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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.
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.
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