JoePa book to examine the 'real' person - Oct 21, 2011

The above article shows you - through its absence - how quickly and authoritatively the sports media has covered and colored the Sandusky-Paterno situation at Penn State. You just have to wonder what Joe Posnanski could be feeling, to have his "dream book's" subject go from the most respected person in college athletics to one of the most disrespected. This is some amazing, surreal stuff, folks.

I'm not trying to foist my expectations on Posnanski, but the nexus of talent and situation is uncanny: he is the best sportswriter in America writing an authorized book - originally his dream subject - about his good friend, who just happens to be at the the center of arguably the biggest scandal in the history of American college athletics since Len Bias. Anything short of "The Breaks of The Game" is going to be a disappointment to anyone that understands Posnanski's talent and the historical place of Penn State. Posnanski is in the weird situation of Brian Wilson before the SMiLE album - unfathomably high sudden expectations. I just hope he can deliver and come out the other side without an eternal bitterness, because it's the optimism and virtue that has made Posnanski so much more than just a scribe to his fans.

Of course, all of this aside, our thoughts are with the victims of the senseless tragedy in State College.