Posted on 01/24/2012 5:05:57 PM PST by WPaCon
Two tickets for Joe Paterno’s public memorial service were selling for nearly $100,000 on eBay before the website shut down the auction, CBS Sports reports.
An auction appeared on the site after it was announced that there were no more free tickets for Thursday’s “A Memorial for Joe” service. The bids reached as high as $99,509 for the pair of tickets before it was taken down.
Amanda Coffee, spokeswoman for eBay Inc., said the site has unspecified internal controls to remove inappropriate ads. She said eBay doesn’t “allow the sale of tickets to events in which all tickets are free to the public” and yanked ads seeking money for tickets to the memorial.
Emily Ricken, 20, a Penn State anthropology major from Altoona, said she was on her computer at 9 a.m. and got two tickets to the memorial service that she would never sell.
“I think it’s absolutely repulsive that people are taking an event that’s supposed to be a celebration of life and trying to use it for monetary profit,” she said Tuesday, waiting in line with hundreds of others to walk past Paterno’s closed casket at the a campus spiritual center.
The service will be held at Penn State’s 16,000-seat basketball arena. The school says there was “overwhelming demand” for tickets.
On Tuesday, Penn State football players past and present filed past the closed casket of Paterno at the campus spiritual, mourning the coach who helped shape the university for more than a half century. Among those paying their respects was Mike McQueary, a key figure in the events that led to Paterno’s firing.
The players wore dark suits and filed out of three blue Penn State buses — the same buses that once carried Paterno and the team to games at Beaver Stadium on fall Saturdays. Son Scott Paterno was seen coming in and out of the center.
McQueary, then a graduate assistant for Penn State, went to Paterno in 2002 saying he had witnessed former defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky assaulting a boy in the shower at the Penn State football building. Paterno relayed that to his bosses — including the head of campus police — but university trustees felt he should have done more, and it played into their decision to fire the longtime coach on Nov. 9. That came four days after Sandusky was arrested on multiple child sex-abuse counts.
Dressed in a blue coat and tie with a white shirt, the school colors, McQueary was among thousands of expected mourners at an event that was to stretch late into Tuesday night.
One current and one former team member will stand guard over the casket for the duration of the public viewing, athletic department spokesman Jeff Nelson said.
“He left us too early and I think about the impact he could have made once he retired from coaching,” Nelson said.
The 85-year-old Paterno, the winningest coach in major college football, died Sunday. His lung cancer was disclosed in November, just days after he was fired.
Paterno’s family gathered earlier Tuesday for a private viewing, Nelson said. The family was joined by current players and new Penn State coach Bill O’Brien, followed by former players.
A line of ex-players stretched around the corner and down the block. Among the mourners were former Penn State and Pittsburgh Steelers great Franco Harris. Others there included NFL receivers Deon Butler and Jordan Norwood, Norwood’s father and Baylor assistant coach Brian Norwood and former quarterback Daryll Clark.
The event marked the start of three days of public mourning as the Penn State community in State College and beyond said goodbye to the man who led the Nittany Lions to 409 wins over 46 years.
Big crowds were expected to show their love for Paterno, starting with a 10-hour public viewing that begins in early afternoon at Pasquerilla Spiritual Center. There is another public viewing Wednesday, and after that Paterno’s family will hold a private funeral and procession through State College.
Former players began arriving shortly after members of Paterno’s last team filed in. Some players hugged and O’Brien shook hands at the curb outside the center. By midmorning, with two busloads of players still paying respects, dozens more mourners showed up, lined up along the sidewalk.
With crowds spilling onto the curb, traffic slowed. A few people stared out windows from a classroom building across street.
Penn State linebacker Khairi Fortt recalled his coach’s lessons.
“He said the most important thing for us was to keep the Penn State tradition going,” the sophomore from Stamford, Conn., said after leaving the viewing.
Scott Paterno has said that despite the turmoil surrounding his termination from the school, Paterno remained peaceful and upbeat in his final days and still loved Penn State.
Bitterness over Paterno’s firing has turned up in many forms, from online postings to a rewritten newspaper headline placed next to Paterno’s statue at the football stadium blaming the trustees for his death. A headline that read “FIRED” was crossed out and made to read, “Killed by Trustees.” Lanny Davis, lawyer for the school’s board, said threats have been made against the trustees.
Scott Paterno, however, stressed his father did not die with a broken heart and did not harbor resentment toward Penn State.
Maybe the bidder can donate that money to special olympics or pediatric cancer charities as the Paterno family has requested.
