Joe Paterno and a Second Chance at History

Tomorrow, at the team’s 2016–17 home opener against Temple, Penn State football will mark the 50th anniversary of Joe Paterno’s first game as head coach of the team. Paterno put Penn State on the map by turning them into college football’s traditional powerhouses, and kept them on the map by doing effectively nothing to prevent the systematic sexual abuse of young boys by former defensive coordinator and forever piece of rancid crocodile shit Jerry Sandusky.

It’s a fine line to walk, honoring someone who’s now rightfully as well known for his Hellen Keller impression in the face of the purest form of human evil as he is for coaching a game, but I think Penn State is right to do so. In fact, I think that what they’re doing could be groundbreaking. People, as it turns out, are very complex. They do good things, like call good football plays and convince good football players to play at their school, and also, sometimes at the same time, they do bad things, like allowing defenseless young boys to be raped and doing absolutely nothing about it. Why should the latter detract from the former, especially when old people who have money to donate prefer acting like the latter never happened (which is actually a very fitting tribute to Paterno)?

Penn State shouldn’t get to have all the fun celebrating people who had both good and bad impacts, though. History is full of people whose terrible, rotten, despicable actions have unfairly overshadowed the ways in which they made the world a better place. By courageously choosing to honor well know resident of a medium-to-low circle of hell Joe Paterno, Penn State is paving the way for some of his neighbors (or future neighbors) to finally get their due. I have a few suggestions for the next people who should finally be celebrated.

George Zimmerman

George Zimmerman is best known for courageously shitting his diaper and pulling out a gun because he saw a black kid in a hoodie. By killing Trayvon Martin for no reason and getting off completely scot-free because of Florida’s Stand Your Ground law, though, Zimmerman incited a strong reaction from African-American communities that fostered conversation on race relations.

Without Zimmerman completely panicking in the face of a completely imaginary threat, the Black Lives Matter movement may have gotten its start a few months later than it did, which means that America may have been a couple months of informed discussion further away from real, effective changes being made to the way black people are treated systemically and individually. George Zimmerman, we salute you.

Josef Stalin

The former Premier of the USSR, Josef Stalin’s historical reputation has taken a hit due to a frosty relationship between the Soviets and the United States during the Cold War, and also because he had about 20 million of his own people killed and countless others exiled. It can be hard to get past a number like that, especially if you try to think of each of those 20 million people as an individual with dreams and goals and family and friends.

Stalin wasn’t all bad, though. Without him and his enormous, freezing, inhospitable country in their corner, the Allied powers likely wouldn’t have won World War II, meaning that Hitler would have had the opportunity to take a run at Stalin’s own kill count. That would have been pretty bad.

Also, the USSR’s terrifying rivalry and arms race with the United States spurred a theretofore unprecedented era of technological innovation. Do you like the Internet? How about any movie set in outer space. Take a minute away from thinking about all those dead Russians and thank Josef Stalin.

The Rat Who Started the Bubonic Plague

People generally have an aversion to vermin and death. Evolution programmed that into us as a safeguard against extinction — an extinction that was nearly brought upon us by the death-carrying rat who started the Bubonic Plague, which killed over a quarter of the population of western Europe in 14th century. As with Stalin, that staggering amount of death and terror has always kept people from appreciating the good things that the rat who started the Bubonic Plague did.

First of all, kudos to just surviving long enough to accomplish anything of note in the 1300s. I probably wouldn’t have — I haven’t even survived long enough to accomplish anything of note today! On top of that, Europe’s recovery from the Black Death lead directly to the Renaissance. The Renaissance was western humanity’s greatest period of artistic and scientific achievement and advancement since the heyday of the Roman Empire, and many of the time’s works are still revered today. Before you praise Michelangelo, Donatello, Leonardo, and Raphael for their incredible displays of human talent, praise that rat that started the disease that sparked the whole movement.

The Devil

The Devil may seem like a strange figure to celebrate if you’re not a member of a Satanic cult, given that he is the root of all evil in the world and everything like that. However, this current era of his existence shouldn’t cloud the fact that being the fountain from which all the tragedies, great and small, of our world flow is only a part of Beelzebub’s whole. At the beginning, he was an angel, God’s right hand man; to earn that position, he must have done some pretty incredible things that have been lost to a history written by the victors.

More importantly, you know the sentiment that without rainy days, no one could appreciate the sunny ones? Satan is the logical conclusion to that line of thinking. Without him and the horrible wickedness that plagues humanity because of him, we wouldn’t appreciate the truly good things in the world, like milkshakes and Young Thug, nearly as much.

The happiest moments of your life would have been experienced in a relatively numbed, black-and-white version of the world if they weren’t balanced out with the worst moments of your life. So the next time something good happens to you, you can thank God for it happening, and the Devil for enhancing the experience.

By honoring Joe Paterno, Penn State offers the world a chance to take a second look at history, one that’s more nuanced, more forgiving of misdeeds in favor of positive achievements. If hundreds of thousands of people can overlook the molestation of dozens of kids because a man was good at telling 18 year olds how to play a game for a long time, maybe humanity as a whole can follow their lead.

As Joe Paterno said, “I am in hell and my soul will burn here forever, and I deserve it. Can’t you guys at least be nice to me up there?” Wise words. Why can’t we let George Zimmerman, Josef Stalin, the rat who started the Bubonic Plague, and Satan take their rightful place beside him?