Feet of clay

At the onset let me be clear ( borrowed that from Obama), I could care less that the powers to be at State College, PA have decided to remove Joe Paterno's statue from the vicinity of Beaver Stadium ( the SPCA however, needs to find another statue at State College for dogs to piss on). That being the case I will comment on this earth shaking decision anyway. Before I do I must make this point- anytime lions play in a beaver's stadium you know that there is touble ahead.

Apparently Coach Paterno was a good football coach but had some embarrassing character flaws. Let's face it, as human beings we all have character flaws. To discover a weakness or flaw in a greatly admired or respected person can however, be traumatic. This is especially true when some organization, school or government agency has seen fit to honor that person with a statue only to find that the person had feet of clay. They are then faced with the monumental decision of what to do with the monument. In the case of Joe Paterno, I guess the scrap heap wins. In the case of Abraham Lincoln ( yes, Lincoln had character flaws), the monument lives on.

Lesson to be learned - erecting a statue to a sports hero is foolish. It's an erection bound to turn into erectile dysfunction. Putting it another way, the odds are pretty good that the statue will have feet of clay and will come crumbling down (far better to avoid statues of all sorts- - the maintenance is too high- too attractive to pigeons).

(Note to MLB: get rid of all statues surrounding stadiums. It's too dangerous. Most have feet of clay.)