This will be like a death in my family. Rural PA took much of their identity from JoePa and Penn State. They always held their heads up because they might be never-graduated coal miners but they were also Penn State.
And that is what is sad, so many people know everything there is to know about a coach or team, but can't tell you squat about what goes on in today's government or economy. Their only source of news, and I have a few family members like this, only comes from the sports pages.
I am saddened by this whole mess. I am equally disgusted by the fact that anyone, particularly those involved in mentoring children in athletics, has taken advantage of that position of trust by mollesting them. There is a special corner in hell reserved for the quilty party(s).
A man who has devoted his life to building young men and a storied football program should have done more. When first allerted, he should have kept the grad asst. in his office and immediately called the police to come out and speak to him, then, only after calling the authorities should he have called the University President. I’m confident that, given the same circumstances again, he would have handled it differently. However - that and a buck will buy you a soda. Nothing can undo the damage that has been inflicted upon innocent children. That much is unfortunate.
I, being a huge college football fan and former player, am sad that JoePa needs to go out in this manner. 46 years at Penn State - where he and his wife have given virtually every penny they have ever earned back to the university (donating over $4mil and then raising $14 mil to build the Paterno library) and built a legacy that will forever be unmatched. His commitment to his “Grand Experiment” allowed Penn State players to always excel in their studies while being formidable on the field of play. He wrote the book on melding athletics and academics. For that to be torn apart makes me sad for JoePa. It is a sad day for those children involved, it is a sad day for college football, but it is also a sad day for Joe and Sue Paterno. I join them in feeling a sense of loss.
It simply amazes me how so many grown adults across this nation place such importance on "their" college football team.
These people base their entire identity in life on a group of 20 year old kids they don't even know that happen to play a sport a few months out of the year.
Even if they don't know anybody that goes to school there or have any form of connection to the school, they seem to think the most important thing in their lives is a college sports team. I'll never understand it.
Exactly the same situation for my coal-mining and associated PA relatives. This is HUGE for them.
It is sad, but Joe and others can take a hard lesson. Putting male homosexuals and boys together is a recipe for sexual predation. The Boy Scouts figured it out long ago and avoided it—note the queers labeled them homophobes, nazis, bigots and intolerants. The Catholic Church has suffered greatly and continues to hemorrhage money thanks to infiltration by male homosexuals. Now they are in the military. You can lay the success of the movement at the feet of hollywood where homosexual writers portray the deviant behavior as benign, intelligent and all about love. Those involved in public health know that male homosexuals are the #1 vector for the spread of at least a dozen infectious diseases.