The Soap Opera That Preempted the 2011 College Football Season

I have a confession.  It's a guilty pleasure.  I enjoy watching The Young and the Restless with my wife.  I didn't start out as a man who enjoyed soap operas.  When I met my wife, she was a fan of The Guiding Light and The Young and the Restless.  Frequently she would watch one, the other, or both and I would politely sit by her biding my time until "real" television came on.  My wife would talk to me as if I was paying attention.  "Oh my God, I can't believe _______ did that!"  My responses to these statements were normally, "Who's ______?"  My wife would then exasperatedly explain to me for the nth time that ______ was the brother of __________ who was once married to __________ and is now sleeping with ___________.  We continued these identical conversations for almost three years before I started paying attention.  I realized that ________ actually had a name and that I remembered _________ and even though I frequently made fun of the bad writing and the story lines that would drop off for no earthly reason, I found myself falling into the shows.  I have reconciled my guilty secret with the knowledge that at their heart, soap operas are simply modern, commercial versions of ancient Greek tragedies.  All the basic elements are there.  There is nice emotional release that can be had from watching a soap opera.  The characters do things they shouldn't do; they put themselves in situations that they shouldn't put themselves; and they allow their emotions to rule their better judgment.  As a viewer, you can relate to the character and also comfortably be morally condescending that you would never stoop to their level.  It's their frequent lack of better moral judgment that drives the ratings.  Lately, I have realized that I'm not the only man who enjoys a good soap opera.

Early in my marriage, I frequently questioned why my wife liked soap operas.  She responded by asking me what I loved about college football.  In many ways, I found that what I liked about college football and what she liked about soap operas were very similar.  I told her that when it comes to college football, or any sport for that matter, there is drama, there is great story, but in football, it is unscripted.  When you watch college football, it is a game played among young men but the outcomes of those games sometimes become legendary.  I gave her examples.  Florida State had lost three games to Miami on wide right, end of game field goals.  Isn't that worthy of a great story?  There were transcendent games, in 1970, USC's defeat of Alabama might have done as much to break down racial barriers in Alabama as did sit-ins and marches.  Just last week, college football featured one of the best regular season games in many years.  It was a #1 versus #2 matchup of two teams that featured two of the best defenses to ever take the same field in the same game.  It was coined "The Game of the Century."  Whether it was worthy of the title is a debate for another article however in terms of drama it is nowhere close to a game being played this week that, for all the wrong reasons, will be "The Game of the Year." 

Of course with any major sport there are stories that don't take place on the grid-iron but it seems of late, the side stories are becoming the featured event while the actual game suffers.  Unless you are living under a rock, you are probably aware of the Penn State, Joe Paterno, Jerry Sandusky scandal.  It has spread from the sports pages, to the front page, and even to TMZ.  In less than a week, it has turned the world of college football upside down, ended the legendary career of the coach with the most wins in Division I football, and spurred a violent riot on one of the largest collegiate campuses in the Nation.  We are five days into this story and it is far from over.  More heads will roll and there are now questions as to whether Joe Paterno will be charged criminally by his inaction to report the incident to police.  Is it all newsworthy?  Absolutely!  Is the sports media right in demanding blood?  For the most part, yes.  Don't get me wrong, my qualified answer to my question is not to be seen as support for the culprits, and they are culprits, but moreover the dangerous road that the sports media is travelling down with this story. 

On Monday night, most people who follow college football were aware that Jerry Sandusky, a former Penn State defensive coordinator, had been indicted for sexual molestation of young boys.  Generally the sports viewing public was also aware that Joe Paterno was a witness for the prosecution at the Grand Jury.  By Tuesday morning, the major online sports media outlets were demanding for Joe Paterno's immediate dismissal, (something that was accomplished by Wednesday night).  Before the general public could even ascertain what the facts were, readers were being spoon-fed what they should be thinking.  Make no mistake, those calls for immediate dismissals were right on target.  Without rehashing the entirety of the facts, very briefly, in 2002, Mike McQueary, a then graduate assistant and current assistant coach walked into a Penn State locker room and allegedly found Jerry Sandusky subjecting a ten year old boy to anal sex.  He then reported that, not to the police, but to head coach, Joe Paterno.  Joe Paterno then reported it to Athletic director Tim Curly and also it was reported to Penn State Vice President Gary Shultz.  None of the men mentioned reported the incident to the police.  Jerry Sandusky is charged with similar incidents after 2002, all of which could have been prevented if any one of those men had bothered to report it.  Losing your job is a bare minimum of punishment.  Sometimes though, in the case of the media, you can be right and still be wrong.

This week's scandal has shown us not only an ugly side to a well respected coach but also to the media that is reporting on the incident.  Any journalist who has simply stated that there should not have been an immediate rush to judgment has been met with a backlash of virulent anger from fans and other media reporters that somehow their unwillingness to immediately grab the pitchfork is seen as support for people who had a massive moral collapse. 

On Wednesday night and Thursday morning, the new target of the Penn State scandal was the Penn State student body who protested the firing of Joe Paterno.  More than likely, their violent protest had a lot to do with their inability to digest all the information before the Board made their decision to pull the plug on the Joe Paterno era.  Did the Board of Trustees make the right decision?  Sure, it was a no-brainer but would the Board have made the same decision, the same way, without the media's calls for that decision.  That is debatable.  My guess is that if the Board of Trustees had not been under so much intense pressure, it would have suspended Joe Paterno while investigating the matter.  As the investigation moved on, Paterno's support with the students probably would have eroded and either Paterno would have seen the light and resigned or the Board of Trustees could have made the same decision a few days later without all of the circus that has surrounded it.  Even though the same result would have been achieved, it was being demanded not by the public and not by Penn State but clearly by the sports media.

I am a huge supporter of media.  Media can be and has been the watchdog for the public but sometimes members of the media can cross a boundary in which they stop being journalists, even stop being editorialists, and take on the role of moral compass.  It was unnecessary with the Penn State scandal.  The facts are what they are.  Was it believed that the sports public was simply too obtuse or morally deficient to make the right decision given the facts?  Is this story the proverbial golden egg laying goose?  This Saturday, Penn State will face Nebraska and for the first time since 1966, will have a new head coach.  I expect that it will be a ratings bonanza for all the wrong reasons.  Less than half who tune in to watch the game will be doing so for football but will be doing so in spite of the game.  It's very possible that the Penn State / Nebraska game could top last week's LSU / Alabama matchup in terms of ratings.  Meanwhile, Saturday night, Stanford will face Oregon in a game dripping with national championship implications but the game is threatened to be overshadowed by any news coming out of Pennsylvania.  I hope that the soap operas of college football go back to being those that are played out on the football field on Saturdays and that the soap operas involving moral indecency and sex scandals go back to being played by actors on shows that air Monday through Friday.