For Syracuse University students from Pennsylvania, last week’s news of the unraveling sexual abuse scandal at Pennsylvania State University came as a shock.

Timothy Cheng, a sophomore public relations, management and policy studies major, grew up slightly more than an hour away from Penn State. He said the news threw him for a loop, as the university was known for its strong reputation.

‘I figured if anything was going to happen with Penn State, it wasn’t going to be with their football staff,’ Cheng said.

The sex abuse scandal involving former Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky led to the firing of head football coach Joe Paterno and President Graham Spanier last week.

Ryan Mangini, a sophomore health and exercise science major, noticed the immensity of student uproar on Facebook. He said nine out of 10 Facebook statuses on his news feed were about Paterno’s firing and the scandal itself.

Mangini, a Warren, Pa., native, lives about two and a half hours from Penn State. He said the head coach is regarded as a godlike figure at the university.

‘If you’re from Pennsylvania, you know who he is,’ Mangini said.

Mangini said many of his friends at Penn State didn’t think Paterno should have been fired. Mangini felt Paterno deserved to lose his job because he was wrong for knowing about Sandusky’s actions for eight to 10 years and not calling further attention to the issue. Mangini said the same for former President Spanier.

Mark Schoenborn, a sophomore pre-med student, said he has friends at Penn State who camped out in front of Paterno’s home last week. He said it was wrong of Paterno not to further report what happened in the past, but he said no further action against the legendary coach should be taken.

‘Losing his job is enough,’ Schoenborn said.

As news of Paterno’s termination as coach spread at about 10 p.m. Wednesday night, thousands of Penn State students took to College Avenue in riots. Street lamps and a news van were toppled and police officers were forced to use pepper spray to subdue some members of the crowd.

Both Mangini and Schoenborn said the student riots were wrongly focused on Paterno instead of the victims sexually abused by Sandusky. Mangini said his friends at Penn State felt the crowds and riots were smaller than the media made them out to be.

Cheng said some students handled the situation better than others.

‘There’s some kids that are going crazy, but then there’s some kids that went to the candlelight vigil,’ Cheng said. ‘Some are rationally thinking about it, giving some thoughtful responses in social media, whereas some kids are just out in the street screaming their thoughts. Everyone’s taking it their own way.’

In contrast to Wednesday night’s riots, the Penn State community held a candlelight vigil Friday night displaying support for the victims of the abuse — a start to the rebuilding the university will endure.

‘It’s a crisis that they went through. They have to build from the ground up and move past the situation,’ Cheng said. ‘Penn State, while this happened, is still a great school.’

brvannos@syr.edu 

Published on November 13, 2011 at 12:00 pm

Contact Breanne: brvannos@syr.edu | @bre_vann