Polls in Pennsylvania show a pretty close to even split on the issue of renaming Penn State’s Beaver Stadium after Joe Paterno.
A Quinnipiac University survey found that 46 percent of those polled thought the school should rename Beaver Stadium, while 40 percent were opposed. But the margin of error is nearly 3 points among the 1,300 registered voters who were surveyed.
According to the AP:
Beaver Stadium is named for James Beaver, a Pennsylvania governor of the late 19th century who served on the school’s board of trustees.
The idea is more strongly supported by seniors, and by those who told the pollsters they have strong interest in college football.The movement to rename Beaver Stadium after Paterno is not a new one, it started long before Penn State became a name associated with the enabling of child rape.
Given how the state of Pennsylvania has been portrayed in the media since the Jerry Sandusky scandal-of-scandals started, I’m shocked that the polls are this close to even Steven. Especially around the time of Paterno’s death. One would think that the entire state had deified him.
Today’s findings show that Paterno is not deemed sacrosanct by the entire keystone state, which might better be described as Philadelphia on one end, Pittsburgh on the other, and Kentucky in between. So you can assess your voting demographics from there.
We’ve been over a million times how Paterno did not commit a crime under Pennsylvania law, but he was still complicit to a monstrous evil occurring under his regime. It would be a shame for him to be further sanctified given what he did, or more accurately what he didn’t do while he was alive.
Paul M. Banks is CEO of The Sports Bank.net, an official Google News site generating millions of unique visitors. He’s also a regular contributor to Chicago Now, Walter Football.com, Yardbarker, and Fox Sports
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