Regardless of the chain of events as currently told and morphed, if Mr. Paterno had knowledge of someone he knew and had some measure of control over who did, possibly did, or thought about molesting A young boy, young boys, whatever -—if he did nothing about it except to ‘elevate’ it and demur, when he, as coach and master of the sports domain at PSU who had utter control over the comings and goings and status of people who operate there, then he was complicit.
On something such as egregious as molestation, you don’t accept or ignore ‘rumors’. A decent man would confront and ask, face-to-face. Had he done this, his legacy would be untainted.
I agree with Gaffer. I cannot excuse Joe P’s looking the other way over the years as Sandusky still had access to facilities at PSU, seems to have brought young boys along on trips, etc. If it was YOUR SON, would you be letting Joe P off the hook this way? I think the last count was 12 that had come forward. There are likely more. If Joe had acted properly (go to the police) when he first became aware of it, at least several boys would never have been victims of Sandusky.