stomach-turning, but at least justice is playing out in the way we kinda-sorta trust it will.

Jerry Sandusky is now an officially charged-and-sentenced child molester. The kind of guy who says this.

“A young man who was dramatic, a veteran accuser, and always sought attention, started everything. He was joined by a well-orchestrated effort of the media, investigators, the system, Penn State, psychologists, civil attorneys and other accusers. They won.”

Jerry Sandusky, the former Penn State defensive coach who at the very least showered with young boys, touched their legs in the showers because he’s just like Forrest Gump and ended a bunch of creepy voice mail messages with “there’s nothing really to hide” and “I love you”, thinks it’s “unjust” for PSU to be fined and punished simply because he molested boys there and everyone in charge of him covered it up to maintain the integrity of their football program.

Yes, folks, Jerry Sandusky is now a judge of what is and is not appropriate.

Attorney Joe Amendola told The Associated Press in a phone interview that Sandusky told him that even if people believe he is guilty of the crimes for which he was convicted in June, it would be “ridiculous” to think Penn State administrators engaged in a cover-up.

“He said, ‘To do what they’re doing to Penn State is so unjust,’” Amendola said. “He loves the program and he loves the university … He continues to believe that the truth will come out at some point, and that he’ll get another trial or another opportunity to establish his innocence.” (via ESPN College Football)

I don’t know what kind of crazy shit the human brain can do to itself, but if denial has a sound barrier, Jerry Sandusky just broke it. I guess it isn’t fair to expect a guy like this to be aware of what he’s done, or his lawyer to have even 1% of a normal human being’s integrity and skip the whole “ONE DAY we’ll find out what REALLY happened and YOU’LL ALL BE SORRY” gag.

If Penn State is sincerely worried about making it through this scandal and moving forward as a university, I’d like to recommend buying a gross of duct tape and using it to cover the entire head of Forrest Jerr, the Paterno Family and anyone else who feels the need to destructively add to this between now and infinity.

Usually I let Burnsy handle the Penn State sex scandal stories. He’s got a more eloquent way of saying f**k you and die forever than I do, and I mostly just get indignant about stuff that barely matters. I might not be able to write much about this, either, but I wanted to share it with you.

These are the phone messages Sandusky left for Victim 2, aka the one from the showers Mike McQueary saw and didn’t do anything about. In the first, left last September, he says that there’s “nothing to hide, really” and that feelings should be “firm” and expressed upfront. In the second, he tosses out invites to a Penn State game. Both feature Sandusky saying “I love you”.

The closest thing I can come up with for a joke here is that “I love you” and “do you want to go to a football game” were my two worst pick-up lines in high school. I’m not the type to wish an actual death on anyone. I’ll wish hyperbolic death on you all day, but I’m not gonna find any joy if Sandusky gets murdered in prison. If that happens, I’m going to feel the same way I do now — that the human brain can be the best or most f**ked up thing in the world, and that this man was impossibly sad in addition to being destructive and awful. People will still argue the value of college football record-keeping against human decency, and all we’ll really be left with is audio clips like these of a man saying “I love you” to people he raped.

I don’t know where to go with this, except far, far away.

[h/t to Bob's Blitz]

This morning, NCAA President Mark Emmert officially announced the sanctions for Penn State University and its football program in the wake of what I can only call an incredibly bizarre and unbelievable scandal. Emmert made it clear before this morning’s announcement that PSU football would not receive the “death penalty” as punishment for coaches and administrators covering up the sexual assaults of former coach Jerry Sandusky, but that appears to have just been lip service. What Penn State actually received was the lethal injection to Southern Methodist’s firing squad.

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