Penn State had a long, ugly week of chickens coming home to roost. Joe Paterno lost his job and eventually, so will his whole staff. At the end of the season, they all could be gone in one of the biggest scandals to hit sports, college or pro, ever.
Failure to act and to stand up for helpless victims was their crime. Once the proclivities of Jerry Sandusky had been discovered, Joe should have acted decisively, but didn't. At the very least, he should have banned Sandusky from the team's facilities at once and forever. No matter what the University says a tenured professor should be entitled to on retirement, there is no way he should have had access to the shower room, least of all with a boy of any age.
But did he? No. As of two weeks ago, or a week before his arrest, there was Jerry in the showers again. He even traveled with the team, bringing small kids with him. In 1999, while defensive coordinator for the Nittany Lions, he brought victim #4 with him to the Alamo Bowl and even threatened to send the kid home if he was not complicit. In that game the Nittany Lions shut out Texas A&M and Jerry was declared a defensive genius. Now we find out what was going on behind the scenes.
Why didn't JoePa act? And could his whole staff have been unaware once McQueary made his discovery or the janitors who found the creep doing unspeakable things to a ten-year-old on another occasion? Not on your life. They knew. And they did not even confront him to tell him to knock it off, as far as anyone knows. And if they did, he didn't.
In this politically correct society, with the most pc being a university setting, why would such activity be condoned and protected? Could it be that they were cowed into silence by the "live and let live" attitudes that prevail, lest some perverted group be discriminated against? What would NAMBLA, the North American Man/Boy Love Association say? What would the ACLU do but sue your socks off for intimating that there might be something wrong with this picture?
Not saying that is the reason they swept this under the rug. They probably were as disgusted as anyone, coming from the macho world of football. Could it be they thought the program was above everything, even criticism for allowing deviancy to flourish within it?
They were wrong. And now they are paying the price of discovery and revulsion that is rightly theirs. If any one of them comes forward, I'd be surprised. But what they ought to be saying is "I knew and am ashamed of myself for not saying or doing anything and that will never happen again in my lifetime." Odds are none will do that in public but they should be doing that and lots more to make amends for the victims of Jerry Sandusky's crimes against nature and those children.
One of JoePa's biggest fans told me that it was a shame that this came out before he retired. It doesn't matter when it came out, whether he was retired or deceased. His reputation is forever tarnished by this lack of action on his part, an absence of leadership at a critical point, and we have all had those. Those diehard fans who think he is the victim here need to reassess their priorities and come to grips with the horrific reality of what went on in State College and around the once-proud Nittany Lions' football program.
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