When asked by investigators if former Penn State assistant coach Mike McQueary had reported witnessing Jerry Sandusky raping a young child in team facilities, former Penn State University athletic director Tim Curley said no. However, former Penn State coach Joe Paterno admitted that he had a discussion with McQueary about what he saw, so Curley and former PSU vice president Gary Schultz, who also replied, “Huh? Wha? No way, dude,” were charged with perjury and failure to report a crime.

Now the attorney for Schultz is asking for those charges to be dismissed, since Paterno has since passed and he never gave his actual sworn testimony. I’d like to act shocked and appalled, but I assume this is just the tip of the convenience iceberg.

Paterno’s recollection and testimony about a conversation with former assistant coach Mike McQueary would have been the corroboration required by law for prosecutors to prove that the 57-year-old Curley lied to the grand jury when he said McQueary did not tell him that he had witnessed anything about Sandusky that needed to be reported to police, Roberto argued. (Via The Patriot News)

The prosecutors were going to ask Paterno for his testimony back in November, but they were told that he was too sick. So they waited, waited waited… and now they’re left with an unofficial testimony that is never going to stand up and McQueary’s word, and Pennsylvania law doesn’t allow perjury charges to be determined by just one man’s word against another.

Obviously, this news just further proves that Paterno’s legacy will continued to be defined by what he might have known, while the people implicated in the entire Sandusky ordeal use JoePa’s passing as their bullet-proof vest.

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I hate writing obituaries and memoriam posts. Unless you truly know a person, they’re just usually so forced and awkward. Although, with sports it’s a little different, because we are inspired by athletes and coaches on a regular basis, so we feel like we know these people. That’s what makes this whole Joe Paterno thing incredibly strange.

I used to wonder why Paterno was such a big deal. He only won two national championships and the last one was in 1986. I viewed him the same way that I did Bobby Knight – “What have you done for me lately?” But I always lacked one thing that would have given me actual perception – a favorite college football team. Growing up, I had no allegiance to any college football teams, so I never actually understood how incredible it is for one guy to stay with the same team for a career. And now, as a fan of the UCF Knights, I openly beg for George O’Leary to be fired.

That’s why this quote that I came across in reading the media’s reaction to JoePa’s death stuck out a little.

“Why leave?” Paterno explained in a 1995 interview with the Tampa Tribune. “It’s got everything I want: small town, a college town. I can walk home after games. I’ve been accepted as a faculty member, not treated as a dumb jock. I can do things that suit me intellectually; I’m a little bit of an egghead.”

I admire that. As we’ve seen far too often, players and coaches want bright lights and big cities. JoePa was apparently happy with the small town. It’s refreshing, to say the least. That’s why I can understand the incredible outpouring of emotions and respect the students and alumni have been showing for JoePa since news of his death broke yesterday. They see the 46 years of head coaching and the man who charged onto the field for 409 victories.

However, that’s mostly limited to his friends, fans and former players, because the rest of us see him for who he became over the last three months of his life. I don’t quite know how I feel about Paterno anymore. I used to not care who he was. He was a coach, cool. Then I thought he was great because he stuck around and he was this cool old dude who crapped himself during a game.

But now I just want answers. I think we all want answers, because none of us wants our heroes to be exposed as anything but perfect. That’s why I understand the love for JoePa. I don’t agree with it, but I understand it. And we’ll probably never get those answers now that he’s gone. Most of us won’t settle for “I never heard of that” as an excuse for turning a blind eye to his friend and defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky allegedly raping children in Penn State facilities. Aware or not, that’s the man’s legacy. Trust me, I don’t want it to be his legacy, but I don’t think anything will ever happen to change it now that he’s gone.

And it’s a shame, because he’s still a hero to so many people, who will spend the rest of their lives defending him, despite still wanting the questions answered. After the jump, I have some reactions from the media and JoePa’s friends, as well as pictures from the Penn State student body’s tribute.

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"And I'm serious about taxing that ass."

When the NBA lockout stretched into what would have been the first week of the season, I’m sure not many of the Dallas Mavericks players were concerned about whether or not they’d be able to visit the White House to celebrate their 2010-11 NBA Championship with President Barack Obama. But when the season finally began, a few reports trickled out that the Mavs – specifically owner Mark Cuban – were pretty pissed that they didn’t have a game against the Washington Wizards in D.C. so they could stop by 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. and slap a few high fives with Barry O.

