Joe Paterno to Gerry Sandusky: Were you anally raping a ten-year old boy in the shower room at the foptball complex on Friday noght, March __, 20__?
Sandusky: No, of course not! Why do you ask?
Joe Paterno: Because Michael "Nobody" McQueary claimed he was in the building when you did.
Sandusky: Claimed??? What were the specifics?
Joe Paterno: Umm, days after the fact, he came around claiming that he was somewhere in the vicinity of the shower room when he "thinks" this happened because he heard "slapping sounds" but he did not actually see anything and apparently had no interest in DOING anything at the time, or identifying the victim who he never saw, or interfering with what he believes was an anal rape of the child.
Sandusky: Well, what is his claim? Without actually SEEING anything (the shower room has no locking doors), or interfering, what is this business about "slapping sounds?" Is he imagining sexual assault or slapping a kid around? Joe, when you and your wife have done what married folks do, did anything about sex between you two produce "slapping sounds?" McQueary must be nuts. Get him out of here!
Later: Joe Paterno to Michael McQueary: So tell me what happened that night.
McQueary: Sandusky was raping a kid in the shower room.
Joe Paterno: How awful! What did you see?
McQueary: Nothing. It was the sounds of slapping coming from the shower room that tipped me off.
Paterno: But....you SAW nothing???? Why not?
McQueary: Well, I didn't want to just barge in on them. That would be like rude to the max.
Joe Paterno: So what did you say to Sandusky when you saw him after he was finished raping the kid?
McQueary: Well, I never actually saw him at all.
Joe Paterno: Well who was the kid?
McQueary: How would I know?
Joe Paterno: How old was he? What did he look like?
McQueary: How would I know?
Joe Paterno: Didn't you see the kid?
McQueary: Gosh no! That would have been just rude!
Joe Paterno: How do you KNOW that there was a kid? That the kid was even in the shower room? That Gerry Sandusky was in the shower room? That Sandusky was anally raping the kid in the shower room?
McQueary: I just know. That's all!
The story ends with two possibilities as to Paterno's response to McQueary's claims.
First: Paterno inspired by the credibility and thorough investigation by McQueary and impressed by his manly response to his own suspicion (without evidence) that there was a child rape going on in that there shower room, calls the FBI, the Pennsylvania State Police, the Center County Sheriff, the Bellfonte Police Department and the PSU campus cops and is ignored (ain't our jurisdiction, man, call the compromised campus cop Barney Fifes) by all but the campus cops whose response is: Coach, you know that this story, by university rules, must be reported NOT to us but to our morally flexible and utterly civilian overlords Curley and Schultz who are footstools of Spanier who does not want anyone talking negatively about homosexual kiddie rape. C'mon, man, this is the 21st century! We could be in trouble for taking your call. We aren't making a record of this complaint to protect you and us! Take it to Curley and Schultz to disappear. We have important parking tickets to write for parking violations in the student parking lots. Priorities ARE priorities. First things first!
Second: Joe Paterno calls Curley and/or Schultz and hesitantly makes a report: This is certainly going to sound crazy but one of my nobody assistant coaches, Michael McQueary, just came in here with a dizzy fantasy (as detailed above) claiming that Sandusky had been anally raping a ten-year-old boy in the shower room at the football complex on a Friday night during Spring Break. McQueary saw nothing, did not see Sandusky or the alleged kid, claims that "slapping sounds" meant that such a kid was being raped, did not enter the shower room to interrupt the alleged rape or to cold cock Sandusky (assuming Sandusky was in the shower room at all). Guys, I am ashamed to say that McQueary had been an undertalented quarterback here before graduating to being an undertalented and, I guess, hallucinogenic assistant to the assistant to the assistant coaching job. Can we get some psychiatric help for McQueary and get him out of here before he decides that either of you or I may have been raping some kid in the shower room, or had been the real kidnapper of Judge Crater or have Amelia Earhart hidden in a secret laboratory on campus or, in my case due to age, that I may be the actual Jack the Ripper hiding out in Happy Valley waiting to go back to Jack's old habits? Who knows? In the absence of any actual evidence, McQueary just knows!!!
