Mount Nittany Newsletter
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A newsletter for all those who love Mount Nittany and dwell at heart in her gentle shade.
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Why Honoring Joe Paterno Still Matters
Writing anything about Joe Paterno at this point is futile. If you’re reading this, your mind has already been made up. If you are not a Penn Stater, we’re an unapologetic cult. If you are a Penn Stater, you’re probably nonplussed, irrationally angry that the news about Paterno being honored before the Temple game is too little too late, or part of the smarmy faction that believesthey are morally superior for having lived inside the cult but made it out alive.
I understand this. I don’t intend to change your mind on Paterno — I’ve already tried — but missing in the conversation is any discussion about why honoring Paterno, or university history in general, is even an important endeavor at all. This becomes incredibly challenging, because making any salient point about Paterno requires another ten points of requisite context. Anything without that nuance on this topic is irresponsible, but including it can become a drag, or make it seem like the author is trying to “explain away” facts (or worse, feeling unsympathetic to child sexual abuse victims). Nor has the pro-Paterno crowd been the most tactful advocates for its cause, at least online. All of these factors make this topic so toxic and impossible to manage.
Knowing full well I’m wading into an abyss, here’s my best crack at it.
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Before that, there is one important caveat (I told you the context was important).
If you are 100 percent certain that Joe Paterno was the ringleader of a calculated coverup of child sexual abuse, you are irredeemable. A conversation of this sort is impossible to have without the acknowledgement the facts aren’t as clear as some have made them out to be and that many smart, decent people outside of Penn State (Bob Costas, Jerry Sandusky’s prosecutor, Mike Kryzewski, etc.) have serious doubts about Paterno’s culpability and the Freeh Report’s conclusions. The unfortunate reality is that the people who know the most about this case are also the most susceptible to bias. It’s what makes real conversations about this topic so difficult — Penn Staters are easier to dismiss as lunatics out of hand, but virtually everyone outside of the bubble understandably doesn’t follow this story on a daily basis because it doesn’t impact their lives or their Alma Mater.
But to the caveat: If Paterno knowingly and systematically covered up child sexual abuse for decades, then all of this is moot. The evidence, by any objective mind, does not support a coverup assertion. It is not impossible that it happened that way, but the evidence, objectively, makes it seem increasingly unlikely. If you’re one of the thousands of Twitter heroes who has chimed in on this topic in the last day or so, this is probably unthinkable to you — the equivalent of me denying the moon landing. After seven years as a student — trust me — I understand that. But one does not usually commit a coverup if one tells three other people about what happened — knowing that at least nine people would know in total — without some quid pro quo to buy silence. Frankly, a case to prove such a thing would be laughed out of court, and there’s a reason no charges were ever brought against him when they were with the other administrators. And I’ll say this without qualification: Anyone who is 100 percent certain (or near 100 percent certain) that a coverup occurred is not a serious thinker or interpreter of the facts. I’m not talking about people who think that Paterno should have done more at the time — he, himself, admitted this, knowing what we know in hindsight. But the moral gap between “coverup” and “misjudgment” is vast and important to note. Unfortunately, judging the conversation based on Twitter alone, it seems like a large swath of the country is unwilling to consider the distinction or the nuance. I suppose this should come as no surprise by now, but the discourse yesterday was as bad as it’s been since 2011 or 2012.
In any case, if you are unwilling to consider the possibility that there wasn’t a coverup, you are not intellectually serious and this column is not for you. Serious people do not speak in absolutes about situations like this, although I suppose the national sports commentariat has never been accused of being serious. I am speaking instead to the many people — Penn Staters and otherwise — who know Paterno wasn’t evil, but still don’t understand why we should still care about a guy who has been dead for five years, especially at the cost of infuriating a significant number of people nationally.
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To understand why honoring Joe Paterno still matters requires a thoughtful understanding of the Penn State Spirit.
And here’s another thing: Sports don’t matter, unless they’re put in the context of life. Teenagers and young adults running around a field throwing balls matters little unless you view it as a metaphor for the extension of the spirit of the university (or in the case of professional sports, an extension of the spirit of a city). What are the moments you think about at Penn State over the last five or so years?
