One of the great sports wishes of my adulthood has been that stadiums and arenas stop playing Neil Diamond’s ‘Sweet Caroline’ all the time. Be careful what you wish for, I guess.

Following the sex scandal that forever turned Jerry Sandusky from an assistant coach into an expert on love and justice, Penn State’s coughing and slowly hitting the delete button on ‘Sweet Caroline’, because … well, you know.

Here’s one interesting (and probably quite smart) adjustment: Beaver Stadium will not play Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline.”

According to the Altoona Mirror, university officials were concerned about the lyrics — “touching me, touching you” — and what it would look like for a stadium full of Penn State fans singing those words.

Hint: it wouldn’t look good. (via USA Today)

Child molestation anthems never stopped ‘Rock And Roll Part 2′ from being played all the time.

It’s still very hard to joke about Penn State. The trick isn’t to joke about what HAPPENED at Penn State or about the people affected, but to maybe start joking about the ridiculous crap that you don’t think about happening when you systematically abuse and cover up the abuse of children because football is more important than human lives … like how the parts of ‘Sweet Caroline’ nobody really cares about are gonna sound awful and ruin the parts we like to sing. Well, look on the bright side … I can think of at least one MC Hammer song that would make a fine replacement.

Oh, and regarding that whole “stadium full of Penn State fans singing happily about touching” thing …

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Here we see the latest in Austin, Texas’ quest to lose all of its cool points — shifty rape jokes on its local bar marquees. This pic comes to us via the Twitter of area improv comic/copywriter/friend of mine Reagan Ward, and I’m proud to say she told people about it immediately instead of waiting for someone to find out. Cough.

The Ranch is advertised as the “best bar in Austin, Texas for nightlife, bottle service and a general good time”, and I’m pretty sure their idea of “a general good time” and mine conflict. To their credit, heavy drinking is really the only way to process the Jerry Sandusky thing. To their discredit, they are offering a drink special with a child molestation theme. Why not just advertise it as “Anal Grape” and go the full nine?

The next time you’re in Austin, drink anywhere but The Ranch.

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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Today marks the third and final day of memorial services for former Penn State football coach Joe Paterno, who passed away on Sunday. For the past two days, Paterno’s friends, family, former players and fans, as well as PSU students and faculty, have shown their respect for the man that doctors say died of complications from lung cancer, while those mourning believe it was a broken heart. More than 12,000 people will fill the Bryce Jordan Center today for the final memorial service.

But of course he won’t rest peacefully, because we won’t stop talking about him. While we mostly loathe and detest them, the Westboro Baptist Church members will be protesting today’s service, as they apparently couldn’t sue enough people to afford hotel rooms yesterday, and they unfortunately represent the heated conversation about Paterno’s legacy that will undoubtedly continue for years.

I don’t have much of an opinion on that, though, as I’ve previously written. There are obviously many people who will overlook the last three months of Paterno’s life in favor of what he did for 46 years. And there are others who will do the complete opposite. If anything, these last three days have been a massive effort by the former to soften the criticism of the latter, but I really doubt it’s going to work. Judgment is easily passed by people who don’t have time to wait for answers.

It’s a good thing so many people were there for each other to mourn their hero, because they’ll need each other to get through the entire Jerry Sandusky ordeal and what he and his alleged actions will ultimately mean to Paterno’s legacy.

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It’s still not fun to make light of the Penn State abuse scandal (especially in the wake of ESPN’s horrifying HANDS OFF cover), and TMZ’s latest updates on what’s being said during Mike McQueary’s preliminary hearing testimony won’t make it any easier.

McQueary says he peeked into the shower and personally saw Jerry and the boy naked in the shower together — with Jerry grabbing the boy’s waist from behind, while the boy was facing the wall.

McQueary says he peeked in the shower several times — and by the last time, they had separated. But McQueary told the court, “I know they saw me. They looked directly in my eye, both of them.”

The next thing he said was, “Seeing that they were separated, I thought it was best that I leave the locker room”, meaning the first and most logical follow-up question should’ve been, “at no point did you consider saying HEY GUYS WHAT’S GOING ON IN THERE and pending the boy pointing out a 60-year old’s hands on his waist, possibly punching an old child molester in the face?”

The second follow-up question should’ve been, “so are you just quoting The Simpsons, or what”.

Mrs. Krabappel and Principal Skinner were in the closet making babies and I saw one of the babies and then the baby looked at me.

TMZ is doing opportunistic SHOCKING CAPS updates about this all day, so if you’re interested in following along, you can check that out. Personally, I’m not interested in finding out what Jerry Sandusky’s cat’s breath smells like.

Remember when we cared so much about the Ohio State White Elephant Gift Exchange Scandal that tattoo parlor operators were being sent to jail and players were getting suspended by the NFL for things they might’ve done in college? Well, Penn State happened and caused 90% of non-sports America to forget OSU is even a school, so the Buckeyes are free to go about the business of organizing a football team and making news … and today’s news is big, suggesting that former Florida head football coach Urban Meyer is set to take over the program with a a seven-year, $40 million deal.

Of course, I’m using “news” loosely for two major reasons. Reason #1:

“The concerns are still there,” Meyer told The Sun. “No. 1 — my health. No. 2 — my family. No. 3 — the state of college football. I’ve done some research into the second one. I’ve found that it is possible to have balance between your job and your family, that there are coaches out there who are doing it.

“I’m in a good place right now mentally and physically. So if something happens with Ohio State, I’ll have a decision to make. But there has been no interview. There has been no offer to make a decision about.”

That’s normal though, right? People are always denying deals and relationships and showing up the next night arm-in-arm with some 40-million-dollar thing. And technically what he’s saying could still be true. Why would you need to interview a guy like Urban Meyer? You know his history, you know what he can do. And he said “there has been no offer to make a decision about”, not “there has been no offer”, so maybe the choice was obvious. Urban Meyer is coming to Ohio!

Except, no. Reason #2: David Pingalore is the sports director of the Orlando television station that broke the story on Tuesday night, and under “football” and “television” on his Facebook info page he lists “reporting bullsh*t with no verification” as a like. Last year, our own Burnsy had fun with him in response to hilarious community douchebaggery by “leaking” a story to someone Ping knows about how the University of Central Florida was going to be invited to join the Big East. Like clockwork, Ping heard about it reported it on TV as breaking news from his “inside sources”. It went as far as ESPN. The next day it was gloriously shot down.

So that’s Urban Meyer saying “no, I’m not going to Ohio State” and a disreputable source breaking the story. Do we need a day and a half’s worth of speculation on ESPN? Let’s source this when it actually gets sourced, and at least attempt to do our impossibly unprofessional job professionally.

In a related story, here is a slideshow of girls in bikinis.