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.
If you really want to be upset about something why not write about how police handled the Sandusky matter that was reported to them?
In hindsight, Paterno should have called police but because he handled it the way he did does not mean that he was party to a cover up or was morally culpable of anything. A failure in judgement fine, after all hindsight is 20/20, but that's not what you are saying. You are saying, that he's a bad, bad person only interested in protecting his football team.
Somebody else on this thread said that Paterno was only trying to protect his "friend" Sandusky without comprehending that they didn't particularly like each other.
Paterno needs to be defended.
And remember, most states do not require adults to report allegations of child abuse to law. "Creditable" is a matter of judgement, not objective criteria.
What puzzles me is that Paterno is about the only one who did anything half-way right in this matter. The duly sworn LEOs did not. The university administration did not. So why the anger at Paterno?