Penn State has a long and distinguished history, as both a football program and as an actual, you know, university. Its athletics program has never been tainted by any sort of scandal before, and that may well be because it has not, in fact, cheated (as opposed to the method employed by so many other schools, which is to cheat but not get caught). But make no mistake, Joe Paterno's unprecedented run as Penn State's head football coach, which practically dates back to the early 17th century, has far less to do with integrity than it does winning. At various points in recent years there have been rumblings in the PSU community that it was time for Joe to go, and all of those instances correlated directly with a failure to win on the field. When Paterno has bounced back and posted strong seasons the sniping has predictably died away.
That the program knowingly tolerated a pedophile like Jerry Sandusky in its midst, and that it afforded that pedophile access to young boys, is a grave charge and if a word of it is true, anyone and everyone even vaguely implicated should be gone as a matter of principle. At this stage reports suggest that Paterno acted in accordance with his legal requirements in the matter (although details continue to emerge). However, where this sort of crime is concerned, satisfying your legal obligations and meeting your moral obligations are very different things.
Unless Paterno has something exceedingly compelling to say in his defense (such as "I called the police and they dismissed it"), there is simply no way he can ever recruit again. Even that might not be enough. Kids of this generation have powerful expectations of adult authority figures and even those who have never met the man likely feel betrayed by him already.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - watching helplessly
I'm not a football fan, but this news has left me feeling deeply distressed for days. How do these "football gods" sleep at night knowing what they allowed to go on? They have no souls. They all (college president, coach, grad assistant and his dad) must go NOW and hopefully to jail.
2 - Dr Dreadful
It beggars belief that time and again, organisations think that the default option in situations like this is to sweep it under the carpet.
It's classic human short-sightedness, I guess. The reality that the truth WOULD be discovered, and that there would be far more damage done in the long run than if they had simply come clean and dealt with it in the first place, probably didn't even occur to those at Penn State who participated in the cover-up.
3 - roger nowosielski
It's the usual case of cover-up ending up being worse than the original crime.
4 - Igor
IIRC, when Paterno called his boss instead of the police he became an accomplice in a felony.
At the least, any decent person would follow up with the boss to see if it was turned over to the police, and call the police himself if boss took no action.
"Winning isn't the most important thing, it's the ONLY thing", some football nut said. I guess that Sandusky and Paterno were 'winners'.
5 - Arch conservative
Do the students at Penn State supporting Paterno and rioting in the streets truly not understand the what an abhorrent and traumatic thing is the sexual molestation of a child? Isn't that a given to any and all with requisite mental faculties needed for adult thought?
Aside from what Sandusky actually did it would seem that the most disturbing aspect of this story is the fact that so many, from administrators, to alumni to current students are so eager to turn a blind to the harsh reality of what happened so as to not tarnish the Penn State image or their golden god Paterno.
6 - zingzing
"Aside from what Sandusky actually did..."
i'm not particularly defending paterno, but a) sandusky's guilt is a question, not a certainty (although i doubt he's innocent, i don't know the facts, and neither do any of you); and b) paterno did what he was legally obligated to do, as far as i know. he hasn't been charged as of yet, at any rate.
did he do all he could have done? no. but no one's asking him to go hunt down child molesters. he may have participated in the cover up, or he may have been kept in the dark about what happened with the information once he reported it.
it's possible that the board at penn state knows what actually happened and that's why paterno was fired yesterday. or, perhaps, paterno became a scapegoat. if paterno wasn't fired, penn state would always be seen as being soft on the crime, even though no legal judgment has been made. they had to clean house.
i think it's a bit of a shame that this man's career is over so suddenly because of these allegations. (if sandusky actually is guilty, and paterno did participate in the cover up, i'll surely change my mind.) although it would have undoubtedly been a distraction, i think paterno deserves better after so many years of service to that community. he deserves the benefit of the doubt. he didn't molest any kids. and i have a hard time believing that he'd let someone else do so.
7 - roger nowosielski
Wow!
8 - Igor
FWIW, my understanding of how this all came to light is that in 2002 a coach (whose name is "McLeary", or some such) came upon Sandusky in the Penn State showers having sodomy with an 8 yr. old boy and reported to Paterno who bucked it upstairs to his boss. In each case the coaches thought that their CONTRACTUAL arrangements with Penn State had been satisfied and no report was required to the police.
How strange! By what magical contrivance does a private contractual agreement supersede actual law, one might wonder? And yet this peculiar notion seems to be taking hold throughout American society. For example, I recollect when some cute administration spokesperson was called before a congressional committee to testify and she huffily retorted "when I took this job I took an oath of loyalty to The President!", whereas, actually she had sworn the standard Federal oath to uphold the Constitution. Apparently, she had found it easier to be loyal to the president than the Constitution.
9 - Dr Dreadful
zing, it's not whether or not Sandusky is guilty that's the big deal here, it's the cover-up - and cover-up there undoubtedly was.