For me, it’s not the score of a game. It’s guys like Michael Zordich saying things like this:
“We want to let the nation know that we’re proud of who we are. We are the true Penn Staters. We’re gonna stick together through this. As a team we don’t see this as a punishment; this is an opportunity. This is the greatest opportunity a Penn Stater could ever be given. We have an obligation to Penn State and we have an ability to fight not just for a team, not just for a university, but for every man who has worn the blue and white on that gridiron before us.”
When I think of the 2013 Wisconsin game, I don’t think about the X’s and O’s, how many yards Allen Robinson or Zach Zwinak had, what play so-and-so-ran, or really, anything about the game. I think about what Bill O’Brien said after the game:
“Seniors…What you meant to this program. What you meant for this university. We will remember you forever.”
“We will remember you forever.” Let those words sit for a moment.
Sports don’t matter unless we insist on remembering instead of forgetting. The Penn State Spirit is a collective of these memories from the past, all while pushing us forward to form a better future. What does it say about us as people if we choose to forget people like Michael Zordich, Bill O’Brien, or those Penn State seniors?
What does it say about us as a community if we choose to forget about people like Joe Paterno?
Consider the ancient story of the great medieval King Arthur.
When the young boy, Arthur, pulled the sword Excalibur from the stone, he did not automatically become the rightful King of England. Many of the lords and nobles of the realm withheld their fealty and allegiance from him, until he should prove in combat and in battle his qualities of courage and leadership.
The last battle was the greatest and most trying. But Arthur and those who believed in him were victorious. That night, when the battle was over, his men gathered together, fresh from combat, covered with sweat, and blood, and bandages, but elated in their victory and the triumph of their King.
As the story goes, the wizard Merlin came forward, and he said to them: “Remember this moment. Catch now the spirit of victory and joy that wells up in you and overflows. Catch it at full tide, and hold it. For out of this spirit and feeling shall the future be wrought.”
And King Arthur stepped forward and said, “Yes, let us catch the spirit and remember it. For this, I shall build a round table, and all of you shall sit around it, and whenever we are together, this we shall remember. It shall not pass away, as deeds of others pass away into forgetfulness, but shall be remembered down through the ages. For thanks to the wisdom of wise Merlin, we shall not forget, not suffer the doom of other men, who, though accomplishing greater deeds, were buried under the veil of forgetfulness.
“No, this spirit and this moment shall live down through the ages, and wherever men shall gather to wonder if they can do great deeds, they shall remember us, and in remembering, take heart. And in every future time, when faith and courage are put to the test and emerge triumphantly, they shall say: Arthur and his Knights, and the Spirit of the Round Table still lives!”
And today, fourteen hundred years later, King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table are remembered.
Put this in the context of Penn State, a place that so many people hold as a part of their soul. Who will we remember in fourteen hundred years? It will be great presidents, like Evan Pugh, George Atherton, Ralph Hetzel, and Eric Walker. It will be transformative students, administrators, and townsfolk, like Fred Lewis Pattee, Frederick Watts, James Irvin, Calvin Waller, and Rebecca Ewing. It will be sports heroes, like Wally Triplett, Lenny Moore, Bob Higgins, Jesse Arnelle, and the football players who stayed after 2011. It will be dozens of other women and men who will come along in the next hundreds and thousands of years and leave their mark on this place.
And, perhaps more than anyone, it will be Joe Paterno.
All of these men and women who have left their marks on the Nittany Valley deserve their place at the Round Table, deserve to be remembered, and deserve to be honored appropriately so that future generations may know their greatness and strive for it themselves. For without them — and countless others — there is no Penn State. Without the spirit of these people and those times, the present and future have less meaning, and we as a community have a thinner, less stimulating culture.
As Penn Staters, we can celebrate James Franklin’s Nittany Lions this season as hard as we ever had, all while appreciating the context of the now in the spirit of the institution as an aggregate of its past. James Franklin and his players will write their own stories. The ghosts of the past do not hinder their progress, but give meaning to their goals — give meaning to our identity. The student newspaper, predictably, editorialized today that any sort of Paterno acknowledgement is “insensitive to the future.” What a good many well-intentioned people fail to realize is without an appreciation for the past, the spirit of now has less meaning. In fifty years, we all hope we will be able to tell our children and grandchildren tales of Saquon Barkley hurdling foolish-looking linebackers and James Franklin returning the program to its past prestige. The great people of Happy Valley today will be remembered tomorrow — and we will learn from their triumph and disaster — but only if we allow the nihilism behind the phrase “move on” to fade away.
