I was 17 years old the night I slid a 1982 Penn State National Championship ring on my finger. It’s one of the vivid memories I have involving sports from my childhood, mostly because of how special it felt. Penn State stood as one of those special programs in college football. From JoePa to the Camelot feel of Happy Valley, Penn State had an aura that few college programs were able to replicate.

Recently, the specialness of that fall night has since been lost in the confusion and shame emanating out of State College. The details of the events that have taken place since 1994 (according to the findings of the grand jury) have not only left a massive black mark across the face of a once-proud football program, but have also managed to shatter the cone of shelter that sports provides us from the dangers of the real world.

Before Jerry Sandusky became a household name, the magic of sports rested in its ability to keep the dangers of the real world out. The atmosphere of college football is one distinct from the realities of everyday life. Fans inside Beaver Stadium and other stadiums across the country completely forget about their GPAs, their interviews the following week or the papers they haven’t written yet and just focus on the game. That magic, at least for the time being, has disappeared.

Even the scandals facing the sports world pale in comparison to the corruption of the real world. Miami (Fla.), Ohio State and USC have all come under fire for various ways in which they have paid their student-athletes. At the time, the sports media called for resignations, declared the leaders of those teams unfit to supervise college students and attacked the integrity of those involved in vicious ways.

Today, we’re faced with a real issue. This isn’t a situation where Joe Paterno knew his players were making a few bucks and chose to protect the bright futures of his young players. Rather, this is a situation where Paterno may have knowingly protected or ignored a child molester, or at the very least, had reason to believe his former defensive coordinator was engaging in inappropriate activity on campus.

Penn State football in this past week has suddenly reintroduced a new level of reality to sports that hasn’t been there seen since the Baylor basketball murder scandal and the Len Bias tragedy at Maryland.

In a way, this scandal may go down as our generation’s Len Bias moment. Before any of us heard the news, we still pictured Happy Valley as Camelot and operated under the assumption that college football was untouched by the real world. After hearing the news, the veil of ignorance in college athletics was lifted, and we were forced to face the fact that sometimes the real world can infiltrate athletics with its horrifying realities in the same way that our parents were forced to cope with Len Bias’ overdose.

None of this is to say that Paterno legally needed to report the incident to the police. After all, he neither failed to alert his superior nor did he have any role in Sandusky’s actions. However, based on the sickening report published by the grand jury of Centre County, Penn., it is safe to question how Paterno and Penn State Athletic Director Tim Curley could have possibly dismissed these allegations for the past nine years on moral grounds.

This isn’t the first time Paterno has demonstrated a lack of control over his football program. ESPN reported in 2008 that 46 Penn State football players faced a total of 163 criminal charges between 2002 and 2008. However, this is the gravest. By turning the other way, the previously lovable JoePa apparently allowed children to be subjected to unspeakable horrors, something that definitely fails to live up to Paterno’s idea of “success with honor.”

Unless things change dramatically, I can’t help but feel different about that championship ring. For the first time in my generation, the horrors of the real world invaded the bubble of college sports, leaving a trail of shame and disgust in its wake. I had no way of knowing then that the defensive coordinator on that team would later face such gruesome charges, but that was the cone of shelter working. This scandal has pierced that protective cone and taken down a former hero in the process.

Corey Blaine is a junior in the McDonough School of Business. The Bleacher Seats appears every Friday.