I've read the grand jury report, and it has the ring of verisimilitude - it's not one of those pseudoscientific "recovered memory" loads of bollocks that destroyed so many innocent lives during the satanic abuse hysteria of the 90s. This is serious shit.
The police are on record as saying that Paterno fulfilled his minimum legal obligation by informing his boss: unfortunately, part of the problem is that the police were part of the cover-up (never understood why universities need their own police forces in the first place). That aside, whether he ended up being an active participant in it or not, he became part of the cover-up by not pursuing the matter further after it became obvious that neither his boss nor the university generally were going to do fuck all.
Not that I don't have sympathy for Paterno: if I were in his shoes, I'd have a very hard time accepting that someone I'd known, befriended, worked with, trusted and respected for years might be a kiddie diddler. As head coach, though, the buck stops with him as regards the behavior of the faculty members under his control; and again, this sort of shit is about as serious as it gets. The university did, finally, take the right action.
10 - Igor
I really find this hard to believe: "...The police are on record as saying that Paterno fulfilled his minimum legal obligation by informing his boss".
Huh!?
By what logic does THAT proceed? How did it come about that his private contractual agreement superseded The Law?
Sounds to me like the cops AND Penn State are covering up. And that both are criminal accomplices.
11 - roger nowosielski
"(never understood why universities need their own police forces in the first place)."
Used to be because it served as a buffer against municipal police coming over and playing it rough.
But even this is changing nowadays as Berkeley, the most radical of municipalities and liberal arts colleges, is undergoing a process of retrogression as a result of its inability to understand and deal with OWS.
As to zing's non-committal, let's consider all possibilities type of response, it's only to be expected. It's typical of, and comes part and parcel with, the liberal mindset whereby morality and moral considerations always take a back seat to the avowed standard of "reasonableness" and "legality-grounded thinking."
If only I could cure my liberal friends of this disease -- the subject of my final BC article -- we could all march to the same drum, but that's the obstacle, the only obstacle!
12 - Jordan Richardson
The vision of all of us marching to the same drum isn't as attractive as you think, Roger.
13 - El Bicho
"The vision of all of us marching to the same drum isn't as attractive as you think, Roger."
Especially if Roger is going to be the drum major. And can you stop with the Farewell Tour? Gene Simmons thinks you've milked it too long now.
Plus, you've misread zing (again, or will you claim it was intentional?) in your desire to put down liberals. He didn't say anything about considering all the possibilities. He said slow down the ill-informed witch hunt, which Igor exemplifies by thinking Paterno broke the law, which he didn't.
Should Paterno have done more? If what's alleged is true, likely, but was he involved in a cover-up? Or was that his superiors and possibly law enforcement as it is starting to sound like as more reporting is taking place, including the disappearance of a local district attorney. This story is not even close to being fully told.
14 - zingzing
doc: "whether he ended up being an active participant in it or not, he became part of the cover-up by not pursuing the matter further after it became obvious that neither his boss nor the university generally were going to do fuck all."
as more stuff has been coming to light, and as i've had more time to think about it, i am thinking that, as a human being, paterno should have done much, much more. it seems to me, he did what he had to, nothing more, then washed his hands of the matter. turning a blind eye to the matter does him no favors, and perhaps he should be fired for it.
that said, unless it's shown that he played an active role in the cover up, it's hard to pin anything on him outside of moral outrage. so fired, yeah, i'm on board with that now. there's no way he could have stayed at this point.
15 - zingzing
roger: "As to zing's non-committal, let's consider all possibilities type of response, it's only to be expected."
i'm just not ready to hang the man for something he may not have done. if you want to do so, that's on you, not me. do you think you know everything that happened? not just about the crimes, but the decade that has elapsed since paterno was told about them?
if you do, go ahead and be judge and jury. if not, i don't know what your problem is.
16 - zingzing
doc: "zing, it's not whether or not Sandusky is guilty that's the big deal here, it's the cover-up - and cover-up there undoubtedly was."
wait, if sandusky is innocent, that's got nothing to do with it? (and if he is innocent, what is there to cover up?)
what if someone called me up and said they'd found you balls-deep in a tweenager and i followed up and figured out that no such thing happened? would i be guilty of covering up something because i didn't alert the police?
i'm not saying sandusky is innocent. i really doubt he is. but the question of his guilt does hopefully have a role to play in this whole thing, right?
17 - Dr Dreadful
By what logic does THAT proceed? How did it come about that his private contractual agreement superseded The Law?
Contrary to popular belief, failure to report a crime is not, generally speaking, a crime in itself. The laws of most states, however, make an exception in cases of child abuse. In Pennsylvania, it is a third degree misdemeanor.
Pennsylvania law is, however, a bit vague as to what actually constitutes having reported the crime. There is a hotline phone number which "persons required to report" - a class which, as a college faculty member, includes Paterno - can use, but there doesn't seem to be anything in the statute stipulating this as the only method. And it would be a bit daft if there were such a stipulation, since it would exclude other perfectly reasonable methods of reporting, such as calling the police.