Ben Novak, a retired four-term Penn State trustee and author of “Is Penn State a Real University?: An Investigation of the University as a Living Ideal,” writes about the Penn State Spirit:
“The past, because it was lived, cannot really be destroyed. It can only be covered over, like a lush jungle that gets condensed into a pool of oil or a vein of coal, just waiting to be drilled or mined to have its energy released. But you have to dig for it, and you have to know how to use it. When we don’t know what is in the past, we cannot use it, and we cannot release its power.
“Fortunately we do not live in a world where the past, present, and future are in airtight cubicles that we must look at separately as though the past is dead and gone, the present stinks, and the future is always bright. Rather, the past, present, and future are fluid, and keep washing over each other. There were a lot of good things in the past that can brighten the present, and a lot of things in the past that seem to be missing in the present, but which could brighten your future.”
“Spirit,” Novak writes, “is indestructible. But only if, in a practical sense, we allow it to come alive in us.”
Which is to say this: If you’re worked up or disappointed about the fact that Penn State might play a video and invite some lettermen on the field during a football game in two weeks to honor a man who is on the Mount Rushmore of the institution, I would encourage you to think harder about what Penn State really stands for.
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There’s also a second position — that honoring someone so controversial will result in so much negative PR that it will damage the institution to the point of not being worth the hassle and discomfort or somehow overshadows what the current team is trying to accomplish.
And to that, I say this: You are selling the Penn State Spirit short.
Consider these words from the documentary “Sanctioned” by Chris Buchignani about what the last five years in State College have proved:
“It’s really enheartening and strengthening to know that what you always believed was right about the place is real. That we don’t have to believe anymore, now we know. And not just that it’s real. As close as you can come to damn near invincible on this earth. That’s what Penn State is.”
Virtue is doing the right thing even when you know you will be criticized for it. This is the last great test of the Grand Experiment that Paterno inadvertently left for us. Will we, as a community and as an institution, all bonded together in the Penn State Spirit, do the right thing despite the backlash?
Judging from yesterday’s news, it looks like the answer could be yes.
Consider all Penn State has been through in the last five years. No academic institution in the history of the world has been the recipient of as much vitriol. And yet, we have endured. Penn State just admitted the largest freshmen class in the history of the institution — freshmen who walked across this campus when searching for colleges and felt the Penn State Spirit enter their hearts, as it has for 161 years. Academic rankings across the university continue to rise. Application numbers continue to set records and exceed the wildest expectations. People from all over the world are beating down the doors to attend Penn State, despite it all. Athletics teams across the board continue to excel and compete at high levels. Arguably, the health of the institution has never been stronger.
All this, despite the millions of tweets, columns, articles, and nonsense that has been said about Penn State for the last five years.
This pattern is all too familiar. A major Paterno or Sandusky-related news incident occurs. The national conversation, driven by folks who aren’t interested in nuance, turns against Penn State. It lasts for a day, maybe two, sometimes three. And then the Penn State Spirit continues on, unchanged. Students continue to pour in for a life changing education. Alumni continue to get great jobs. And we, the people of Happy Valley, continue to survive — nay, thrive.
The “opening old wounds” argument only has meaning if there is a tangible negative effect on the institution beyond a few days of keyboard heroes having their fun. Put away your keyboard. Turn off Twitter. Walk across campus when classes are changing and take it all in. There was a corporate career fair all week. There will be a football game on Saturday, and all eyes and minds will be focused on the 2016 Nittany Lions.
Is an on-field ceremony — hell, even a statue — and another day of “Penn State just doesn’t get it!” columns going to change any of that?
I insist that it already would have.
“As close as you can come to damn near invincible on this earth. That’s what Penn State is.”
Virtue is doing the right thing when you know it will be hard. That’s what Joe Paterno preached. And that is how we should — and will — press forward, with our sights set on the future of the institution and an unwavering appreciation for its past greatness — Joe Paterno, and otherwise.
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Gamma Sig Tau and Bridge Initiative Work Party
The 9/17 work party was led by Troy Weston, Steve Lyncha and Chad Bell of the MNC with the assistance of volunteers from the Gamma Sig Tau Chapter service fraternity and The Bridge Initiative groups.
