Centre Cty Grand Jury, Sandusky, Paterno role

Let me offer an insider perspective of sorts.

As some of you may know, I am from PA. I didn't go to PSU, but my dad, grandfather, uncle, both brothers and many cousins and most of my childhood friends did. My dad has had season tickets since 1972, and I've been to dozens of games, as recently as last year. Joe Paterno has been the head coach there longer than I have been alive. PSU alumni and Pennsylvanians in general worship this guy, or at least they did until last Saturday. In part, it was for the right reasons: JoePa ran the cleanest program around, stressed scholarship, and wasn't flashy in any way. Paterno is a hero of epic proportions. I have jokingly referred to the "cult of Paterno" many times over the years, but now it doesn't seem like a joke anymore.

Centre county is a beautiful and very rural place--an idyllic setting. Many of those who were students there look back on their time at PSU as the best of their lives. Every Saturday (actually a few days earlier in some cases) in the fall when there's a home game, hundreds of thousands of people head to State College. Half of them don't even have tickets--they hang out in RVs in the fields around the stadium and watch the game on TV (and drink copious amounts). We really don't have an equivalent of the PSU game day tradition in NY. In some ways that's sad, because it's a lot of fun.

Joe Paterno was easily the most popular figure in PA. But he is an old man from another era, and a hypercompetitive one who would not stop until he got the all-time record for NCAA 1-A wins (which he did this season). I cannot believe he didn't know something wasn't amiss with Sandusky. It's incomprehensible that he could work so closely with the man for 30+ years and not know. But what I can imagine is that Paterno refused to believe it was possible that Sandusky could be capable of what he (allegedly but almost certainly) did, until the evidence was damning. The warning signs were there in 1998, but at the very least JoePa stuck his head in the ground and ignored it. His reasons for doing so might have been purely selfish: fear of hurting his own chances to break the record, or of casting the program in a negative light. What we do know is that Sandusky--long rumored to be Joe's successor--stepped down in his mid-50s (a coach's prime years) in 1999 after being told he would never become the head coach. Nor did Sandusky get a head coaching offer anywhere else after that time, although he'd been pursued by a number of teams in earlier years. No one could figure out why. But the rumors have been floating around for 10 years.

JoePa's actions since 2002 are inexcusable and unforgivable. He knew but didn't pursue it, and horrific crimes continued. I think in the coming months more details will emerge and we will find out that McQueary (the graduate assistant) was pressured not to say anything, and the administrators and Paterno orchestrated a coverup that goes well beyond what we already know--all to allow JoePa to pursue the record.

The students who rioted had no excuse. They're a bunch of young idiots. When they have kids of their own, perhaps they will understand the enormity of the consequences of what was at the very least inaction and at worst was complicity, and feel shame for how they acted this week.

I have a different take.

Paterno is not a police officer. Not a judge. Not a jury. He was an employee of Penn State.

He did not know if the graduate student was out to get Sandusky from some personal grudge. He didn't witness anything himself. He saw no video tape. What he had was hearsay. He reported what was told to him up the chain of command. The graduate student was the one who had the responsibility to go to the police. He witnessed a crime and did not report it.

I have a similar situation in my family. A member of my family was accused of inappropriate sexual contact with a minor by that minor to the police. The police had no evidence so no charges were pressed, no one was convicted of any crime, however, a report was filed. This individual is a currently an adult leader in the Boy Scouts. If we follow the logic of the Paterno case I have an obligation to protect children that might be abused by this individual. Even though I have no evidence. I think he might be a predator so I have to report him to the police.

It is not what we witness or "know" to be true. It is what can be proven in court beyond a reasonable doubt. I think child abuse is the worst crime possible because it scars a kid for life and effectively ends their childhood. But I don't think Joe Paterno did anything wrong here.

spider said:

I have a similar situation in my family. A member of my family was accused of inappropriate sexual contact with a minor by that minor to the police. The police had no evidence so no charges were pressed, no one was convicted of any crime, however, a report was filed. This individual is a currently an adult leader in the Boy Scouts. If we follow the logic of the Paterno case I have an obligation to protect children that might be abused by this individual. Even though I have no evidence. I think he might be a predator so I have to report him to the police.

It is not what we witness or "know" to be true. It is what can be proven in court beyond a reasonable doubt. I think child abuse is the worst crime possible because it scars a kid for life and effectively ends their childhood. But I don't think Joe Paterno did anything wrong here.

Click to expand...

If there was a single minor making accusations in this case, what you're saying would make sense. But there was an 18-month grand jury investigation, triggered by an event separate from the one that happened in 2002, that found evidence of literally dozens of acts with 9 underage boys over a period spanning more than a decade. McQueary gave testimony to the grand jury under oath. He'd have to really hate Sandusky to commit perjury and possibly destroy his own career, not to mention that it's hard to discern the logic of waiting to relate the incident until a grand jury appearance 8 years after the event if what he wanted was to destroy Sandusky.

No one is arguing (yet) that Paterno committed a crime. But he knew--based on his own grand jury testimony--that Sandusky had possibly committed sexual acts with a young boy in the PSU football locker room. It's that Paterno did the minimum when the situation required much more.

Read the grand jury report if you haven't already. You will feel differently.