Penn State fans/alumni are having a HAL 9000-type psychotic break:

[JoePhilly]

74. I grew up in Philly, so I believe it.

My parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles, not one went to college after high school.

But they were sure I was going. It was never even an option that I not go. From when I was 4 or so, I received multiple PSU tea-shirts and sweatshirts for Christmas and birthdays.

Looking back, I think they saw PSU as the working class person's bridge to the next rung on the economic ladder. I lived very close to Temple, U of P., and Drexel. My blue collar family followed the Big 5. If I could get into PSU, that would be the best thing I could hope for. After all, a blue collar kid isn't going to MIT or Harvard, you can't afford it.

As it turned out ... I was accepted to St Joe. In some ways, this was better than PSU. They thought it would be great of one of us made it to a State University ... I made it into a private university.

But looking back ... I think I get it ... for many, PSU was a path UP. And parents who went there, wanted to send their kids there too. The alumni network creates paths UP. So on.

And now they are learning that the place that saved many of them, the place that gave them a path UP ... destroyed others.