Penn State Riot: John Surma Deserves Credit for Keeping Riots to a Minimum

John Surma Jr., the vice chairman of Penn State’s Board of Trustees, was instrumental in keeping the riots to a minimum on the Nittany Lions’ campus yesterday.

Surma, president of U.S. Steel and Penn State graduate, eloquently fielded questions from a hostile mob of “journalists” (and I use that term very lightly) after announcing that Graham Spanier, university president, and more important Joe Paterno, head football coach, were being immediately relieved of their duty.

You can watch the 22-minute video here thanks to PSUComRadio.com

The press conference was clearly attended by an overwhelming amount of people who were clearly biased and either Penn State fans, alumni, students or what have you, and there was definitely a lack of journalists with credibility in that room.

Just a few minutes into the conference a gasp goes up amongst the crowd when Paterno’s firing is announced and soon people start angrily firing off questions towards the board members.

Surma steps in front of these and deflects them away like a shield blocking arrows with patience, well thought out answers and a collected and confident demeanor.

He was repeatedly ganged up on by the "reporters" but managed to maneuver his way out and around them and by doing so, I believe he managed to keep the riots under control on campus.

Had Surma lost his cool and panicked, like many men would have done in this situation, the display of weakness would of set a message to more students to join in on the chaos around Happy Valley.

You must applaud the boards vice chairman even if you don’t necessarily agree with their decision. As the spokesman for the group against that angry mob of people, he was an absolute class act.

It took a lot of guts to stand there and do that, but John Surma did it, and did it well.