Paterno Fired over Pedophile Probe
Happy Valley Student Body Unhappy with University's Actions

(State College, PA) — In the wake of a child sex abuse scandal at Penn State University (PSU), 84-year-old football coach Joe Paterno was fired on November 9, as was PSU's president Graham B. Spanier. But no one seemed to care about the latter.

Paterno, with 409 career wins and 46 years as PSU's head football coach, is viewed by many as more of a deity than a staff member at the school. In the end, even though he had been with the school since 1949, and held his current position since September 17, 1966, Paterno could not escape the mounting fury over the accusations of pedophilia against his former assistant coach, Jerry Sandusky, and the fact that high-level staff at PSU, including Paterno, knew about the problem for years but chose to do nothing.

Just as Russians grieved over the death of Stalin in 1953, in spite of his purges that left millions of his own people dead or exiled to Siberia, the outpouring of support for "Joe Pa" was overwhelming following the termination announcement by PSU's Board of Trustees. Gasps went up during the news conference late Wednesday night. Students poured into the streets of State College, known as "Happy Valley" to those affilated with the school, and showed their support for their coach by overturning a news van, assaulting police, vandalizing stores and sounding not unlike a terrorist group, chanting "Joe is Great!" into the early morning hours.

"The damage has been done," said a former Penn State official, speaking on condition of anonymity. "They had to make a move, and his knowing of a problem and doing nothing may have not broken any legal laws, but it did violate moral laws. This scandal is going to set the university – both its athletics programs and academic standing – back decades, and it will be known as 'Pedophile State University' for a long time to come."

Unofficially, some PSU officials acknowledge that there has been talk of enlisting the services of South Park's Sexual Harassment Panda, but he's reportedly out of town, working with Herman Cain's campaign staff to keep Cain's candidacy alive.