Posted on 01/16/2012 7:45:05 AM PST by Scoutmaster
Why didn’t Joe Paterno do more? Couldn’t he have stopped Jerry Sandusky? Did he deserve to be fired?
Those are questions that have surrounded the Penn State coach for more than two months, ever since he was dismissed over the telephone after 61 years in State College.
Based on comments here and his first media interview published this weekend, there seem to be three themes at the center of any defense of Paterno: 1. He did everything he was obligated to do; 2. You don’t know what you would have done in his situation; and 3. Joe wasn’t in charge, and therefore this was the responsibility of others.
There may be more, given the broad scope of the scandal and the various investigations. But these are the three points that seem to come up time and time again, including from Paterno and/or those close to him.
Let’s look at them one by one:
1. He did everything he was obligated to do.
Legally? Yes. Morally? Absolutely not.
If there was more that he could reasonably have done to prevent Sandusky from allegedly harming one more child in any way, he was obligated to do so. Not legally, but morally. And not just Paterno, but everyone involved, as there is an absolute moral obligation to protect children from predators.
That should go without saying.
It also leads us to the second point …
2. You don’t know what you would have done in his situation.
Very true. I have never been faced with a similar situation.
But I can say with absolute certainty that if one of my employees reported to me that a former high-level, high-profile employee of mine was behaving inappropriately with young boys in a building that was in my area of responsibility … well, I would have had the intellectual curiosity to have more than just one conversation with my superiors about it.
Instead, this is what happened, according Paterno’s talk with the Washington Post:
Paterno contends that ignorance was the context with which he heard McQueary’s disturbing story in 2002. McQueary, sitting at Paterno’s kitchen table, told him that he had been at the football building late the evening before when he heard noises coming from the shower.
“He was very upset and I said why, and he was very reluctant to get into it,” Paterno said. “He told me what he saw, and I said, what? He said it, well, looked like inappropriate, or fondling, I’m not quite sure exactly how he put it. I said you did what you had to do. It’s my job now to figure out what we want to do. So I sat around. It was a Saturday. Waited till Sunday because I wanted to make sure I knew what I was doing. And then I called my superiors and I said: ‘Hey, we got a problem, I think. Would you guys look into it?’ Cause I didn’t know, you know. We never had, until that point, 58 years I think, I had never had to deal with something like that. And I didn’t feel adequate.”
At that point, Paterno set up a meeting for McQueary and Curley, the athletic director, and Schultz, who oversaw university police. McQueary has testified that he gave both men a far more graphic description of what he witnessed, which he believed to be Sandusky sodomizing a boy of about 10, who had his hands against the shower wall. At the preliminary hearing for Curley and Schultz on Dec. 16, McQueary said he had been reluctant to go into similar “great detail about sexual acts” with Paterno, out of respect for the coach, who was 75 at the time.
Schultz and Curley have maintained that McQueary failed to impart the seriousness of what he saw to them as well. They never told police about the allegation, instead informing Sandusky he could no longer bring children to university facilities. Prosecutors say Sandusky continued to abuse boys for six more years.
Paterno has said, “In hindsight, I wish I had done more.”
Paterno’s portrait of himself is of an old-world man profoundly confused by what McQueary told him, and who was hesitant to make follow-up calls because he did not want to be seen as trying to exert any influence for or against Sandusky. “I didn’t know which way to go,” he said. “And rather than get in there and make a mistake . . .”
He reiterated that McQueary was unclear with him about the nature of what he saw — and added that even if McQueary had been more graphic, he’s not sure he would have comprehended it.
“You know, he didn’t want to get specific,” Paterno said. “And to be frank with you I don’t know that it would have done any good, because I never heard of, of, rape and a man. So I just did what I thought was best. I talked to people that I thought would be, if there was a problem, that would be following up on it.”
A look at the bold comments:
“It’s my job now to figure out what we want to do.” So far so good.
