Be like Irv. Knock on the door.
This thread from Tom Junod is well worth reading and the documentary he discusses sounds like something we all need to see. It’s important to be reminded that there is good in people. It’s so easy to forget:
A woman is raped by a football player. She testifies against him and lives in isolation in the freshman dorm. One night, there is knock on her door. She opens it, and another football player fills it. “Hello,” he says. “My name is Irv Pankey, and I believe everything you say.”
When @pinepaula and I were working on #Untold, our story about Todd Hodne and his crimes at Penn State 4 decades ago, many people asked us a question about the coaches, cops and players who learned about Hodne in real-time: “What would you have had them do?”
Irv Pankey is our answer.
One of 12 African-American players on @PennStateFball team in 1978, Irv saw in Betsy Sailor something of his own isolation. He thought, “She does not deserve to be a pariah” and went to her door. He said “You will never have to walk on this campus alone again.”
He is the only player to have done so, though he eventually found others to follow his example. He changed the life of a brave woman shattered by a two-hour sexual assault at knifepoint, a woman who forevermore called Irv Pankey “my guardian angel.”
Betsy Sailor and Irv Pankey graduated and went their separate ways, Betsy to a long career in HR and Irv to the Los Angeles Rams. They did not see each other again for more than 40 years. Last September, our story #Untold brought them back together.
Today, “Betsy & Irv,” the film @nicole_noren made for @ESPNFilms from their reunion in State College premieres on @ESPNPlus. It features Betsy Sailor and Irv Pankey, now in their 60s, telling their story. It is a film as beautiful and luminous as its heroes.
I was in that room and did those interviews. I was there when Betsy spoke of calling her mother to tell her she had been raped. I was there when Irv once again knocked on Betsy’s door and time went away. I will never forget and if you watch “Betsy & Irv” neither will you.
“What would you have had them do?” is more than a rhetorical question, because it has an answer. Be a helper. Be a hero. Be like Irv Pankey. Knock on the door. Believe.
What would you have had them do? Here is Irv Pankey’s answer: “I had to go get her.” 1
Here is the trailier for nicole_noren’s beautiful film. The trailer is just a minute long, and yet you can’t miss the light it shines, the light *they* shine: “Betsy & Irv.” End.
Originally tweeted by Tom Junod (@TomJunod) on April 20, 2022.‘