There's also a good faith clause, which probably covers Paterno if he believed that by reporting the incident to his boss it would then be referred to the police or social services.
However... that third degree misdemeanor gets amped up to second degree if there is a subsequent failure to report. If Paterno knew that Sandusky was still abusing boys and knew that the university and the university police hadn't done anything about it, he may have been breaking the law by staying silent. It's a big If, though. I wouldn't like to be the DA who had to prosecute that.
18 - Dr Dreadful
what if someone called me up and said they'd found you balls-deep in a tweenager and i followed up and figured out that no such thing happened? would i be guilty of covering up something because i didn't alert the police?
If you were sure of yourself, zing, no, but Penn State didn't even do that. They just looked the other way and hoped it wasn't true.
19 - zingzing
"If you were sure of yourself, zing, no, but Penn State didn't even do that. They just looked the other way and hoped it wasn't true."
do you know that for a fact? is that something in the grand jury report? i wonder if penn state has released all their documents (assuming there are some) about the events. do you know? you seem very sure of the fact that penn state did absolutely nothing, so i'm just asking where that sureness comes from.
but that's beside the point. my point is that you're at least partially assuming sandusky's guilt, which has not yet been decided. i realize that deciding this could take a long time and penn state couldn't wait for that before taking action. but there had to be something to cover up, if there was a cover up. and that question is yet to be resolved.
20 - Dr Dreadful
is that something in the grand jury report?
It is the gist of the narrative in the report, yes.
21 - zingzing
that would seem really, really stupid of penn state then. i'm sure the higher ups around there probably didn't have much experience in dealing with this sort of thing, but i'm shocked that the lawyers penn state employs would have "hoped it wasn't true."
there's undoubtedly much more to this story. it seems too stupid, too simple and too lazy to be true. then again...
22 - Jordan Richardson
Consider Mike McQueary's grand jury testimony. He said he witnessed the assault of a 10-year-old boy in the showers and went to administrators. From there, they never reported information to law enforcement. If that's not a cover-up, what would you call it?
Sounds like a resounding case of "looking the other way" to me, from top to bottom at Penn State and all in the name of protecting "football" and the school's reputation.
Sandusky has 40 charges of child abuse, zingzing, including a pile of allegations that he showered with young boys and so on.
I understand erring on the side of caution and not proclaiming someone guilty until proven so, but the school's position of doing next to nothing certainly doesn't help matters. It provokes, right or wrong, the sentiment that football and college reputations are more important than the welfare of 10-year-old boys.
23 - Jordan Richardson
i'm sure the higher ups around there probably didn't have much experience in dealing with this sort of thing
What "experience" do you need to report allegations of child sex abuse to the proper authorities?
it seems too stupid, too simple and too lazy to be true.
Football is life, as the idiotic "riots" seem to indicate.
24 - roger nowosielski
I'm not about to enlist for the drum major part, Bicho, far from it. Used it as a metaphor, and apologize for the fact you missed it.
The point was Zing's apologia, and it still is.
25 - zingzing
"Consider Mike McQueary's grand jury testimony. He said he witnessed the assault of a 10-year-old boy in the showers and went to administrators. From there, they never reported information to law enforcement. If that's not a cover-up, what would you call it?"
well, doc says that the university police were involved in the cover up. so obviously... well, are university police really police? if they are, then it was reported to law enforcement. the fact that you don't think the allegations were ever reported to law enforcement, while doc says law enforcement was involved in the cover up leads me to question how much any of us know at this point.
"Sounds like a resounding case of "looking the other way" to me, from top to bottom at Penn State and all in the name of protecting "football" and the school's reputation."
that may be true. i simply don't know. the court of public opinion is a remarkable thing. it's possible for a person to only know the barest of facts and yet know enough to condemn whole swaths of people. amazing thing. it's already claiming victims before anyone steps into a court room.
"What "experience" do you need to report allegations of child sex abuse to the proper authorities?"
the first allegations against sandusky are actually from 1998, while he was still the defensive coordinator, if i recall correctly. the allegations were never prosecuted. so i guess they did have some experience with this stuff, and even with this guy being accused of this stuff. you might get a little jumpy or protective if false or at least non-prosecutable allegations had been made about a member of your staff not four years earlier. who knows what was going on in their minds. why don't we wait and find out, eh?
"I understand erring on the side of caution and not proclaiming someone guilty until proven so..."
that's all i'm really trying to say. i don't KNOW anything for sure, from sandusky's guilt, to penn state's reaction, to joe paterno's role in a cover up that may or may not exist. i don't see how anybody can say they know enough to judge the situation at this point. that's why we have a justice system. hopefully it will find the truth before everyone finishes fashioning their nooses around here. fuckin lynch mob up in these parts...