And, finally:
3. Joe wasn’t in charge, and this was the responsibility of others.
From the Washington Post story:
But after 61 years on the campus, Paterno cleared out his office in the space of one day. It was an end he was unprepared for. Yet it came with the realization that as the face of the university, people assign him greater responsibility than other officials.“Whether it’s fair I don’t know, but they do it,” he said. “You would think I ran the show here.”
Wrong. Paterno did run the show. He ran the football program. He was the coach. He was the boss. And it was a football facility that was at the center of one of Sandusky’s alleged acts.
By almost all accounts he was a good boss, a great man.
But, when he failed to take the necessary steps to protect children and the reputation of the organization he led, his fate simply had to be the same as other leaders whose institutions have apparently failed:
Joe had to go.
"So I sat around. It was a Saturday. Waited till Sunday because I wanted to make sure I knew what I was doing."
It took a day to decide the best idea was not to call the police and tell them a naked 58-year-old man was in a shower with a naked ten-year-old boy doing something inappropriate of a sexual nature, but to tell an administrator and never to follow up on it. After 46 years as a head coach, making decisions in a snap second on the field. And Paterno was been held out for decades as an example of what a ethical teacher and leader of young men should be like.
“You know, [McQueary] didn’t want to get specific [Note: Did you ask him, Joe? Sometimes having the specifics - the facts - help you make the proper decision], and to be frank with you I don’t know that it would have done any good, because I never heard of, of, rape and a man.
My grandfather was born in 1902 and warned me about these things. I also wonder whether Joe Paterno parsed words - "rape". He had his attorney and a communications adviser present. His family was with him at the kitchen table. This was a tableau as well as an interview. (Sidebar: Ignore the Washington Post. King & Spalding is an Atlanta law firm, not a WDC firm.)
“You would think I ran the show here.”
This happened in 2002. In 2004, the Board of Trustees wanted you to retire. PSU President Graham Spanier and Athletic Director Tim Curley (yes, that Graham Spanier and Tim Curley) came to Joe Paterno's house and asked him to retire. Joe Paterno essentially told them "Get off of my yard." And the man who didn't run the show there told the Board of Trustees, the President and the Athletic Director no. No. Forget it.
Joe Paterno WAS NOT FIRED!
He remains a tenured employee of Penn State University and is currently negotiating his retirement agreement.
Everyone was duped. Here’s what Steve Garban and John Surma of the Penn State Board of Trustees had to say about Paterno’s continued employment on Thursday. From CBS:
“Coach Paterno remains employed by the University as a tenured faculty member,” they said in a statement released Thursday. “The details of his retirement are being worked out and will be made public when they are finalized. Generally speaking, the University intends to honor the terms of his employment contract and is treating him financially as if he had retired at the end of the 2011 football season.”
Paterno is still getting paid. Penn State is still honoring his contract. And yes, they plan on sending him off into the sunset just like they would any other employee who retired after years of service to the university.
And the more people talk about Joe, the more people ignore the real bad guys.
I love JoPa — and I love what he did for Penn State and its players. But, I have to say that had someone told me that a full-grown man was sexually abusing little kids in the shower of my athletic facility, I would have been considerable more pro-active. As in going bonkers. And no matter how old I was, the next time i saw the miscreant, I would have had to have been physically restrained from assaulting him.
Joe Paterno was fired. He was removed unwillingly from his job for non-economic reasons. Just because he was fired from one job does not mean he was fired from all jobs such as his teaching post, nor does it mean that all contracted obligations end.
But, yes, he was fired and it is very silly to say otherwise.
I recently read that author Stieg Larsson (Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) had witnessed a gang rape of a girl when he was 15. He was haunted for his entire life by the event and for not helping the girl. His guilt shaped his books (The Millinium series). He was only 15 and possibly could never have helped the girl anyway against a gang. But, what a difference...Joe P had years and years to act, but did not..shame on him!
Please tell me you forgot the sarcasm symbol.
Ridiculing someone for pointing out corruption and crime against innocents is just wrong. I wish more people had a sense of righteous indignation on the subject.
