‘How do you seriously root for a team like this?’: Penn State sparks outrage after unveiling ‘Paterno Family Football Experience Room’
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Penn State Athletics and the Penn State All-Sports Museum unveiled the new Paterno Family Football Experience Room on Tuesday and announced its opening. The interactive collection is being touted as “a permanent museum experience celebrating more than a century of Penn State Football history.”
“Penn State Football’s history belongs to generations of student-athletes, coaches, staff and supporters who helped build this program,” Vice President for Intercollegiate Athletics Pat Kraft said. “This room gives us an opportunity to preserve that history, present it thoughtfully and create an experience that connects the proud tradition of Penn State Football with its future.”
The experience will feature several highlights, such as the Coach Joe Paterno Exhibit, which will include the former Penn State coach’s original office desk and workspace, personal artifacts, and a ‘curated timeline documenting significant moments from his more than six decades at Penn State.”
The late Paterno, a Hall of Fame head coach for the Nittany Lions’ football program, left a difficult legacy at the school. Despite his many on-field accomplishments, Paterno was approaching the end of his career when a state grand jury summoned him to testify aboutJerry Sandusky’s child molestation charges in early 2011.
Per ESPN, “Sandusky’s arrest that year prompted Paterno’s firing, and the university has paid more than $100 million to people who said they had been abused by Sandusky. He was convicted of 45 counts of child sexual abuse in 2012.”
Mike McQueary, a graduate assistant and key witness against Sandusky, recalled seeing Sandusky with a young boy naked in a team shower on a Friday night a decade earlier and reported what he saw to Paterno. Paterno alerted administrators, but police were never called. The Sandusky case severely damaged Paterno’s reputation, and the school has since removed his statue outside of Beaver Stadium.
“How do you seriously root for a team like this?”
This damage to Paterno’s reputation has left many fans upset about the Paterno Family Football Experience Room.
“How do you seriously root for a team like this? How do Penn State fans not live in abject disgust of their team?” one fan posted on X.
“(Former PSU head coach James Franklin) may not have been a great coach but he did good to keep the radioactive waste spewed by the JoePa people at arms length from the program at its lowest point. They clearly didn’t appreciate it,” another fan added.
“You’ll never convince me that Penn State isn’t an absolutely disgusting place,” someone else added.
The Paterno Family Football Experience Room will open to the public on Thursday, Sept. 3, at 10 a.m.
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