Why Paterno needed to go

Posted at 10:17 AM on November 9, 2011 by Bob Collins (9 Comments)
Filed under: Crime and Justice, Sports

Penn State University football coach Joe Paterno has quit amid the child abuse scandal rocking the university.

It's this paragraph of his statement, that raises eyebrows:

"This is a tragedy. It is one of the great sorrows of my life. With the benefit of hindsight, I wish I had done more."

Two university officials have been charged with failing to report to authorities that someone saw coach Jerry Sandusky sexually abusing a naked boy in the showers of a team practice facility in 2002 (pennlive.com).

But Paterno's earlier statement after the grand jury indictment showed why he had to go:

"The fact that someone we thought we knew might have harmed young people to this extent is deeply troubling... If this is true we were all fooled, along with scores of professionals trained in such things, and we grieve for the victims and their families. They are in our prayers."

Paterno's statement tilted toward the "I thought it was only one kid" excuse. There were (at least) eight, which doesn't make one any less pathetic.

The grand jury report says Paterno had been told about the sexual abuse of an 11-year old boy in the Penn State locker room in 2002, told the university's athletic director about the incident, but did not tell police.

In the intervening 9 years, Paterno apparently never said to a school official, "hey, whatever happened to that thing with my assistant coach sexually abusing a boy in the shower?"

In hindsight, that seems hard to believe.

Update 2:41 pm - This article, from April 2011, questions whether the relatively early "retirement" of Sandusky suggests a deal based on knowledge of pedophilia.

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Comments (9)

I have been a Paterno fan since my days at PSU (1976 grad). However, I know now there were serious problems with what people knew of the situation and what they did. It's besmirching a university my family has been involved with since my grandfather Tyson was a trustee there in the 1920s. I feel confident in saying Joe is being truthful, but yes, these boys were failed by the university, by Second Mile, and by many others including Child Protective Services, the county prosecutor and more. I can only hope they get the help they need. Its also sad that a group of senior football players who had no role in this and no knowledge of any of the incidents (as the last one on campus came long before they came) will play their final home game under this cloud. It's too bad the prosecutor didn't wait until the end of the season to do this, but it had to come out sometime. They were all delusional that it would just go away. Everyone up to the university president needs to go.

Posted by Nancy | November 9, 2011 10:50 AM

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Yes, it really is too bad they didn't wait to serve justice to a man who sexually preys on innocent children so some college athletes and their fans could have enjoyed several more weekends of their favorite pastime. Too, too bad...

Seriously? Please think about what you say before you say it.

Posted by Mike S | November 9, 2011 11:38 AM

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What's "too bad" is that this wasn't prosecuted 9 years ago. The delusion about football even mattering during this kind of a situation is *exactly* the reason that Penn State's football program should be dissolved. The school and program will not, and should not, ever live this down. PSU's football players should be allowed to stay at PSU on scholarship while not playing (due to lack of a team), or they should be allowed to transfer without having to sit out a year. Either way, this diseased program needs to die. They (Paterno, McQueary, Curley, Schultz, and Spanier to list but a few) put the program above the welfare of children and adolescents. They protected and stonewalled and continued to give the accused Sandusky access to the places that he used in (allegedly) committing these horrendous acts.

How you can see/hear that a 40 year old man was raping a 10 year old boy in the PSU locker room showers and NOT call the police, much less go beat the daylights out of the guy, is completely beyond my capacity for understanding. How anyone can make excuses for these people is also entirely beyond me. Don't mourn those responsible, mourn the victims and the lives that were ruined by a culture of inaction and irresponsibility.

Posted by Dave | November 9, 2011 12:17 PM

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I think the University should sever all ties with those involved with the situation a.s.a.p. To attempt to cover it up or to ignore it will just tarnish the PSU reputation even more. Universities should display leadership to their students by doing what is right even when it's not easy. Paterno aided and abetted child abuse for the sake of his career. Paterno had 409 career wins and 8 children sexually abused.

Posted by Aaron | November 9, 2011 12:23 PM

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He should be fired ASAP. Let's hope public pressure ends his career before the end of the season. Also, what Dave said.

Posted by David | November 9, 2011 12:51 PM

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I don't see any way Paterno can be allowed to finish out the season and NOT have it reflect poorly on the university. By "reflect poorly" I mean send the message that a freaking football legacy or misguided allegiance to an institution is more important than protecting the 10 year old boy getting raped in your shower. Paterno's contract is up and he clearly has no chance of it being renewed now; his resignation statement is nothing more than a calculated strategy to minimize the damage to him personally.

Posted by John P II | November 9, 2011 3:10 PM

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"My goals now are to keep my commitments to my players and staff and finish the season with dignity and determination," Paterno said in his statement. "And then I will spend the rest of my life doing everything I can to help this university."

This guy still doesn't get it. Maybe a little jail time would help him understand.

Posted by Jim Shapiro | November 9, 2011 3:56 PM

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I finally mustered the courage to read the Grand Jury Report itself, and I had a hard time keeping my own emotions in check.

While I agree with Nancy's last statement that "Everyone up to the university president needs to go," I have a real hard time understanding why on earth it has taken this long for the administration at Penn State to act--among others. As early as April, the Associated Press was reporting on the convening of a grand jury, but that didn't apparently generate additional interest in too many other places.

As the parent of a student-athlete who plays Division II soccer a long way from home, I feel for those young men who are playing football for Penn State. The firestorm that is going on around them is nothing of their doing. Yet they find themselves in the middle of this mess that could potentially have been avoided nine years ago.

Posted by John O. | November 9, 2011 5:00 PM

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The grand jury report is vague about exactly what Paterno knew about the 2002 incident, but apparently he had reported that the graduate assistant saw Sandusky "fondling or doing something of a sexual nature to a young boy." That sounds bad, but it's vague enough to make me wonder how much Paterno really knew, or how did he interpret the grad assistant's story in his own mind.

Curley testified that the grad assistant told him about "inappropriate horsing around" and Schultz testified that he had the impression that Sandusky may have inappropriately grabbed the boy's genitals while wrestling. Both deny hearing any report of anal sex. (For some reason, the grand jury found their testimony not credible, but accepted Paterno's testimony.)

Anyway, the grad assistant and Paterno both made reports to Curley and Schultz--and both the grad assistant and Paterno let the matter drop, as far as they were concerned, at that point. The grand jury report says that the grad assistant didn't talk to anyone else, besides his father, about the incident until testifying to the grand jury in December 2010. So the eyewitness to the alleged abuse never thought to go to the police. His father, the first person, he told about it, never felt compelled to call police or push his son to do so, either. Isn't that odd?

It seems that 3 men--Paterno, the grad assistant, and the assistant's father--thought it was enough to report to administration and let them handle it. It could be that Paterno knew all the details but hoped the incident could be swept under the rug. But, for all we know at this point, maybe he wasn't told all the details. It could be that Paterno is only guilty of putting too much faith in the administration to investigate and take appropriate action. Maybe at some point he asked Curley or Shultz about it and was told, 'Yeah, they seemed to be just horsing around, but we've decided that Sandusky can't have kids with him on campus anymore,' and that sounded good enough at the time.

Posted by frightwig | November 9, 2011 5:21 PM

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