at that time, i thought it was sad that he was going to be out at the end of the year for such a reason.
an hour later, i thought it was incredibly ridiculous that he got fired on the spot.
today, i am still utterly confused and have a secnd best song i could dedicate to the entire debacle.
really? the facts as they have been presented:
his former assistant coach sandusky allegedly molested eight different young boys between 1994-2009. some of these abuses took place at penn state athletic facilities. assistant coach mcqueary admitted that he witnessed sexual abuse taking place in the locker room. his version of the story has been changing over the week, but it basically is that he went to paterno and other school officials about it. he is now saying that he also went to police, though this has been denied by police.
as this has come to light, former coach sandusky is under investigation and awaiting trial. penn state university has fired coach paterno, university president spanier and the senior vp for business and finance has resigned. the athletic director is on administrative leave. the university is going to great lengths to protect mcqueary, who, honestly, i find to be the most questionable character in all of this. further ramifications have included paterno's name stripped from the championship trophy and other such places of honor. people are asking about whether his statue should be removed from in front of the stadium.
on the other side of the coin, there are students at penn state starting riots, tipping news vans, breaking out windows and stuff like that. though i think it is a bit extreme, i must say i am more on the side of the protesters than the critics and university officials. because i think what they are doing is more extreme than the rioters. consider:
1. joe paterno coached at penn state for 66 years. he is the all time winningest coach in college football history. his presence in various rings of honor can never be disputed in terms of gridiron accomplishments.
2. he was fired for not doing enough to bring this injustice to light. he did say he wished he had done more, which is ultimately what the board went on when they fired him. however, he did go to university officials and they did nothing. while it is true that some of those guilty parties have also been fired, why was his responsibility greater than that. hindsight will say, yes, he should've gone to the police. but then hindsight may say he had good reason not to.
3. if these university officials did not go to police, what's to say they didn't convince him that they would take care of things? or, most likely that there is more to this complex part of the story. just to think about it simply, if you are at work and see someone doing something illegal, who do you go to? you go to your boss, they go to their boss, appropriate action is taken through a chain of command. if you go straight to the cops and in turns out to be an extreme reaction, your reputation is on the line for putting your employer in a poor light. so, why would paterno go to the police?
4. most crucially, sandusky has not even been convicted! what if it turns out, as he says, that he is completely innocent? then after the witch hunt and everyone's been burned at the stake, penn state finds out that nothing happened, then what? while it is quite apparent that some sketchy things went on, it also stands to reason that sandusky might not have broken any law. if that's the case, everyone in the university followed the proper course of action in simply barring him from bringing children to the university. as we have found out, he was exonerated by the d.a. for accusations of such activity in 1998.
if paterno took such information into account, it would seem to be appropriate to question the validity of any later claim that sandusky had done something wrong. on the other hand, if he believed that mcqueary or others had already gone to the police, why would he feel the need to go also?
seeing evidence that the d.a. didn't buy into the allegations in 1998, seeing the shifty story that mcqueary is telling, seeing the questionable position that higher people within the university took, it is enough to warrant more solid information before such reactions as firing a legendary coach and stripping his name from everything. for all we know at this point, the police were involved and officials higher than even the university were involved in covering things up to prevent a scandal. the point is that we don't know a damn thing about what happened yet, but many consequences have already paid. i would riot too!
seriously. in the worst case scenario, i think that what jim tressel did at ohio state was worse. heck, i even think that gary pinkel getting busted for a dwi is worse, although i am questioning the extreme fines he has to pay. i think that what pete carroll did at usc was worse. if paterno did things along those lines, that would be much worse than going to police when he had plenty of reason to give pause. he did enough to alert his superiors.
if there is someone who is not seeing this my way, please help me understand what joe paterno did wrong.
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