STATE COLLEGE, Pa. – I’ll admit I too was skeptical about how Al Pacino would look with Coke-bottle glasses, rolled-up pant legs and the signature black Nikes.
How would Pacino nail all the Joe Paterno-isms required to portray the main character? Would HBO’s newly released 'Paterno' film even get close to trying to cram Paterno’s complex legacy at Penn State into 105 minutes of a fictional film that’s still based on some very real events in a town where the lines about legacies have long been drawn?
The film that focused on Paterno’s final and tumultuous week as head coach at Penn State has been available for one week and has generated 6.7/10 on movie review site IMDb and has an average rating of 7/10 on popular review site Rotten Tomatoes.
But the reviews really don’t begin to tell the story on this one. It wouldn’t have mattered if Pacino delivered a performance worthy of all the accolades in the world. It still would leave many fans, alums and lettermen outraged. Of course it would, and it did.
The Paterno family issued a statement last weekend refuting the fictional events in the movie hours before it was even made public. In the days that followed, 300 former Nittany Lion lettermen blasted HBO for what they called an “uninformed depiction of Joe.” Many of the names signed on that letter have become the usual ones who have criticized Penn State, filmmakers, the media and anyone and everyone in between about a legacy, a statue, a scandal and a narrative surrounding all of it that they disagreed with.
I’m convinced that part of this story will never end -- not here and not anywhere else as minds have long been made up about legacies, faults, who to blame and who knew what and when.
All the HBO film did was remind people, both here in Happy Valley and around the world, about what happened at Penn State now six-plus years ago and while the details in the fictional film aren’t all accurate – hence the fictional part – I still found it powerful and also a little weird.
Having covered the scandal since the news broke in 2011 and staying here to report on it (and everything else) since then, there were scenes that even took me back. Standing on Paterno’s front lawn in November of 2011 when other reporters and I were camped out there for hours on end while the university unraveled was surreal back then. Even now, I know however long I’m in this industry, I’ll never cover something like that ever again. Hopefully, none of us will.
Someone asked me last week ahead of the HBO release if I thought when I was covering Penn State’s scandal that it would ever be made into a movie. My response was of course. Every day on this campus and in this town for at least 2-3 months was an unpredictable rollercoaster ride with a national audience. If I had a nickel for every time I told someone during that span, “Man, you can’t even script this,” I wouldn’t be sitting here across town typing this right now.
Even watching the movie with some people like myself who covered it and others who weren’t even living in the area during that time, there were still instances where you know what’s coming, you know how it ends, but yet there’s still an element of surprise as to how in the world so many tragic events happened and how it all played out.
While Penn State unfortunately and in all likelihood won’t be the last place where a tragedy like this occurs – and even since this happened, Baylor and Michigan State have had their own tragic events unfold – this place and so many others are supposed to now be better equipped to report and deal with such crises should they occur.
Countless training sessions, mounds of paperwork, compliance meetings and the continuation of “if you see something, say something” has been hammered home here and across the country. Of course the film couldn’t dive into all that’s happened since then – and there’s probably another filmmaker somewhere contemplating whether or not the rebuild of this university is worthy of another movie or not -- what HBO did was open up this topic to a wider audience.
Living here in this bubble of sorts where just about every day I’m doing something related to Penn State, whether in my coverage or pointing out to visitors that the football stadium is visible from just about any point in town, there is still an entire audience beyond us that hasn’t followed this thing like most of us here have.
Living in Pennsylvania, especially, we’ve read and heard more about the scandal than most, whether we wanted to or not. It was constantly in front of us and even now, with any little blip of Paterno or Jerry Sandusky-related news, we report and hear more about it all over again. That’s just how it works.
It wasn’t until I was in London during the summer of 2012, which was immediately following the scandal and Paterno’s death, that I realized just how different perceptions were of what happened here. I guess when you cover something and basically live and breathe it in a sense for so long, it’s hard to conceptualize that some people are still unaware of the key details surrounding such a huge national story.