If Joe Paterno immediately responded by holding a public press conference detailing McQueary's unsupported claims, those who believed McQueary's claims would be likely to burn McQuaery at the stake for being a self-confessed coward who stood idly by while he THOUGHT a kid was being raped. Those who did not believe McQueary's claims would have treated McQueary (and maybe Paterno for taking him seriously) as space aliens who must have come from outer space or Paterno would have been presumed senile for taking McQueary's crazy story seriously.
REMEMBER: I personally don't give a sh*t about college football or college any other sport. I sometimes pay mild attention to professional football (a game or two every four years or so). My only serious sports interest is in the New York Yankees since the year that Mickey Mantle was a rookie. Nowadays, if a team does not feature Derek Jeter, I am not interested. When Jeter retires, I will find other Yankees to keep my rooting for the pinstripe laundry of New York. Without wasting time watching college football, I can admire excellence as a casual observer. As a coach, Paterno was a standard by which excellence is judged. One exception: As a Catholic, I despise Notre Shame University (for the Obozo incident at graduation and MANY other religious reasons) and tuned them in on the radio when they were smacked by Alabama as my wife and I screamed Roll, Tide, Roll! My only connection to Penn State football is that I once drove by their stadium in the offseason on my way to spending a week with Yale-connected friends in a nearby town. I don't believe that I have ever seen a single PSU football game even on television.
Joe Paterno had a magnificent career as PSU football coach. May some New York Yankees manager have that kind of track record in the time that remains to me in life. Paterno was the Babe Ruth of football coaches without Ruth's overly lively social life. My other sport is politics---the real blood sport of our times.
Your first paragraph: Such deviant misbehavior and crime is no yawner. If McQueary actually believed his own lies or unsupported truths if truths they were, why did he not walk right into the shower room, actually SEE the kid victim, see Sandusky's crime, haul off and belt Sandusky in the mouth, knock Sandusky to the floor of the shower room, and do the Bristol Stomp on his genitals until they were no longer useful for such purposes, i.e. the reaction of any normal male to such a crime against a child. Your first paragraph applies very much to McQueary and not at all to Paterno.
Get a grip yourself. And lay off Graham Spanier's kool aid while you are at it. Or as Gram Spanier might say paraphrasing the late Senator Russell Long: Don't blame you. Don't blame me! Blame the dead football coach under the tree! He is the only one at Penn State that anyone in the socially reactionary US has ever heard of. Let's keep it that way! JoePa had celebrity appeal and once the tabloid media and the low information gullibles have a chance to blame JoePa, they will ignore the real perps (other than Sandusky). Even on Free Republic, some people will believe our diversion!
Finally, Shoeless Joe Jackson had the second best lifetime batting average in the history, Pete Rose the most hits, Roger Clemens had the most Cy Young Awards, Barry Bonds the most home runs lifetime and the most MVP awards, Mark McGwire the most home runs in a single season. None are in the Baseball Hall of Fame. The politically correct baseball writers aren't fooling anyone by not electing them. Their records are what they are. Even if Rose bet on baseball games that he managed, even if the rest used performance enhancing drugs. That's the same Hall of Fame that had no problem including other baseball greats like Ty Cobb, Rogers Hornsby, and Tris Speaker, all of whom were active members of the Ku Klux Klan. Cobb also threw games for money (not comparable to Joe Jackson's performance for the Black Sox in the 1919 World Series) and was charged with attempted murder as a young man for stabbing a black restaurant waiter whom Cobb believed was being overly "uppity." Whatever Gerry Sandusky quite obviously did to many little boys (see jury verdict) would not change the excellence of Joe Paterno's coaching career.
Performance enhancing drugs affect the outcome of games and cumulative or even seasonal performance statistics which mean much to baseball fans. Gerry Sandusky's despicable perversions did not make Penn State a better winning football team or Joe Paterno a better coach.
Paterno was a football coach and not Inspector Closeau.
Paterno was a great man, with a great program, winningest coach ever.
Why bother him with some trifling story of young boys who were being savaged physically, psychologically and spirtually by his ex assistant coach? The program was what was important..........he saved it.........*phew*