Game
Over by
journalists Bill Moushey and Bob Dvorchak provides a serviceable
chronicle of linebacker coach-cum-pedophile Jerry Sandusky’s abuse
of adolescent boys, and the listless efforts of Penn State
higher-ups—none higher than college coaching legend Joe Paterno (right)—to
put a stop to it. While the book is dated, going to print just before
legal proceedings had begun against Sandusky, and also prone to
repeating itself vis-à-vis some of the developments, it is still a
worthwhile read. Its value endures on the grounds that the book is a
repository of Sandusky-related public discourses that, quite frankly,
reverberate with perversion, and affirm the man’s guiltiness in an
intuitive way that transcends the mere verdict put forward by a jury
of his peers.
Consider
these examples, all of which are compiled throughout the course of
Game
Over.
Early on, there is a quote from a former Penn State linebacker Gary
Gray, who describes Sandusky as “always touchy feely” (p. 27).
When Sandusky himself retired abruptly and unceremoniously in 1999,
he issued a statement about how he wanted to dedicate more time to
the Second Mile, the charitable organization through which Sandusky
harvested many of his victims: “As the organization has grown,”
he explained, “the demands for my hands-on involvement have
increased dramatically” (p. 30). Upon the news of Sandusky’s
retirement, Penn State athletic director Tim Curley, who would later
plead guilty to child endangerment charges for failing to report the
abuses, offered the following: “His achievement as a human being is
splendidly demonstrated by the thousands of youngsters he touches
annually through the Second Mile” (p. 31). A couple years after
stepping aside, Sandusky would put out his autobiography,
ghost-written by Kip Richeal and published via a vanity press. Its
title, you ask? Touched:
The Jerry Sandusky Story.
You
don’t need a Ph.D. in discourse analysis to read between
the lines here. With the emphasis on “touching” in descriptions
provided of and by Sandusky, how could anyone say they were
“surprised” at the allegations? It seems like everyone who spoke
of Sandusky knew on some unconscious level (verging on the surface
consciousness) that the man was a pervert. Everything that Sandusky was
involved with (I don’t want to say “had a hand in”) became
steeped in perversion via the very fabric of the words that
characterized his activities.
Even
when Sandusky’s attorney, Joseph Amendola, publicly went on the
defensive in front of the media, the all-pervading perversity of his
client managed to seep into the lawyer’s words. Amendola was
incredulous that so many onlookers believed that Penn State
higher-ups like Tim Curley would not, as men of immense character and
responsibility, take seriously alleged child abuse and carry it
forward to law enforcement. As such, he issued a challenge: “If you
believe that, I suggest you dial 1-800-REALITY.” That number, the
authors of Game
Over
inform us matter-of-factly, was at the time a “phone service
offering gay and bisexual pornography” (p. 145).
The
quintessential telos of Jerry Sandusky, then, is salacious sodomy.* Once again, we see how the perverse and pornographic permeates the
entire sphere of Sandusky. Sandusky’s substrate is grimy, illicit
sex. So deep is the level of synchronicity between Sandusky and
indiscriminate, amoral sexuality that the entire thought-universe
generated around him inevitably thrums and vibrates with
lasciviousness. And for that reason, I’m going to end this attempt
at reviewing this book, before Sandusky’s inhering stain seeps into
me now inexorably on account of having tried myself to frame the man
in words and paragraphs. In fact, Sandusky’s monstrous Midas touch,
where everything he handled turned savagely and unlawfully sodomic,
might be reason enough not
to get your hands on a copy of Moushey and Dvorchak’s book.
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*Now, I want to be clear here that I’m not
saying there’s anything wrong with gay sex. However, commodified,
commercialized sex of any orientation is, I think we would all
agree, at least a bit seedy. So what I’m saying here (following
from Moushey and Dvorchak) is that there is something profoundly off
when the lawyer representing an outwardly Christian man like
Sandusky unintentionally references gay phone sex. The
synchronicities are just too profound.