CHICAGO -- It was one of Joe Paterno's final acts, written not out of defiance perhaps, but out of desperation and obligation.
"This is not a football scandal and should not be treated as one," insisted Paterno in a letter written seven months before his death and published several weeks ago.
Tell that to first-year Penn State coach Bill O'Brien and the three Nittany Lions players he brought to Thursday's Big Ten Conference media function. For every one question about actual football -- and there weren't many -- there were a dozen others about the aftermath of crippling NCAA sanctions levied against the program.
"Penn State's taken a lot of punches over the past five or six months," said O'Brien. "It's time to punch back."
On Monday the NCAA hit Nittany Lions football flush in the face. Or, say some Penn State supporters, sucker punched.
The most severe of the NCAA penalties will subject O'Brien's program to four years without bowl or postseason appearances and four years of crushing scholarship reductions. And because of the width and breadth of those staggering penalties, Nittany Lions players can transfer to other programs and play immediately. Already, State College has become the cherry-picking capital of college football.
"Monday was a tough day," said O'Brien, in one of the great understatements.
But this is Thursday, which means O'Brien is way past pity-party mode. When asked if his program and his university were, in essence, being blamed for all that is wrong in college athletics, O'Brien said, "It's not for me to comment on that. It's for me to tell everybody in Penn State Nation to turn the page."
Nobody is trying to flip those pages forward and faster than O'Brien and the players committed to staying. He has had conference calls with the parents of Penn State players and will meet with more parents throughout the weekend. He has perfected a campaign speech -- a recruiting pitch, actually -- that outlines the reasons why PSU players shouldn't bolt the program.
O'Brien is chin strap deep in a scenario in which there is no instruction manual. So he trusts his instincts, and his instincts tell him to get out in front of the Penn State bashing.
"At the end of the day, life's about a lot of things," he said. "NCAA sanctions aren't the end of the world."
They aren't the end of the world, but as the penalties begin to seep into Penn State's blood stream, it will likely be the end of Nittany Lion football, in a competitive sense, for the foreseeable future. Even the most die-hard PSU followers would have to admit to that football truth.
It is one thing to see those penalties in the abstract, but quite another to see them through the eyes of Penn State's players. And make no mistake, you can still see the hurt on their faces.
"It's a sad reality," said Jordan Hill, a senior defensive tackle. "It's sort of like a movie, where you watch it and say, 'This stuff will never happen to me.'"
Except that it did happen to Hill and his teammates. They begin their season knowing they will play 12 regular-season games and nothing more.
Hill was 7 years old in 1998, when a mother first complained about the actions of then-Penn State assistant coach Jerry Sandusky.
"I was focusing on Power Rangers and Ninja Turtles," he said.
But it is Hill and his teammates, who played no part in the scandal and silence that unfolded during the ensuing years at Penn State, who find themselves at the center of the NCAA punishment. Fair? There is no fair.
"We've been set up to be torn apart," said senior linebacker Michael Mauti.
He was talking about the open season on Penn State players by opposing coaches. According to Mauti, some of those coaches are calling some Penn State players 10 to 12 times, camping outside their apartments and even their classrooms.
"They're playing under the rules, write that down," said Mauti. "But you have coaches saying, 'We wish the best for Penn State,' but at the same time they're trying to recruit our players."
There is anger and sadness. This has been an out-of-body experience for these players. But there is also a renewed sense of team. You saw that in their faces, too.
"We don't want to lose a game, especially in our last year," said Hill. "It will be a very emotional season."
Game 1 of 12 begins Sept. 1 against Ohio. That's the day the first Penn State punch is thrown.
Source: http://espn.go.com/ncf/notebook/_/page/2012bigtenmediadays1/2012-big-ten-media-days
ESPN The Magazine's Don Van Natta brings you inside the secret negotiations that brought Penn State football to the brink of extinction. 