All about the glory!

Listen to Dave Ross’ Commentary: All about the glory!

At Penn State, the student body president announced a show of unity at Saturday’s game:

“By standing from kick-off to the victory bell is rung.”

He wants to replace the embarrassing image of that pro-Paterno riot.

“We are the ones who must restore glory to Penn State.”

Ah! Glory! It’s still about the glory. Football can’t be three hours of mere entertainment, it’s gotta be about glory!

And what is glory? It’s the process of turning ordinary people into deities. It’s athletes floating into the end zone in slow motion. The creation of legends and eventually the need to protect the legend at all costs.

I think football can be really entertaining. But a belief system? A second family?

“Coach Paterno has meant more to me than anybody except my father and I don’t want to get emotional and start talking about that.”

But a coach can never be a father substitute. God Bless all the good men who step forward and try, but a coach can’t be a father, even a coach whose name literally means father.

To me, the significance of this sorry episode is that more FATHERS need to be fathers.

The perverts will always be there, but what makes it easier for them is the sheer number of boys needing a father because their real fathers failed them.

A real father knows you from birth, a real father loves you win or lose, and a real father doesn’t witness rape and call it horseplay.

Every time a real father walks away, he leaves a hole in a kid’s life — and this a reminder that no institution, no matter how glorified, can ever really fill it.