I wouldn't take someone's word for it -- even if I didn't think they were lying. I'd want it investigated & would report it. If I trusted the people to whom I reported it -- which should go without saying -- and they came back saying "it was no big deal, the kid didn't see what he thought" I'm not sure I'd do much more.
There was a lot of speculation and assumption that Paterno knew of the 1999 matter which was reported to police and dismissed. It appears now that he didn't.
Nope. The focus on the lynching of JoePa is leaving a lot of things undiscussed.
Joe P., you sold your soul to the devil. Now live with it.
No redemption, buddy.
I agree with you. I guess the question is; Did those to whom JoPa reported the situation come back and say “it was no big deal, the kid didn’t see what he thought”?
Paterno’s portrait of himself is of an old-world man profoundly confused by what McQueary told him, and who was hesitant to make follow-up calls because he did not want to be seen as trying to exert any influence for or against Sandusky. “I didn’t know which way to go,” he said. “And rather than get in there and make a mistake . . .”
“The focus on the lynching of JoePa is leaving a lot of things undiscussed.”
For instance? There are many issues to this story. One is clear cut - a nasty pedofile, try and charge him, throw away the key. The other is something that needs to be discussed. That is that when a person is aware of a crime and does nothing - they are complicit. These people need to start being held accountable and prosescuted.
The phrase, "in hindsight" is the money phrase. No one I know, who was involved in the football program as a player, suspected anything unusual about Sandusky. In fact, he was personable and very well liked.
Once the SHTF, I think everyone wishes they had done more in hindsight.
I make this statement not to excuse the inaction of Joe Paterno, but simply shine the light on the bigger picture which the media refuses to see.
“Everyone was duped.”
I don’t think anyone was duped. Joe, who had a contract to coach football, was terminated. He is also a fully tenured professor at PSU and under a contract that must be negotiated.
Is the reason he was not ‘fired’ because he is tenured? I suspect that if he has not been in fact ‘fired’, it is a legal rather than a substantive, issue.
Since Curley & Schultz told the grand jury it was just "horseplay", I'm guessing they told something similar to JoePa.
Which gets to the point, namely there was a coverup. If Paterno was part of it, he should be hung. At this point, though we can dismiss that.
The question that bugs me is why was there a coverup?
“The question that bugs me is why was there a coverup?”
Status and reputation, law suits. What some people will do to protect their status and reputation is beyond me.
All that was necessary for evil to triumph was for Joe Paterno to do nothing
Graham Spanier and why was he hired in the first place?
John T. Neisworth who had nothing to do with the football team & why did the powers-that-be ignore the allegations against him?
And, if you are really feeling crazy and conspiratorial the matter of Charles Koons at Hershey School, who was also reported to police for molestation in 1998, a case which was also dropped as per the initial Sandusky investigation which was occurring at the same time. Note: that's only if you are feeling crazy and conspiratorial. Hershey is in a different county than State College. The Hershey Trust does not have a direct connection to PSU, although board members would travel in the same circles.
The helicopter they use is called the "Life Lion" and has the PSU logo on it.
That's true.
Do you have information that Jerry Sandusky was riding Joe Paterno too?
If not, the statement that Joe is a victim is the most mind-numbing foolishness I have seen posted here in many a year.
Paterno is a coward - pure and simple.
He thought only of Joe Paterno, Penn State and his friend, Jerry Sandusky, instead of the boys and young men being raped by his homosexual pal.
Paterno is a disgrace.
If it was you as a youth, or your son who had been raped by Sandusky, you might have arrived at a different conclusion.
How do you figure that?
Joe Paterno did NOTHING? Is that true? Joe Paterno heard about this and did NOTHING? I thought he reported it to his superiors? What are the facts?
I love all of you folks who pound your chests and trumpet what you would do in this situation. You all sound like the folks going on and on about a few Marines peeing on a couple dead Taliban. Never being in a combat zone, never fighting these animals, never seeing a comrade die, yet sitting in judgement.
Please, any of you righteous, give me examples of what you have done when in your own lives you have come across abusive situations involving children. I especially want examples from those with the most venom for Paterno.
