We Are ...

Shocked. Dumbfounded. Distraught. Angry. Hurt.

You pick it, all of us who bleed blue and white are feeling it right now. And the Penn St-haters are crowing. On Twitter. On Facebook. On ESPN.com comment threads. Everyone's coming out of the wordwork to bash Joe Paterno, Graham Spanier—and "Penn State."

I'm not going to defend Paterno, Spanier, Mike McQueary, Tim Curley, or Gary Schultz. (Do I actually have to mention I wouldn't defend Jerry Sandusky? No? Good. I thought that would be pretty obvious.) In some cases—Paterno and Spanier—I doubt we'll ever know what they did or did not know. But that won't stop the judging, and maybe that's okay. Perhaps as much fault could lie for what they should have known.

But despite being the University President, Graham Spanier is not Penn State. Despite being the University's paramount icon and having his name etched on the main library, Joe Paterno is not Penn State. Penn State is something different, but common, to the millions of people who have walked its campus and called themselves Lions.

For me, Penn State is hundreds of Four Diamonds families who inspire thousands of students and alumni to do more, ever more. It's learning more on the south side of College Ave. than the north side. (For the non-Penn Staters, College Ave. divides the main downtown of State College, on the south, from the University campus, on the north.) And it's friendships with some of the finest people walking this earth—people whose names you'll never read in the paper, but who do great things in the arts, business, and their communities. People I'm proud to know, who I met in a place that I am proud to call my alma mater.

If heads roll for this scandal—and they will—it is because they have failed not only in their moral and, arguably, legal obligations, but also in their duty to uphold the high honor of dear old State.

For the glory of old State,
For her founders strong and great,
For the future that we wait,
Raise the song, raise the song.

Sing our love and loyalty,
Sing our hopes that, bright and free,
Rest, O Mother dear, with thee,
All with thee, all with thee.

When we stood at childhood's gate,
Shapeless in the hands of fate,
Thou didst mold us, dear old State,
Dear old State, dear old State.

May no act of ours bring shame
To one heart that loves thy name,
May our lives but swell thy fame,
Dear old State, dear old State.

We are.

Metal Monday

Gotta go with a cut from the new Anthrax album, set for release tomorrow.

Metal Monday

Something a little bit different today. Check out these 10 great heavy metal animal videos at Loudwire. Hat tip to Chris Illuminati.

Metal Monday

Saturday would have been Dimebag Darrell's 45th birthday, making this week's selection a no-brainer.

This Dog's Living the High Life (Literally)

File this under "Things My Dog Would Never Do."

Metal Monday

The Beautiful Game, Beautiful Heartbreak

After Abby Wambach's marvelous header saved the Lady Nats' World Cup lives last weekend, almost everyone I knew—myself included—believed that this World Cup belonged to a team of destiny, a team of indomitable will.

We were all right. We just had the team wrong.

Disappointing (to an American supporter) outcome notwithstanding, Sunday's Women's World Cup final showed everything that is great about soccer. It's a game of sustained tension, where the lack of goals is what makes it exciting—because at any moment, something remarkable can happen. Something exhilarating when it goes your way, something devastating when it goes against you. In no other sport—with the arguable exception of hockey—can fortunes change so dramatically so quickly. No other sport delivers the thrill ride, the joy, the heartbreak quite like soccer.

(And, oh by the way, it's a sport where the women's game is as fast and as physical—if not moreso—than the men's game. Unless you're Brazilian, diving has no place in the women's game.)

When we look back at this Women's World Cup in a few years, the real disappointment will not be that the American women fell short. If there's a disappointment, and hopefully there won't be ... but if there is one, it will be if what the American—and Japanese, and French, and German, and Swedish—women did over the last couple weeks failed to inspire a sustained American interest in soccer. Those of us who bang the drum for the sport simply do not grasp what keeps it from breaking through. Perhaps it's the lack of a storyline.

But now there's one to build on: Redemption. In six months, the Lady Nats will descend on Vancouver, Canada, for the CONCACAF Olympic qualifying tournament. Eight teams will vie for two spots in the London 2012 Games. I don't know what the U.S. women's roster will look like for Olympic qualifying—that's a subject for people much more soccer-savvy than I to discuss—but I do know they should feel like they're on a mission. And so should we, as fans.

Will the U.S. claim Olympic Gold in London? It's far from assured, maybe even unlikely with the likes of France, Germany, Brazil, and, yes, the non-fluke World Cup champs Japan all sure to be in the mix. But I hope the U.S. Women's National Team takes us on a ride that comes even close to what the last couple weeks have been like.

Who knows? Maybe their quest for redemption can get this whole soccer thing to catch on even more than a victory Sunday might have done.