The groups started out by clearing multiple downed trees across the Blue trail toward the top of the Mountain. Once on top, they continued the clearing/widening of our existing trails of overgrown brush and downed trees for the emergency responder access across the top of the Mountain toward the Lynch Overlook.
Both of these groups did a great job and some well appreciated hard work.
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The Legend of Penn’s Cave
This is the very first Pennsylvania legend published by folklorist Henry W. Shoemaker in 1902. It is the official legend featured at Penn’s Cave, where it is painted on a large sign at the entrance. This legend tells not of the Princess Nittany over whose burial mound (or over whose lover’s burial mound) Nittany Mountain arose in a single night, but instead it tells of another American Indian princess, who is said to have lived about 300 years later and who was named after that original Princess Nittany. These stories and other folklore can be found in The Legends of the Nittany Valley from Nittany Valley Press.
As related by Isaac Steele, an Aged Seneca Indian, in 1892: In the days when the West Branch Valley was a trackless wilderness of defiant pines and submissive hemlocks twenty-five years before the first pioneer had attempted lodgment beyond Sunbury, a young Pennsylvania Frenchman, from Lancaster County, named Malachi Boyer, alone and unaided, pierced the jungle to a point where Bellefonte is now located. The history of his travels has never been written, partly because he had no white companion to observe them, and partly because he himself was unable to write. His very identity would now be forgotten were it not for the traditions of the Indians, with whose lives he became strangely entangled.
A short, stockily built fellow was Malachi Boyer, with unusually prominent black eyes and black hair that hung in ribbon-like strands over his broad, low forehead. Fearless, yet conciliatory, he escaped a thousand times from Indian cunning and treachery, and as the months went by and he penetrated further into the forests he numbered many redskins among his cherished friends.
Why he explored these boundless wilds he could not explain, for it was not in the interest of science, as he scarcely knew of such a thing as geography, and it was not for trading, as he lived by the way. But on he forced his path, ever aloof from his own race, on the alert for the strange scenes that encompassed him day by day.
One beautiful month of April — there is no one who can tell the exact year — found Malachi Boyer camped on the shores of Spring Creek. Near the Mammoth Spring was an Indian camp, whose occupants maintained a quasi-intercourse with the pale-faced stranger. Sometimes old Chief O-ko cho would bring gifts of corn to Malachi, who in turn presented the chieftain with a hunting knife of truest steel. And in this way Malachi came to spend more and more of his time about the Indian camps, only keeping his distance at night and during religious ceremonies.
Old O-ko-cho’s chief pride was centered in his seven stalwart sons, Hum-kin, Ho-ko-lin, Too-chin, Os-tin, Chaw-kee-bin, A-ha-kin, Ko-lo-pa-kin and his Diana-like daughter, Nita-nee. The seven brothers resolved themselves into a guard of honor for their sister, who had many suitors, among whom was the young chief E-Faw, from the adjoining sub-tribe of the A-caw-ko-tahs. But Nita-nee gently, though firmly, repulsed her numerous suitors, until such time as her father would’ give her in marriage to one worthy of her regal blood.
Thus ran the course of Indian life when Malachi Boyer made his bed of hemlock boughs by the gurgling waters of Spring Creek. And it was the first sight of her, washing a deer-skin in the stream, that led him to prolong his stay and ingratiate himself with her father’s tribe.
Few were the words that passed between Malachi and Nita-nee, many the glances, and often did the handsome pair meet in the mossy ravines near the camp grounds. But this was all clandestine love, for friendly as Indian and white might be in social intercourse, never could a marriage be tolerated, until — there always is a turning point in romance — the black-haired wanderer and the beautiful Nita-nee resolved to spend their lives together, and one moonless night started for the more habitable East.
All night long they threaded their silent way, climbing down mountain ridges, gliding through the velvet-soiled hemlock glades, and wading, hand in hand, the splashing, resolute torrents. When morning came they breakfasted on dried meat and huckleberries, and bathed their faces in a mineral spring. Until — there is always a turning point in romance — seven tall, stealthy forms, like animated mountain pines, stepped from the gloom and surrounded the eloping couple. Malachi drew a hunting knife, identical with the one he had given to Chief O-ko-cho, and, seizing Nita-nee around the waist, stabbed right and left at his would-be captors.
