You guessed it.

Penn State.

It’s not just “any other day” in blue and white land.

Today is the first day of the rest of PSU’s life. Without Joe Paterno, without his statue, and with knowing the final NCAA penalties, however harsh they may be.

A friend of mine sent me a video of PSU people defending Joe as the statue was removed. He asked, “What’s wrong with these people?”

Here’s what I replied:

“There are going to be those PA people, especially those from Central and Eastern PA who adore Joe like a family member. They’ll forgive anything. (Many westerners always hated PS and Joe.) Like I said, I think if I were a student there now rather than years back I would feel betrayed to the point where I’d want to transfer. This goes well beyond ‘not being perfect’ or ‘making a mistake.’ It’s the danger in acquiring too much power and it has happened throughout history. It’s the reason George Washington knew he had to walk away. It’s so cliché but so true, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. PSU is a big lesson for this country and to a degree I think the statue had become a distraction. If someone as good as Joe Paterno (you’ve heard it all before 50 years of giving, yada yada) could turn so vile it can happen to anyone or any institution. In my opinion, whether or not PS football dies is kind of secondary to focusing on the abuse of power. It does, however, give the media something to write about.”

So, as everyone is so focused on punishing PS football let’s keep in mind the bigger message here. The more compelling one. The one the inept media is missing even as our very own Federal Government and Federal Reserve continue to centralize more and more power within their respective walls. Anyone. I don’t care who it is. Remember Joe? Anyone with too much power is bound to abuse it.

Now, let’s get back to the NCAA penalties. I think PSU lucked out. (Gasp.) I know every PS football fan is hurling rocks at my head, but it could have been worse. If, and it’s a big if, Coach O’Brien can hold this team and his recruiting class together, PS football will emerge in four years in a much better place. You can count on the public completely forgetting PS football by then. Scandal? Joe who? Whatever. In the meantime, Coach O could be building to something great, something better than PS football has seen since the early 1990s. The challenge, of course, for PSU will always be to contain the beast, to never again allow it to grow so large that it overshadows not only the University, but State College, and indeed, Central and Eastern Pennsylvania.

So, today, PS football fans will collectively scream at the injustice while the haters will say they should have received the death penalty. That’s why PS lucked out. At least the NCAA is giving the football program a chance, however small, to continue.The death penalty doesn’t allow that. Everyone would have to leave. And building it from scratch would have been onerous. There is enough PA pride (or “cultish behavior,” if you prefer) to hold this thing together. Look at what Lane Kiffin did at USC, even with the 2-year bowl ban and massive scholarship reductions. (Looks like he kept that Southern California “cult” together.) And Ohio State, you would not even know they had a scandal. That “cult” bounced back quicker than anyone would have ever imagined. And of course, Miami. We’re at a point where the only way a Miami scandal shocks is if someone is dead. “So and so ordered a hundred hookers and booze and cocaine.” Whatever. “So and so offered money in a pay for play scandal.” Whatever. “So and so paid players to injure opposing players.” Whatever. It’s Miami. The NCAA hasn’t even ruled on its latest scandal yet, which broke over a year ago. And either way, its “cult” always bounces back. In fact, all these “cults,” or fan bases as I call them, find a way of staying together and I’m sure PSU will find a way through this.

The bigger, and more important question Americans need to ask themselves is, “What institutions or people do we have in our culture that currently hold too much power and what can we do to prevent the inevitable disasters that await because of it?”