Thankfully, NBA Commissioner David Stern told everyone to chillax and the Mavericks dropped by the White House yesterday to give Obama his latest personalized championship jersey. And on January 17, Obama will receive yet another jersey when the St. Louis Cardinals will visit him to celebrate their World Series victory. Sadly, Albert Pujols will not be making the trip, presumably because Glenn Beck told him that Obama will take all of his new money (I’m so excited that I can finally make these jokes!).

But thinking about these two visits, I eventually started to wonder when this tradition of championship teams visiting the White House began, and thankfully CBS News reporter Mark Knoller already did the dirty work and determined that Calvin Coolidge was the first POTUS to honor champions, specifically the 1924 Washington Senators. But screw Coolidge, because George W. Bush and Obama perfected the art of honoring champions. In fact, Bush had annual events to honor every NCAA sport champion for both the spring and fall, and as his first term comes to a close, Obama has welcomed more than 20 championship teams to the White House.

Maybe eventually a president will welcome a champion blogger. A boy can dream.

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When the final BCS rankings came out and revealed which two teams would be playing for the BCS Championship, a good majority of us responded with a collective, “Aw come on, not them again!” When LSU and Alabama played on Nov. 5, we witnessed a 9-6 overtime festival of snores. Last night, when they met again in the BCS Championship game… well, at least one of them scored a touchdown this time.

Make no mistake, Alabama put on a heck of a show, dismantling the nation’s top team to the tune of 21-0. I remember hearing one of the commentators say that this was the first time that the No. 1-ranked team had ever been blanked in a championship game, but I was also busy trying to convince the bartender to put on a hockey game so we could watch something more exciting.

I’ll give LSU coach Les Miles some credit, though. It is pretty ballsy to play in a National Championship game without a quarterback while running a sorority flag football offense. I’m sure Nick Saban appreciated it, too.

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Usually when a school in the deep south wants to insult a rival, they print out a bunch of stickers of Calvin from Calvin & Hobbes pissing on their logo or something and plaster them on the windows of their trucks, and an entire school of rednecks end up with a child urinating on their car forever and we move on with our lives. Unfortunately for the University of Alabama, some enterprising soul has decided to take the “lol look you got peed on” joshing to a weird, hate crimey place.

The report, from the unfortunately named UnicornBooty.com:

In preparation of their upcoming game against LSU on January 9, the University of Alabama is selling t-shirts promoting a hate crime. The plan is for thousands of Alabama Crimson Tide fans to flood Bourbon Street, home to some of the oldest gay watering holes in the country, dressed in t-shirts that read:

HEY HOMEAUXS – WE JUST BEAT THE HELL OUT OF YOU.

As if using violent assaults against LGBT victims as a pun to sell college football merchandise wasn’t bad enough, the printer’s French is also atrocious. Aux is already plural, and in no need of an S.

Thank goodness LSU’s mascot isn’t the “black” something, I guess.

The comments section of the mythical creature’s ass contains a conversation with someone claiming to be the creator of the shirt, rationalizing that he didn’t realize gay people would be offended by “hey faggot I’m going to murder you” and noting that the shirts are a response to some fans from a few years ago wearing “Alabama Fans Are Homeauxs” shirts to games. He’s very sorry. And while it’s pretty easy to believe a guy from Alabama could be super stupid instead of homophobic, it’s interesting to consider why a Louisiana team would think calling a Tuscaloosa team with a vaginal bleeding euphemism for a mascot “homos” with a Frenglish spelling is beyond me. I’m gonna stick with “he’s an inbred goon and thought this was hilarious”.

This gallery may not appeal to the more Hot-Cheerleaders-In-Slow-Motion-inclined members of the With Leather readership, but don’t be afraid to enjoy it, because at some point during the 1970s the Walt Disney Corporation teamed up with Wonder Bread to give away pennant stickers with loaves of bread that are literally nothing but Disney characters destroying college names with puns. Yes, that’s a sentence I’ve written.

As I see it, there are two fine ways to enjoy this:

1. Flipping through and trying to figure out which school each pennant represents, because some of them are a stretch.
2. Losing control of your neck and bashing your head against the desk in a full-body groan when you realize “Mickey Can Skate” is Michigan State, or whatever.

A third way to enjoy it is through the absurdity of the illustrations, like Cinderella doing 2,000 pounds of laundry in her ball gown or Goofy with a broken leg because you can only make so many puns about Tulane. And yes, ACC fans, here is where you learn about how Disney preappropriated your “dook” joke for Duke and made it about fowl royalty a decade or so before you were born. I kept expecting to see a Virginia Tech pennant where Shan Yu from Mulan is holding up a castrated turkey.

Note: Full credit for these goes to Disney, I guess, but credit for putting them on the Internet goes to Jason Liebig.

[h/t Disney Food Blog]

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