Nearly 20 years after the arrest and trial of O.J. Simpson on charges that he had murdered two people, what’s your enduring memory of that three-year ordeal?
For me, it’s the image of a cadre of Los Angeles cops ambling along behind a white Ford Bronco for miles on the city’s freeways. In fact, I don’t think I could ever again hear the phrase “white Ford Bronco” or see one and not think of that bizarre night when the country watched an NFL Hall of Famer, accused of murder, being talked off the ledge.
A mere two years after O.J.’s slow-speed chase played out on national TV, the Bronco met its demise, discontinued by Ford. Coincidence?
In the aftermath of such salient and shocking events as the Simpson’s arrest and trial, our minds have an exceedingly curious tendency to create sticky associations between otherwise unrelated objects, phrases, ideas, people.
As Pennsylvania State University is about to find out, that applies to massive, esteemed institutions as well.
It would take a Men in Black-like device to erase the allegations of heinous sexual abuse by former Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky and, at best, irresponsibility on the part of Joe Paterno and school administrators from our collective memory.
Regardless of whether it’s warranted or not, disconnecting “Penn State” and “sexually assaulting kids” won’t happen overnight. In fact, as more information and analysis of the charges against Sandusky surface, it will only serve to reinforce that link. Imagine how the legal process may unfold.
You can paint over images of Sandusky around campus. You can clean house in the highest reaches of the university. You could take a flamethrower to the athletic facilities where Sandusky is alleged to have perpetrated the crimes. The stains left by this scandal are permanent.