The first stroke pierced Hum-kin’s heart, and, uncomplainingly, he sank down dying. The six remaining brothers, although receiving stab wounds, caught Malachi in their combined grasp and disarmed him; then one brother held sobbing Nita-nee, while the others dragged fighting Malachi across the mountain.
That was the last the lovers saw of one another. Below the mountain lay a broad valley, from the center of which rose a circular hillock, and’ it was to this mound the savage brothers led their victim. As they approached, a yawning cavern met their eyes, filled with greenish limestone water. There is a ledge at the mouth of the cave, about six feet higher than the water, above which the arched roof rises thirty feet, and it was from here they shoved Malachi Boyer into the tide below.
He sank for a moment, but when he rose to the surface, commenced to swim. He approached the ledge, but the brothers beat him back, so he turned and made for some dry land in the rear of the cavern. Two of the brothers ran from the entrance over the ridge to watch, where there is another small opening, but though Malachi tried his best, in the impenetrable darkness, he could not find this or any other avenue of escape. He swam back to the cave’s mouth, but the merciless Indians were still on guard. He climbed up again and again, but was repulsed, and once more retired to the dry cave. Every day for a week he renewed his efforts to escape, but the brothers were never absent. Hunger became unbearable, his strength gave way, but he vowed he would not let the redskins see him die, so, forcing himself into one of the furthermost labyrinths, Malachi Boyer breathed his last.
Two days afterward the brothers entered the cave and discovered the body. They touched not the coins in his pockets, but weighted him with stones and dropped him into the deepest part of the greenish Limestone water. And after these years those who have heard this legend declare that on the still summer nights an unaccountable echo rings through the cave, which sounds like “Nita-nee,” “Nita-nee.”
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Circle K & Council of Lionhearts Work Party
The 9/11 Work Party was organized by Penn State University Park Circle K and Council of Lionhearts. Volunteers came from:
- Gamma Sigma Sigma Tau Chapter
- The Penn State Rotaract Club
- The Graduate and Professional Student Association
To allow emergency responders open access to Mount Nittany trails, these fine volunteers cleared trails from the Rockview State Prison land border to MNC maintained trails. Over 30 downed trees eliminated from emergency access path as per guidance from the Central Region Emergency Strike Team (C.R.E.S.T).
Great job and lots of hard work done by all!
Thank You … One and All!
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Alpha Phi Omega Work Party
As they have many times before, on Saturday, September 3, 2014 a volunteer group from Alpha Phi Omega National Service Sorority assisted the Conservancy with trail maintenance.
All hiked, worked hard and made great contribution!
The group was led by MNC Directors Blake Gall and Bob Andronici.
Let’s get this day started!
All together now (moving so fast the camera couldn’t capture the action)
Looks like we made it! -
A Penn State Student Body President’s Memo to a Penn State President
The Mount Nittany Conservancy’s “Ben Novak Fellowship” provides Penn Staters and Nittany Valley residents an opportunity to encounter the Nittany Valley’s legendary spirit through cultural and environmental experiences meant to enhance appreciation for our distinctive community and encourage friendships for the future. The Mount Nittany Conservancy’s Ben Novak Archives are intended to help new generations encounter the Ben Novak Fellowship’s namesake.
In August 1964, incoming Penn State Student Body President Ben Novak addressed the following memo on the nature and purpose of student self-governance to Penn State President Eric Walker. In 1981, Ben Novak would go on to establish the Mount Nittany Conservancy as an expression of the community’s love for the Mountain and the intergenerational desire to conserve the Mountain in its natural state.
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Why Learn the Penn State Story?
The creation of a Penn State undergraduate course on the university’s history is a source of great excitement and pride for many who dwell in body and in spirit in Mount Nittany’s gentle shadow.
In early 2013, Sean Clark and Zach Zimbler suggested that Penn State ought to offer a class on the history of the University itself. This prompted discussions with faculty in Penn State’s History department that eventually sparked development of a full course curriculum. Although final approvals will take some time, the near future will see the availability of a three-credit course on Penn State history, History 148 (appropriate, as it corresponds to the number of Centre County’s Civil War regiment, which was led by future Penn State President James Beaver). We were happy to have helped catalyze what we believed to be a worthy endeavor, but we wanted to do more.