In addition, please give examples of what you are doing NOW to help abuse victims since learning what happened at PSU.
I suspect, behind the safety of your monitors and keyboards you do nothing except pile on a dying old man who used poor judgement.
How brave and courageous you are. (SARC!!!!)
Hmm. I wrote a check to RAINN already this year. I've already completed my Youth Protection training for the BSA for 2012.
If you missed my very early posts on this topic, the matter strikes home for a number of reasons. Not only do I work with youth, and not only did I formerly work in a children's hospital with a large sexual abuse clinic, but Joe Paterno was one of my heroes. You don't keep many of those as an adult. Although I had no ties whatsoever to Penn State or Pennsylvania, as a child in Seattle I put black electrical tape on my white plastic football helmet so I could 'play' for Joe Paterno in the backyard with all of the other kids. I believed all of the veneer about his moral superiority.
If the authorities won't take action? Joe Paterno had a remedy. 9-1-1. And the 'authorities' from the beginning, if he weren't concerned with the image of Penn State football, were the police.
I've served on BSA Health & Safety Committees at the Council level and higher. I've reported sexual abuse concerns regarding a fifth grade girl which, tragically, were correct.
Now, do you have a problem with that?
If my count is correct, eighteen states require all adults to report any credible allegation of child sexual abuse to law enforcement or child protective services. Pennsylvania was not one of them in 2002 and is not one now (but legislation of some form is pending). That's not reporting it to the people you 'report to,' but to people who actually deal with this.
Why would you think that the people you report to in an environment that doesn't normally include children are equipped to investigate child sexual abuse?
Are they also equipped to investigate espionage? Terrorism? Possible kidnappings?
BTW, this is the same Penn State that found that Dr. Mann didn’t violate any academic standards with is “Hockey Stick” (Al Gore used it) global warming papers.
The culture of the place was to believe that they are the side of the angels, and therefore they had a tough time dealing with accusations of gross misconduct. Kinda like having a tough time believing that the angelic honor student really did get pregnant, etc.
I made two donations to RAINN in November 2012. I checked into StopItNow!Georgia! but decided to go with RAINN. I also made a donation in January.
I'm not trained to work with victims. It takes a specialist (like it takes a specialist to investigate this stuff, not a Curley or Schultz).
On the issue of child abuse, I pinged all of the adults on the Troop and Crew email list and asked them to view the Youth Protection video (Link) again. I emailed the Troop Committee chair and suggested contacting Pack parents with the same message.
Although unit leaders may not be due for it, we pushed unit leaders to renew their Youth Protection training certification as well.
Shall I go on?
No. McQueary was the 6'2", 225-pound coward who should have stopped it on the spot. I wonder how he sleeps? He didn't know what to do and had to ask his dad . . . why? Because what he did would affect Penn State football.
Just as a janitor, a Korean War veteran, saw Sandusky performing oral sex on a young boy in the Penn State football showers in 2000 and was too scared to stop it or to report it. And Sandusky drove around the building a couple of times after leaving . . . until 3:00 a.m. . . . checking, I assume, to see if the police were called. Of course not. It's Penn State football.
whose been riding you
I will read your posts. You are walking the walk.
I must be a tremendous responsibility to be able to read a man's mind and heart and soul and then pass judgment on his redemption.
I just didn't know that God posted here at FR.
jay, you are an arrogant ass.
I make this statement not to excuse the inaction of Joe Paterno, but simply shine the light on the bigger picture which the media refuses to see.
It is possible that some in the media do see the bigger picture, but still refuse to talk about it because of political correctness. If we don't start talking about the homosexual aspect of this, it will never get any better. There is a huge push to normalize this behavior. This is how gays produce progeny. There are many powerful people in very high places that continue to push the homosexual agenda, bit by bit, every day. Graham Spanier and the Penn State Board of Trustees are perfect examples, but it's not just there. It's all over the country, in every nook and cranny of our institutions and government.
The reason is they did not want any of this criminal activity (and bad PR) be made public. Once exposed to the light of day there was no way to manage this disaster for PSU. They were also afraid that Sandusky was only one node of this gay pedophile cancer and how much it had spread and who would also be named.
