Its Possible PATERNO KNOWS some of the powers that be....
Which made him shut the hell up...
Joe knows more than he is telling.. he should be debriefed..
Something made him clam up and not pursue this story....
He may know “the powers” that “be”..
After Spanier tried to get rid of Paterno the first time, Paterno probably became very leery of Spanier, and might have figured that politics and ideology had a lot to do with that episode. So perhaps when Paterno learned about Sandusky, he thought Spanier might quietly sympathize with the pervert for ideological reasons.