I saw this unfold at Penn State, when former defensive coordinator
Jerry Sandusky was accused and convicted of child rape. Sandusky is now in jail for the rest of his life, but his legacy of abuse lives on through websites that harass witnesses and victims.
Some of these so-called fans are grown, well-adjusted men and women, who are productive members of society, who otherwise would be considered rational and objective. They take time out of their days to bully people who they've never met, in defense of someone they've never met. It's unbelievable.
"They can either stop liking the player and team or slam on the accuser. ... It's a coping strategy. You're not going to pretend it doesn't matter to you. You're going to find a way to make it better again," said Daniel L. Wann, a professor of psychology who teaches on this topic at Murray State University.
In the Penn State scandal, victims' names, addresses, and the names and addresses of their families were posted online.
Witnesses have been chased, heckled. One victim was bullied out of high school for "getting Joe Paterno fired." (Paterno is the legendary coach whose reputation was tarnished when Sandusky was arrested. An assistant coach testified that he told Paterno he witnessed Sandusky doing something sexual with a boy in a shower, and a jury convicted Sandusky of indecently touching that boy.)
I once saw a man launch into a profanity-laced tirade about the investigation while outside of Penn State's Beaver Stadium, clad in a blue and white jersey while holding his 5-year-old daughter in his arms. I'll never forget that, and I bet his daughter won't either.
I've seen --
and been the target of -- taunting and chasing. One woman, a Penn State fan, tweeted that she was going to rip my face off while sitting behind me in court.
