It’s about time Penn State held someone responsible for the horrors that Jerry Sandusky was allowed to commit under Joe Paterno’s reign. Who’d have thought that person would be Neil Diamond?
Penn State has banned the singing of Neil Diamond’s famed “Sweet Caroline” from its stadium sing-a-longs at football games. Because this now solves everything forever and we no longer have to worry or even think about the Jerry Sandusky scandal that rocked the university and entire country to its core, it makes total sense that this is number one on the agenda.
Granted, the lyrics “touching me, touching you” bring up some less than desirable imagery and this does show a certain level of self-awareness that we could never hope the Catholic Church to achieve. But was banning it necessary? Couldn’t you just remove it from song selections or announce a new song for sing-a-longs?
It just seems like Penn State is trying to get some brownie points here for making sure Neil Diamond doesn’t make us start thinking about child rape during sing-a-longs.
Neil Diamond is not the cause of Penn State’s problems. It still has many officials that allowed children to be harmed in order to protect the name of the university collecting a paycheck. The Penn State football team is still viewed as more important than life. And Joe Paterno is still seen as a hero in Penn State circles. These are larger issues that they don’t seem to be doing anything to solve.