Steve Garguilo stepped up to make an extraordinary financial commitment to establish the Stephen D. Garguilo Nittany Valley Society University History Endowment in Penn State’s College of the Liberal Arts. This endowment will provide sustaining financial support year-in and year-out for the course—funds are intended to defray expenses associated with the academic examination and teaching of the institution’s history, including, but not limited to, enrichment and support for the course.
This will be the first such class ever offered at Penn State and only the second of its kind to be found in the Big Ten. I expect the course, while suitably rigorous, will also be a lot of fun and instantly rank among the most popular options come scheduling time. Penn State has never suffered from a shortage of school spirit, so the subject matter should certainly help keep students engaged. The key is what happens after you have their attention. A studied examination of Penn State’s past has a lot of practical utility here in the present.
In a 2015 talk, Penn State Lunar Lion mission director Michael Paul spoke about how striving to reach the Moon is opening up incredible opportunities for the institution and its students. Hands-on learning and connections with the global aerospace community are invaluable byproducts of what is, in itself, ground-breaking work. By identifying new innovations and cost efficiencies in lunar exploration, Penn State could make significant, tangible impact on how humanity reaches for the final frontier in the 21st century.
After Michael’s talk, I commented that, in their quest to land a lunar module, his team represents a modern extension of founding president Evan Pugh’s vision for a college where practical pursuits would be afforded the same serious study as the humanities were in classical universities. Perhaps more than any other single undertaking at Penn State, the Lunar Lion captures the pioneering spirit upon which the school was founded.
It is easy to forget now, when the STEM fields are in such high demand and, as a result, the darlings of politicians and academics, that conventional thinkers once scoffed at the notion of teaching agriculture and engineering in the same hallowed halls as art, literature, and philosophy. The sentiment animating the land-grant movement of the late 1800s, which recalled self-made Renaissance man Pugh from Oxford to his native Pennsylvania, once seemed hopelessly provincial. “Farmers and thinkers belong in different rooms, and never the twain shall meet.” So went the conventional wisdom.
Pugh’s vision for teaching the advanced study of agriculture and the mechanic arts in the “splendid isolation” of the Nittany Valley was, in its time, a radical experiment in democratizing higher education. Yet history teaches us that the rise of the public research universities laid the groundwork for the American Century, and as they grew, these schools became places that both reflected our society and challenged it to change and grow.
As we struggled to reconcile our national identity, college campuses often led the charge in breaking boundaries and incubating new ideas. We see this play out in microcosm throughout the University’s life cycle, sometimes with a progressive sensibility and sometimes not. There is a lot to learn, not all of it pretty, but there is plenty in which Penn Staters should take pride. Penn State was the first institution of higher education in the Commonwealth to admit female students; football star Wally Tripplett came to Happy Valley on an academic scholarship at a time when many black Americans were denied entry to universities on any grounds.
In learning these stories, which are grounded in the people and places that surround them during one of life’s most exciting times, students will gain perspective on national history in a way that tethers abstract concepts to something closer to home, something more real. There is more.
We hope that becoming more familiar with the details of the University’s history will help strengthen students’ sense of themselves as Penn Staters, as inheritors of a distinct narrative that is unique to this community they have chosen to join. It is an incredible saga full of remarkable stories:
How our “Second Founder” George Atherton revived a failing college by believing in the “university that was to be,” how Milton Eisenhower sought the favor of his brother, the President of the United States, to build it up, or how Joe Paterno used the occasion of a football championship, not to demand a higher salary or better facilities for his team, but to challenge the University’s trustees to raise the money needed to elevate Penn State’s academic standing.
The endowment’s legacy statement explains that we seek “to provide future generations of Penn Staters with a stronger sense of themselves and our world through studied consideration of their University’s story.” Thanks to the leadership of administrators and faculty in the College of the Liberal Arts, particularly in the History department, this new and exciting learning opportunity will soon become reality.
As we continue to add new chapters—perhaps even one day making the “Nittany Nation” the fourth nation to land on the Moon—the Stephen D. Garguilo Nittany Valley Society University History Endowment will provide the sustaining financial support that ensures we never forget our story or its valuable lessons.
