On a storybook campus, bleeding blue and white

On a storybook campus, bleeding blue and white

In this Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2011 photo, Ed Temple drives around Beaver Stadium at Penn State in State College, Pa. with a life-size cutout of Joe Paterno. For years, Penn State has cast itself as a singular storybook place. Like other schools, it thrived on a culture of football. But to bleed blue and white, Penn Staters promised themselves, was about much more than a game. It meant putting individual identity aside for the greater glory. It was about a unique bond, founded on knowing that your fellow Nittany Lions were your family and the coach in the Coke-bottle glasses and rolled up pants known affectionately as "JoePa," your trusted patriarch. It was about doing things the right way. That can all seem like so much hazy nostalgia now, following former Joe Paterno assistant Jerry Sandusky�s arrest Saturday, Nov. 5, 2011 on charges of molesting eight boys and allegations that Paterno, Penn State President Graham Spanier and other officials were told about one such incident in 2002, yet never went to the police.

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP) -- If only it were possible to block out the world's harshest realities - the way the people of Happy Valley have done for decades now - this week's crystalline skies might have set the scene for one more perfect chapter in local lore.

A glorious sun bathed Mount Nittany's fading foliage in a rusty glow. Hundreds of Penn State students gathered once again in the protective shadows of Beaver Stadium, pitching 81 tents in the instant colony called Paternoville. Another Big Game lay just ahead.

But when Ed Temple, class of `70, put down the convertible top of his meticulously restored 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air this week and set out for a drive around the stadium, he came to mourn.

In the back seat of a car usually reserved for alumni parades, Temple propped up a life-sized cardboard cutout of Joe Paterno, benevolent ruler of this valley for nearly half a century - but now the ex-football coach, fired this week in the midst of a spiraling scandal centered on allegations of child sex abuse by one of his former assistants.

In the front seat, Temple's dachshund, Snoopy, gazed out at the passing campus from his master's lap. "Unlike a human, this guy will never lie to you or deceive you," Temple said, stroking the dog's head.

With an edge heard in the voices of many Penn Staters, Temple - raised in this town that has long celebrated its seclusion - recalled life in the House that Joe Built. At first, the phrase was just a reference to the stadium, which packs in 107,000 on autumn Saturdays to revel in the words of the Alma Mater: "May no act of ours bring shame, to one heart that loves thy name."

But Temple went on to describe the tree-lined brick campus and the Valley itself as an oasis "sort of like Disneyland," one that has long drawn on a seemingly bottomless well of virtue and trust to sustain a family far bigger than any ordinary household could ever contain.

Now, trying to explain how it feels to be a part of that family, Temple, who is 65, reached for a parable of his own experience. Years ago, he said, his father, a local merchant and real estate developer, was sent to federal prison for four years after being convicted of tax evasion and mail fraud. Decades later, in a town where many people stay forever, Temple is certain some still cringe when he gives his name. Because of one man's deeds, he says, the family's identity is forever tarnished.

"That taints you for the rest of your life," Temple said, turning back to the scandal that has sundered Penn State's carefully constructed sense of self.

"We all have to live with that now."