I have been a Buckeye football fan since early childhood.  Many of my earliest memories were football Saturdays with my mom and sometimes my maternal grandfather.  You see, my grandfather was a huge fan.  Through a program with the Boy Scouts, he began ushering the games as a teen (I believe in the late '20's or early '30's).  He continued it all the way until his late '70's until his health began to prevent him from doing so.  He rarely missed a game during that span.  I always believed that being a Buckeye fan was in my blood.

Over the Christmas holiday, I visited my dad and my sisters who live in upstate New York.  My dad's family is originally from there, and also from Pennsylvania.  Although my dad has little allegiance to any college team, he occasionally roots for the Buckeye's for my sake.  We got to talking about Joe Paterno at one point and I expressed my disgust for all the Jerry Sandusky events and the JoeBots that still think of Paterno as a saint despite his role in those events.  I had seen someone during our drive to New York wearing a Joe Paterno shirt ("We Are Joe Pa" with his picture) and had told my dad about it.

During the course of the conversation, he informed me that I had distant cousins that had played at Penn State.  Apparently, there are a lot of Penn State fans on my dad's side.  Since I never really knew much of my dad's family (my parents separated when I was young), this comes as a bit of a shock.  I kind of feel dirty, a little bit, and I'm not sure how I feel about the whole thing.

I know this will pass and I will always be a Buckeye having lived all but my earliest years in Columbus, and with the legacy my grandfather passed down to my mother and I, but for now I am a little troubled.