I was talking about the scandal with strangers in London that summer and their take, and again this is hardly scientific but it shocked me as one college-aged student said it, was that Paterno was the one abusing children because it was always his picture and his name that was in headlines and on the news. I asked again just to be sure I didn’t mishear and sure enough the same response followed. That blew my mind. Again, this was from someone who clearly didn’t follow it closely, yet somehow they put the attention and all the blame on Paterno.
Surely that person isn’t alone across the globe as this film, even with some great and not-so-great acting, some faults and some spot-on scenes, brings the attention back on all that unfolded in Happy Valley. Maybe from there they’ll conduct their own research to come up with their own informed opinions? I've always viewed movies as entertainment, but the best ones force me to think and then I'll dig into the topics, whether fiction or reality, for a little more knowledge.
The reality of what happened at Penn State is something that won’t ever go away, especially not around here. Some of the students on campus now were in middle school in 2011. Some watched the film within the past week and some didn’t want to.
Like all universities where legacy students follow one generation after the next, they too have their own ideas about what unfolded when they were still in junior high and who knew what and when.
Ultimately, changing opinions isn’t something an HBO film, a scandal-related documentary or any number of outraged lettermen will do. Everyone will choose to remember what they want about Paterno, about Penn State, about legacies and about what happened here, both good and bad, whether it was left on the cutting room floor or not.
• On a much lighter note, I’ve declared many of my favorite local establishments intolerable during this Penguins-Flyers series. Many of you know my hockey knowledge could fit on an index card (if I’m being generous) so it has absolutely nothing to do with liking or disliking any of these teams or the sport, rather just the constant bickering that happens during games about it. I get it, both sides of the state don’t like each other and will try to showcase their superiority in one way or the other. If ever there was a time for me to flee to New Jersey or Ohio, this might be it.
On second thought, I'll stay.
• I'm mock-drafted out. Honestly. I’ve glanced at so many NFL mock drafts during the last several months and every time I click on them I’m reminded why I dislike them in the first place. Projecting trades -- and some of them project many -- is such a ridiculous exercise that all these drafts are just meant to be entertainment. I've always felt this way about mock drafts, though, maybe you either love them or hate them and I know where I stand.
Whoever unveils the first 2019 mock draft shortly after April 28 -- and I guarantee someone will, because we can't let anything breathe in this 24/7 news and entertainment cycle -- is no friend of mine.
• I'll be in Dallas later this month to see the real NFL draft and maybe I'll play some draft bingo along the way. Everyone starts by covering the free space and the most overused draft phrase: "checks all the boxes." Just imagine if Tom Brady had checked all the boxes on draft day? Yeah, I think he's fine.
• I caught up with math guru John Urschel on Friday as part of Penn State's sports analytics conference and he's genuinely thrilled with his pursuit of a career in mathematics. When people are passionate about something, I've always believed you can sense it by how they talk about what they do. I've never met someone so upbeat about numbers as Urschel. That's held true from when I first sat in on a class he was teaching four of five years ago to now.
Believe it or not, he was trying to get answers out of me while I attempted to follow along to this complex math problem he's working on. I warned him I was so bad with math I did Algebra I twice but that didn't stop him from trying to teach this lost mathematical cause.
Don't look for Urschel to dig into sports analytics as a primary focus. He told me he plans to stay in his own lane but will chip in if and when people ask or need help with sports analytics. Have to think somebody somewhere would love to lure him away after MIT to get him working in analytics either in college football or the NFL.
• By the Pirates moving their start time on Sept. 8 from 7:05 p.m. to 1:05 p.m. that means we're all likely going to be in for a treat as Pitt-Penn State at Heinz Field should therefore be played in the evening. That would guarantee this third game of the four-year agreement will be as wild as ever. The game would sell out regardless of the time or place, but now it'll be an even bigger spectacle which is great for both fanbases.
Just another game on the schedule though, right?