Fanatics don’t always see reality

Experience and perspective have made me realize that “fan” is short for “fanatic” and that for all the good sports can represent, fanatical behavior has a down side.

I was reminded of that when the mail came recently.

Amid the usual bowling and golf scores, notices and news releases was a letter from a reader in Steubenville who took issue with something I wrote in an Aug. 25 column about this season’s top football games.

This is what I wrote:

Week 8: Steubenville at Ursuline (YSU) — This will be The Big Red’s first visit to Youngstown since the infamous Steubenville rape case surfaced. Two former players were convicted, but controversial coach Reno Saccoccia remains on the job.

The reader felt I was “making light” of the Steubenville case and was offended that I’d dare refer to a Hall of Fame coach as controversial. Fair enough. Everyone is entitled to their opinions.

But compared to some things I’ve written over the years, I felt that short mention of Saccoccia and his team was tame. In fact, I was already on record as wondering how a coach who threatened a newspaper reporter was able to keep his job, especially amid allegations that he knew about the rape shortly after it happened and did not report it.

The reader also felt I was wrong to mention the case because the two teens had never played a down of varsity football and — I am not making this up — that they had done something that 99 percent of people in Steubenville did not know was a crime.

I called the reader because I wanted to know if the letter was for publication — it was not — and because I had to know more about his perspective on the Steubenville case. As you might suspect, that perspective is that Reno Saccoccia can do no wrong and that outsiders and the media have it in for The Big Red.

During the course of our conversation, I learned what a God-fearing, humble public servant Steubenville’s football coach is and how that nasty New York Times reporter misquoted Saccoccia when he supposedly told her, “You made me mad now. You’re going to get yours. And if you don’t get yours, somebody close to you will.”

See? Saccoccia is not controversial at all. He’s just misunderstood.

The letter writer insisted that almost no one in Steubenville — 99 percent of its residents to be exact — knew that what those two former football players did was a crime. Digital penetration, he said, is not a crime in Pennsylvania and West Virginia.

I told him that if most people in Steubenville didn’t know that taking advantage of someone who couldn’t possibly consent and then distributing photos and videos of the assault were criminal acts, I would encourage everyone I care about to avoid the town.

He maintained that outsiders’ sole motivation is to take down the Steubenville football program, which is all the dying town has left.

It was a surreal conversation. And yet, I understood in that instant why Jerry Sandusky was able to prey on children in State College for so long and why some Steubenville football players believed they could do whatever they wanted to do to a defenseless girl.

When the atrocities committed in both places came to light, some people in both towns had to make a choice: Protect the children or protect the football program.

In both places, too many people made the wrong choice. In Steubenville, some people are still making the wrong choice.

But the good news is that the figure is nowhere near 99 percent. There are good people in Steubenville and they’re horrified by what happened and the way some people there reacted to it.

The school district, for example, has refused to compel Saccoccia to comment on the case and he was not — as far as anyone knows — disciplined in any way for his threat against the reporter who was simply doing her job.

Like Joe Paterno in State College, Saccoccia wields tremendous power in Steubenville.

A few months ago, The Vindicator learned that Steubenville had applied for football-only membership in the All-American Conference. When one of our reporters called the school’s athletic director, he said he knew nothing about the application and referred all questions to Saccoccia.

What does that tell you?

In a twisted way, you almost have to admire the way some in Steubenville have circled the wagons around Saccoccia and the football program, insisting that everything is fine there and there is nothing to see.

Move along, outsiders. We don’t need your kind here.

That’s the message that came to my mailbox.

What those people don’t understand is that had more people in State College and Steubenville done the right thing from the start, their vaunted programs would have never taken the hits that came their way because of Sandusky and those teenaged rapists.

Nobody really wants to take down your football programs. With proper leadership, a football team can represent some of the best a community has to offer.

But when the choice is protecting the program or protecting children, the decision is clear — to most people.

Last week, Steubenville lost a game at home. Saccoccia told The Herald-Star that his poor decision on a fake punt was to blame.

“There were a lot of highlights on offense, defense and special teams,” Saccoccia told the newspaper. “The low point was my call. It should have never been made. Someone who has been coaching since 1971 should know better than that.”

You’d think so, wouldn’t you?

Write Vindicator sports editor Ed Puskas at epuskas@vindy.com and follow him on Twitter, @edpuskas85.