Say It Aint So, Joe
Posted 5/5/2023
“Say it ain’t so, Joe” is a powerful sentence. You may have heard it a few times. Legend has it that when baseball great “Shoeless” Joe Jackson was walking into a courthouse after he and seven teammates were accused of throwing (to “throw” in this case means to lose on purpose) the 1919 World Series in exchange for money from gamblers, a child fan of Jackson said, “Say it ain’t so, Joe.”
In both tone and words, this expressed how badly this child didn’t want these allegations to be true. He didn’t want to think of a man he admired for his baseball talent to be someone who would be dishonest enough to do this.
Almost a century later fans of another sports legend named Joe went through the same thing. This time the sports figure’s last name was Paterno. In November 2011, it became widely publicized that Jerry Sandusky, an assistant for Penn State head football coach Joe Paterno, was facing child sexual abuse allegations. Sandusky was convicted of this abuse and other Penn State officials were convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice related to the case. Paterno himself reportedly knew about the problems with Sandusky for years and showed “total and consistent disregard… for the safety and welfare of Sandusky’s child victims.” Paterno was fired that year. He also died two months later, and I remember it being speculated that if Paterno had not died, he would have faced legal charges of covering up the scandal.
Why was this particularly painful to not only Penn State fans but college football fans in general? Because many of them pictured Joe Paterno as being a clean, unassuming coach who did not cheat or brag and provided his players with guidance and discipline to not only be great players but also great people.
What I just said about Joe Jackson and Joe Paterno could be said for many other sports figures. It could also be said of other types of figures. We put these celebrities on a pedestal in our minds and we therefore risk going through the heartbreaking experience seeing their flawed nature come to the surface. Perhaps this is because it is hard for us to separate a role model’s talent – whether it be athletic, artistic, musical, or professional – from the actual person.
Consider the idea that this phenomenon of a disappointing moral failure can apply not only to a person but also to a place. This happens in my book It Was a Magical Place late in the story when my protagonist Tom Gleason hears news that reflects badly on a town which he had associated with happy memories. Tom mentions how badly he wished the things happening in that town were not true and wants someone to “say it isn’t so.”
I guess what happened at Penn State does relate to this what happens to this town in my book because of this common lesson: Institutions, even those that capture our imagination in a positive way, must sometimes be challenged.
Perhaps the best thing for those of us who go through this is to appreciate the joy these people provided us but to also acknowledge the pain of seeing them, or places and things associated with them, fall. Share the sadness with a trusted friend and let the tears flow. This is the only way to get to the other side. Maybe your next life experience will be better.