Posted on 11/23/2011 6:43:00 AM PST by lbryce
Two years ago, Thom Hunter, a volunteer coach at Central Mountain High School in Mill Hall, Pa., saw something special in a 15-year-old boy at the school: a remarkable natural running ability.
“There’s not anyone tougher than him when he runs,” Hunter said of the teenager. “You see other people start out too hard like he does, and they just collapse. It’s amazing to watch him just push through it.”
In Hunter, it seems, the young high school runner saw something that felt just as rare: a coach he could trust, an adult male who would neither abandon nor harm him.
The boy had had enough of that.
On Nov. 5, Pennsylvania prosecutors, in charging Jerry Sandusky, a former Penn State University football coach, with 40 counts of sexual abuse of children, outlined the narratives of eight young victims. The young high school runner at Central Mountain High was identified as Victim 1.
The assertions by prosecutors are terrible and terrifying: the boy was 11 or 12 when he first met Sandusky. Sandusky, according to the charges, gave the boy gifts — golf clubs and a computer and cash — and took him to professional and college games. Sandusky also victimized the child repeatedly over many months in Sandusky’s home.
Late in 2008, concerns about Sandusky’s possible abuse of the boy made their way to the authorities, and over the ensuing months, the boy, high school officials and at least one other coach at the school testified under oath about Sandusky.
The New York Times has interviewed dozens of friends, coaches and others involved in the case to fill out a portrait of the boy, his experiences, his life before he became part of Pennsylvania’s most high-profile investigation, and his life since.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Agree. The lack of perspective in this whole sordid affair is painfully evident. Poor kids. I hope they find peace.
Reading the article, it can be that hard for anyone to figure out who the kid is...Shouldn’t the Times be more concerned about protecting the victims?
Yup. Took me about two minutes to find it out.
Happy Thanks Giving, kid. Thanks to the NYT, the whole school knows you've been Sanduskyed.
I think they were reporting yesterday that the kid has now had to change schools. He was being bullied at school and was being blamed for “bringing down the Penn State football program”. Maybe it wasn’t victim #1, but I remember hearing that at least one of them is going through hell again over all of this.
YES, I heard that the kid was now a Senior in HS and had to be leave his school.....PENN State’s football program should be closed down! There have not been enough consequences...
I hadn't heard that. Although it's just as bad for the kid that I looked up. Now everyone is going to "suspect" this kid.
I’m coming to this a little late, but just found this thread.
From the article:
“Amendola said Sandusky once spent a night alone in a hotel room with the boy during a trip sponsored by Second Mile. But he insisted he had paid for a pull-out cot in the hotel room, and that he had turned over receipts to investigators to prove it.”
A receipt does not prove that Sandusky didn’t molest the boy, it only shows that he was smart enough to cover his tracks. Victim #1 is one of the later victims, but the first to step forward since the 1998 incident (which didn’t lead to any charges). Sandusky knew that others were on to his wicked deeds, so he KNEW he had to provide a cover for himself.
placemark
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