Last week, Rutgers tried desperately to create a rivalry-like atmosphere for its Big Ten home-opening game against Penn State. These two teams were rivals once, but the series was dominated by Penn State and the teams hadn’t played since 1995.
Still, the school urged fans to show their vitriol for its “rival” and it got a little out of hand.
Instead of keeping the rivalry about what was happening on the field, fans used signs and T-shirts to reference former coach Jerry Sandusky, who is currently in jail for sexual assaulting several children, including some on the Penn State campus. Included in the collection was a man wearing a “Beat Ped State” shirt standing next to a child.
What’s worse is that these fans were encouraged by Rutgers’ social media accounts, which retweeted the pictures of the signs and T-shirts on Twitter and added them to the school’s official Facebook page for the football team.
The photos were deleted, in fact the entire album from the game was deleted, but here are a few screenshots of what was posted:
Really, @RUAthletics? REALLY? http://ift.tt/1y7eZf1
— Mike V.P. (@MikePettigano) September 14, 2014
Stay classy Rutgers. Kids are going to see that. How will you explain? http://ift.tt/1qWQE5e
— Sandy (@TweetsfromSandy) September 13, 2014
Guy wearing “beat ped state” shirt looks like a dad, and there’s a kid there. Ok, @RFootball https://t.co/RNxkCQVgEE http://ift.tt/1y7eZvx
— Ben Lerman (@blerms) September 14, 2014 Fans are going to be fans and tastelessness is part of the deal. Sometimes people just don’t have the common sense to know that what happened at Penn State was not a joke. It was a very serious thing that destroyed the lives of several young men and to mock it, well, it shows a basic lack of compassion and respect. But Rutgers fans aren’t unique in this. Several fans of opposing teams have taken cheap shots at Penn State. However, this is the first time we’ve seen a school encourage it by giving fans a forum to put these cheap shots on display.
Not sure Rutgers should be acting all high and mighty these days considering it had to do some PR to distance itself from the school’s leading rusher Ray Rice, who was suspended from the NFL last week for punching his now-wife in the face and knocking her unconscious.
Pretty sure we didn’t see Penn State promoting the video of the Ray Rice incident on its Facebook page.
What Rutgers did — no matter how brief — was childish, insensitive and stupid. It owes Penn State University an apology and, more importantly, it owes an apology to the people affected in the Jerry Sandusky scandal.
For more Penn State news, visit BlueandWhiteIllustrated.com.
For more Rutgers news, visit ScarletNation.com.
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Graham Watson is the editor of Dr. Saturday on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email her at dr.saturday@ymail.com or follow her on Twitter! Follow @YahooDrSaturday
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From Dr. Saturday - NCAAF - Yahoo Sports - Fans create banners and shirts mocking Jerry Sandusky, Rutgers posts pics on social media
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