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I once witnessed something a bit similar in a shower. I was taking a shower in the dorms when I heard the door kicked open. I heard footfalls on the floor that sounded as if people were struggling. I was washing my hair and tried to rinse soap away from my eyes. I couldn't see much of the bathroom from the shower area, but when I stood against one wall and looked through the small angle at the opening to the shower area, I saw a guy standing behind a girl with his arm across her throat. I could swear that I heard her rasping out the word "rape."

I yelled, and he let her go. I heard footsteps going towards the door and the door slam open. I imagined and maybe even heard the first step or two of her running down the hallway.

I finished rinsing my hair because if I had any trouble, I didn't want soap running into my eyes. At that time, I had more hair and rinsing took a few moments. I went to the edge of the shower area and looked out. One of the dorm floor jerks was standing smugly at the urinals relieving himself. I could tell by his posture and body language that he was all proud of himself for having bullied a girl.

That kind of stuff isn't all that uncommon in dorms. Frequency doesn't make that behavior right, but no one can stop that stuff. Idiots will be idiots, and too many stupid coeds will hang out with idiots. As I thought about whether to make a report, I realized that nothing would happen to the guy. I could hear a defense attorney asking, "So, the angle of your view meant that you could only see a slice of their bodies about four inches wide? You admit that you had to wipe shampoo out of your eyes to see at all? Would you say that the hard tiles of the shower room create many echoes and a great deal of noise from the running water? Would someone have had time to leave the bathroom and someone else go to the urinals while you were rinsing your hair?" I realized that making an issue of what I had seen was pointless.

That experience makes me wonder many things about Mike McQueary and what he saw or didn't see. He had the advantage of not having shampoo in his eyes, but what did he really see? Did he dimly see figures moving in a steamy shower and just make assumptions about what was happening or did he really see a rape? He has said since that time that he made sure that contact was stopped before leaving the room, but if he really saw a rape, why didn't he remove the victim from the presence of the rapist? I was not in a position to be sure of who was involved with what I saw. He could have been sure if he'd acted. The victim I saw was a legal adult and bears at least some responsibility for her company. I'm sure the guy would have argued that they were just joking. If there was anal sex in the shower at Penn State, no one can argue that anyone was just joking, and the victim's being a minor means that he wasn't responsible for hanging out with idiots.

Because Mike McQueary's story has so many problems, I can understand Joe Paterno not pushing things farther than he did. I can understand turning the investigation over to the university and assuming when no action was taken that they found too many inconsistencies in that story to believe that McQueary really saw anything. In spite of what everyone says about Joe Paterno's power, I can see him as a guy who didn't exercise that power but tried to keep things within proper channels. I can believe that he trusted those channels to do the right thing and is primarily guilty of misplacing his trust. We live in a society where "privacy" dictates that all kinds of things not be disclosed. If Joe Paterno didn't hear back, I can see him thinking that he wasn't told because he wasn't supposed to hear the outcome.