I'm a Paterno denier. Everything I ever read about him showed him immersed in decency. For decades he was the quintessential paragon of class. He was older than I am when he left the Penn State football program.
The only scandal ever to touch him was Sandusky's. This included decades of winning football when so many other winners were outed as liars and cheats.
It says right here that the idea of Sandusky transgressions were WAY, WAY beyond Paterno's imagination and way outside the range of his radar screen. If someone gave him proof of Sandusky's sin, Paterno would have led him to the authorities only after Sandusky was tarred and feathered.
I believe Paterno lived a life of decency, and would have been happy as a clam to have a football prodigy kid whom I could turn over to Joe Paterno.
When the only thing you know about a man is that he is honorable, it looks pretty classless and slimy to attach this kind of crime to him after he is dead or when he is too old to mount a justified defense.
Agreed, Steve. It was always my impression that Paterno was an entirely decent guy . . . so decent that he could scarcely comprehend the evil that Sandusky was involved in. Whenever I saw Paterno on tv, he reminded me — physically, esp. as he aged — of my late father. And my father would have reacted in the same way; he wouldn’t have been able even to comprehend what Sandusky was accused of and would have shit it out.
By the way, did you read where Sandusky’s adult son has been arrested and charged with sexual assault of a minor? Evidently his victim(s) were teenage girls. Has Sandusky’s wife ever discussed her husband’s perverse practices? From all I read, she was well aware of what was going on but turned a blond eye, perhaps because it kept hubby from turning his attentions to her. Sandusky had a very odd childhood . . .