Which tradition might that be?
/s
[T]hreats made against the trustees.
A riot when Paterno was fired, with a news van turned over.
The man who stood silently outside Beaver Stadium with a sign that said "Honor the Child Victims" was spat upon, doused with beer, cursed, and struck.
An attorney for one of the victims identified in the grand jury presentment said on TV: “I think it’s fair to say the victims could be thinking to themselves right now that as a result of (my) coming forward, look what’s happened to this football program."
And some people say it's not a cult.
Lanny Davis crawled out of a rock and made his way to Happy Valley?
There wasn’t much about that article I didn’t find a little creepy.
On the local news last night, some jackass was interviewed & said “we don’t pray for JoePa, we pray to him cuz he’s a saint”. Simply deranged.
I posted a thread here yesterday about a moron (no doubt a student) who painted a halo over Paterno’s head on a mural somewhere at PSU.
These people are not Christians, no matter what they call themselves. Their god is football.
Yeah. And Louis Freeh is conducting the internal investigation for the Board of Trustees.
Richard Jewell, Ruby Ridge, Khobar Towers, Wen Ho Lee, Chinese political contributions, Vince Foster, Robert Hanssen.
That Louis Freeh.
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury (and I've already had a change of venue, because you can't try this thing in Happy Valley), I rest my case.
Americans’ absolute craziness over sports (and especially football) is something I’ll never understand.
It’s not just America.
Much of the world is obsessed with sports.
Although following sports is much better than watching the crap Hollywood spews, watching most tv, and listening to today’s music.
So things haven’t changed for over 2,000 years?
Huh, whoda thunk.
Nope, the artist was not a student.
who painted a halo over Paterno’s head on a mural somewhere at PSU.
Others on the mural who have passed away also have halos painted above them. It's just a nice gesture.
These people are not Christians, no matter what they call themselves. Their god is football.
Your tagline urges others to live the message of Fatima. Detraction is not part of it.
Nope. it was the original artist - the same one who painted over Jerry Sanusky's image)
Twitter comment
If the landmark artwork can be said to reflect the Penn State community's thoughts and feelings, it's quite telling that Paterno is a saint and Sandusky doesn't exist.
Detraction: From Latin detrahere, (to take away), is the unjust damaging of another’s good name by the revelation of some fault or crime of which that other is really guilty or at any rate is seriously believed to be guilty by the defamer.
How did I damage another’s good name? Did I name any one specific individual? No. I simply pointed out that there is an elevation of JoePa to “saint” status by a large cult of people. And that their loyalty to him, and to PSU football, has resulted in their loss of a sense of right & wrong.
Why don’t you see the post above in which the poster pointed out the rioting that ensued & the lone man who was spat upon for simply asking “fans” to keep the vicitms in mind? And let’s not forget the first home game after Paterno was fired. A collection was taken up for victims of child sex abuse. Despite almost 100,000 people at Beaver Stadium, only $10,000 was collected. Sick.
If you don’t see a loss of moral clarity there, then perhaps you ought to do some praying & soul-searching yourself.
You called the person who painted the halo a moron. You also said people were not Christians and had football as their god.
I simply pointed out that there is an elevation of JoePa to “saint” status by a large cult of people.
One guy in an interview called him a saint. Although most Penn State fans support Paterno and are proud of what he did in his life, I have heard none call him a "saint," except for that one guy you mentioned.
And that their loyalty to him, and to PSU football, has resulted in their loss of a sense of right & wrong.
That is false, too. There is no reason to believe Penn State fans have lost their sense of right and wrong because of their devotion to Paterno and Penn State football.
the lone man who was spat upon for simply asking “fans” to keep the vicitms in mind?
The guy was abused by a very small minority of people at the game. Is America a nation of serial killers just because there are a few out there? You can't condemn a whole group of people for the actions of the few. And the fact is, the victims were definitely kept in mind all week, and to say otherwise is false.
Despite almost 100,000 people at Beaver Stadium, only $10,000 was collected. Sick.
Penn State has THON, the largest student run philanthropy in the world. Last year, it raised $9.5 million for pediatric cancer. Weird that the Penn State community would do that since they don't care about children.
Believe me, there was plenty of remembering the victims that week. They were not overlooked by the community.
Those are choices but none that I pursue. I take my dogs for walks, read books that interest me, watch no television at all, never listen to today's music (whatever happened to melodies, by the way?), target shoot, and a few other things. Can't see where sports play any role in my life.
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