No, Sandusky did not act alone. There were others who enabled him to prey upon children and get their share of the “boy booty”. This has the markings of a ring of male pedophiles, men with connections and money and positions.
The real question is whether or not there is enough public rage (and political will) to get this whole evil story laid out before the public for all to see. The Gay Mafia will want to see this story killed ASAP because it threatens their positions.
Unless Paterno knew that Curley and Schultz were lying he was not involved in the cover up.
If JoPa is squeaky clean, OK; if he's dirty, then he needs to pay. The same goes for each and everyone who, covertly or overtly, covered things up. Sandusky’s wife remains either in deep denial or shares his guilt as an enabler of his disgusting pedophile activities.
If the Gay Mafia can successfully block this investigation, then I'd be in favor of shutting down all PSU sports programs for 10 years and fire all the staff. The only way to get to the bottom of this is with severe means: give up the pervert pedophiles or sacrifice PSU’s money making athletic programs. Given the choice of ratting out the perverts or losing millions of dollars (and their precious sports programs), what do you think will be the choice? [My bet is they'd give up sports to save the perverts.]
I’m in favor of shutting down the entire school.
BUMP what you said.
Paterno was an old man TEN YEARS ago, and Sandusky wasn’t even with the football program anymore. The whole situation was an alien planet to him, a man sexually abusing a boy. He told TWO people up the chain of command, including the guy in charge of the freaking campus POLICE. And yeah, maybe he should have followed up and maybe this and maybe that... The thing is, before you point a finger at another man and acuse him of being a chold molester, you better have seen it with your own two eyeballs. Like McQueary did, for example.
But no... people like beating up on Joe Paterno because it somehow makes them feel good about themselves. They are smug little people without lives, eager to throw stones at people who have achieved the kind of greatness they themselves could never hope to achieve.
So yep, you’re right. The real cowards - - McQueary, (who was the eyewitness!), Curley, Schultz, and Spanier (who were the people in a position to actually DO something about Sandusky) get to fly under the radar while the ankle biters go after the old football coach Paterno. It’s disgusting.
The bottom line is: unless PSU feels REAL pain, this whole disgusting mess will be covered-up and whitewashed. Either kill all PSU sports programs for 10 years and fire coaches and staff or kill PSU outright and start over.
I suppose he never watched Deliverance?
I respectfully disagree.
First, the laws in at least eighteen states require all adults to report any creditable allegation of child abuse to either police or child protective services. Not if you saw it with your own two eyes. Just if you hear about it and it's credible.
Second, let's drop back to the concept of a heinous crime generically. A young man (26 I believe) that you've known at least since high school, that you coached in college, who is your graduate assistant, tells you he saw somebody raping a woman, or knifing somebody, or killing them, or bludgeoning them with an iron pipe.
Would you tell him to call the police? Paterno didn't. Would you call the police? Paterno didn't. And John McQueary and Dr. Jonathan Dranov didn't, either.
Who was the real coward? Who should be catching 1000% more flack that he has? Mike McQueary. Who were cowards and cover-up artists before Joe Paterno? McQueary's father, John McQueary. And John McQueary called his boss, Dr. Jonathan Dranov to the house (news reports saying 'he was there' leave out the detail that John McQueary called him and asked him to come over). Neither of those two grown men apparently told Mike to the police.
It wasn't just Joe Paterno.
Everybody was trying to keep things in-house and trying to keep the police out of this.
Just for the record, John McQueray and Dr. Jonathan Dranov were administrators of a medical clinic to which Sue and Joe Paterno gave over $1 million dollars.
But, no - you're supposed to call the police with any creditable allegation of child abuse. You don't have to see it. Just like you don't have to be the first-hand witness of a suspected murder.
I think it's because it's a name they've heard of and some of them come from states where the football coach really does run the university.
And also there are a lot more stories about Paterno in the popular media than there are about Spanier, Neisworth et al., and that kind of puts me in a conspiracy frame of mind.
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