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"  For twenty-four years, Gerry Sandusky has been one of the most popular sportscasters in Baltimore. For thirteen days, he has been one of the least popular in America. What&amp;#039;s in a name has turned out to be a lot for the radio voice of the Ravens \u2014 even if it is a whole letter off \u2014 and that&amp;#039;s meant a lot more than pre-game disclaimers on WBAL. But slowly this son of an NFL coach has transformed the hate mail, and his warming-up to coincidental fame has become something of a distracting punch line. &amp;quot;If I handle this as elegantly as I can, with appropriate humor \u2014 over the confusion, not the alleged crimes \u2014 then maybe I can be a light for someone with far more serious problems,&amp;quot; Sandusky said by phone on Tuesday. Here, in his own words, his first full accounting for the other side of scandal. Besides, you know, the Twitter. We&amp;#039;ve been confused for one another long before this news came out. Trust me. But it actually goes much deeper than that. My name is Gerry Sandusky \u2014Gerry with a G. His name is Jerry Sandusky \u2014 Jerry with a J. He works in football. I work in football. My dad&amp;#039;s name is John \u2014 spelled J-O-H-N. Jerry Sandusky&amp;#039;s son is named Jon \u2014 spelled J-O-N. His son works for the Cleveland Browns. My father used to play for the Cleveland Browns.  I was boarding the Ravens charter plane, as I do for every road game, when a couple of the team personnel guys casually asked me if I was related to the Sandusky who had &amp;quot;the assault charges.&amp;quot; That&amp;#039;s how they phrased it \u2014 &amp;quot;the assault charges.&amp;quot; I said, &amp;quot;No. I&amp;#039;m sure if one of my relatives were arrested for assault, I would have known by now.&amp;quot; Then they said, &amp;quot;The guy who used to be the defensive coordinator at Penn State.&amp;quot; I told them \u2014 as I had with the many fans who&amp;#039;ve asked me if he and I were cousins in the past \u2014 &amp;quot;No, no. Not related. Same name, different spelling. Different Sandusky.&amp;quot; Then, as the flight took off, I had more and more guys \u2014 players \u2014 coming up to me. Haloti Ngata said, &amp;quot;Hey, dude, you related to that guy?&amp;quot; At that point, I realized these weren&amp;#039;t typical &amp;quot;assault charges.&amp;quot;  I met him super briefly. I was covering the Miami Hurricanes, and they were playing Penn State in the Fiesta Bowl. We had a quick laugh, and I think we actually did a short segment for the newscast on how we had the same names, and how he had heard about me and I had heard about him. It was silly. Whatever.  John Harbaugh, he looked at me and said, &amp;quot;Man, this must be just awful for you.&amp;quot; They&amp;#039;re playing the Steelers in this game and he&amp;#039;s worried about me and my name. Joe Flacco was funny last week. He came up to me and said something along the lines of, &amp;quot;That&amp;#039;s a tough break, Gerry. Tough break.&amp;quot; And he patted me on the back.  Ed Reed just looked at me after the game and said, &amp;quot;Yep, Gerry Sandusky. That&amp;#039;s a rough one.&amp;quot;  I was on the field before the game in Pittsburgh, the day after the news broke, and Dick Ebersol \u2014 the former head of NBC Sports, an absolute giant in my field \u2014 walks by. So, I extend my hand: &amp;quot;Hey, I&amp;#039;m Gerry Sandusky.&amp;quot; And I see him visibly flinch. Kind of a subtle flinch, but he definitely flinched. I see him thinking that I&amp;#039;m goofing around, so I say, awkwardly, &amp;quot;No relation.&amp;quot; He couldn&amp;#039;t get away from me fast enough. When you&amp;#039;re the local sports guy, it&amp;#039;s like you&amp;#039;re the local baker. Everyone in town knows you. You&amp;#039;re their friend and that&amp;#039;s fine. Well, everyone in the country knows my name now. Every single time I show my license, give a credit card, whatever \u2014 the person on the other end does a double take.  The TSA agent at the Detroit airport, the woman at Starbucks in Seattle \u2014 it&amp;#039;s the same conversation every time: &amp;quot;No, not Jerry Sandusky. Gerry with a G.&amp;quot;  The first couple of days, I was a little overwhelmed. Over the last week or so, I&amp;#039;ve realized that you can&amp;#039;t always control what the universe drops in your lap, but you can control how you handle it.  I must have gotten a thousand new Twitter followers. &amp;quot;You filthy son of a bleep.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;I hope you rot.&amp;quot; That kind of stuff. I responded as politely as I could: &amp;quot;Thanks for your note. You&amp;#039;ve got the wrong Gerry Sandusky. I&amp;#039;m a sportscaster from Baltimore and I&amp;#039;m not related to the former Penn State coach.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;A great big thank you to my late mom for choosing to spell my first name with a &amp;#039;G&amp;#039;.&amp;quot; That was the tweet, and that was my first experience of something going viral. But I wasn&amp;#039;t just trying to be clever. I was actually thinking about how difficult this would have been on my parents had they been alive, because like any family, we&amp;#039;re very proud of our name. Gerry with a G, and proud to be a Sandusky.  --PLUS: Joe Paterno&amp;#039;s Code, the ESPN Reaction, and That Airport Photo "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/interviews/a11760/gerry-sandusky-interview-6574227/>