My take on the Penn State scandal

I first heard about the investigation of Jerry Sandusky in an ESPN report last spring. At the time the story got little press which I thought was a bit odd considering the nature of the charges but this did come out about a month after the Tressel charges. The media circus was full go around the Ohio State program at the time and this story got little coverage. That changed last Saturday when the Pennsylvania State Attorney's office released a report that charged Sandusky with 40 criminal counts and also charged Penn State athletic director Tim Curley and vice president for finance and business Gary Schultz of perjury. The official report from grand jury is a graphic depiction of a serial child molester that is difficult to read without anger. Late yesterday the Penn State Board of Trustees had an emergency meeting and afterward it was revealed that both Curley and Schultz resigned and are expected to turn themselves over to the authorities today.

I'm sure these charges came as quite a shock to most Penn State fans that don't obsessively follow every story about their team. Even the hardcore fans had to be floored because even though there have been snippets of information on the case, there wasn't any sign from the Attorney General the case had much merit. That all changed on Saturday and the reaction has been emotional on all sides.

We don't have all the facts yet and as this is only a grand jury finding I'm sure much more will be brought out in the next few months. Even so here is the timeline as I see it:

• 1969 - 1998 - Jerry Sandusky is hired by Joe Paterno and the two lead the team to multiple undefeated seasons and national championships in football. Sandusky is the defensive mastermind behind these teams and seen as the heir when Joe Paterno retires. 
• 1977 - Sandusky founds the Second Mile which began as a foster home to troubled boys and grew to a statewide organization that helped boys from dysfunctional or absent parents. It's mission was to "help children who need additional support and would benefit from positive human interaction." 
• 1998 - Sandusky is charged in Centre County (county where Penn State is located) with molestation but the charges are dropped when the county Attorney General, Ray Gricar, decides there is not enough information to prosecute. 
• 1998 - Sandusky's pay is cut in half but he continues to coach at Penn State. I'm sure Paterno would claim there is no relation between this and the charges of molestation but the timing seems odd to me. 
• 1999 - Apparently not getting the hint, Joe Paterno forces Sandusky out. His retirement package includes a pension, an office in the Penn State athletic offices, and the right to use the campus hotel on visits to the university (This is a pretty normal package for an exiting coaches. Earle Bruce/John Cooper at Ohio State have similar arrangements). 
• March 1, 2002 - Mike McQueary, a former QB and grad assistant on the Penn State football enters the locker room at the Lasch Football Building about 9:30 pm to get some game film and hears noises coming from the showers. He sees Sandusky with a boy about age 10 pinned against the wall having anal intercourse. McQueary left the scene distraught and calls his father who tells him to leave the scene and come to his house to discuss the situation. 
• March 2, 2002 - McQueary reports the incident to Joe Paterno the next day. 
• March 3, 2003 - Joe Paterno informs the Athletic Director, Tim Curley, of the incident. 
• Approx 10 days later - McQueary is questioned by Curley and Schulz and he is told that they would look into it. Joe Paterno is not present at the meeting. 
• A few weeks later - McQueary is told that Sandusky's keys to the university locker room have been taken away and the Second Mile foundation has been informed of the incident. 
• Also - Curley informs Penn State University President Graham Spanier of the incident and actions taken. Spanier approves Curley's method of dealing with the matter though no police agency is ever told of the situation. Schultz's job responsibilities include the campus police department though he is not engaged in the day to day running of the office. He doesn't bring it to attention of the campus police as was done in 1998 and no report is ever filed. 
• April 15, 2005 - Probably totally unrelated but oddly the DA in charge that dropped the 1998 incident for lack of evidence disappears after leaving work and is never heard from again. The only thing that is found is a laptop which has been thrown into the Susquehanna River near where is car is found. No body is ever found and he is declared legally dead in 2011. 
• 2005/6 - Sandusky meets an 11 year old boy designated at Victim 1 through the Second Mile program and over time becomes close to him. They attend many events together and eventually it leads to Sandusky performing oral sex with him more than 20 times in the next few years along with other sexual acts. 
• Early 2008 - Victim 1 is seen by various faculty at his school engaged in "suspicious activity" with Sandusky. School officials become aware of potential abuse when Victim 1's mother calls to report it. School officials forward the information to the authorities as mandated by law. 
• 2008-2011 - Investigation into Jerry Sandusky by local and state authorities leading to the Grand Jury finding released on Saturday. 

The story seems ready made for Hollywood if the subject matter wasn't so disturbing. A few thoughts:

• Some people are outraged that McQueary didn't intervene during the 3/1/02 incident. While he was a 28 year old man at the time, he witnessed a disturbing act by a man he'd grown up admiring. I think it is reasonable to think any person in that situation would be traumatized, retreat and get advice from a mentor on how to proceed. While we all would like to think we'd be a hero in the situation none of us really know how we'd react unless we were there. 

• I have seen a few comments similar to "Gays are perverted people and this is where their lifestyle leads" in regards to Sandusky. Ignorant comments like this piss me off as their is a big difference between homosexuality and pedophilia. Most pedophiles get sexually excited only by young children and the vast majority consider themselves heterosexual. It drives me nuts when people use an incident like this to falsely categorize a segment of the population they don't like. 

• Joe Paterno released a statement saying we all were fooled and that he met his responsibilities. He also said he was shocked by the revelations in the Grand Jury report. I'm not sure how we are expected to believe this as 1) Sandusky was his right hand coach for almost 30 years, 2) he had to have known of the charges in 1998 as they weren't exactly a secret in State College, 3) he essentially fired his heir apparent Sandusky the next season but never disclosed the reasons, and 4) he admits he was told by McQueary that suspicious activities occurred by Sandusky in the shower of their locker room and McQueary was traumatized by the event. Are we to believe after knowing all this Paterno never followed up or asked any questions? The person that witnessed the incident (McQueary) was one of his best players in the 90s and now is his Wide Receiver Coach. Are we to believe the two never talked about it again after he discussed it with Paterno on March 2nd? Or that he never asked the athletic director what happened with the case at a university athletic department he virtually ran and was well known for his no nonsense beliefs? Sorry but that isn't remotely believable. 

Three thing were damaged by Sandusky's actions and the subsequent decisions by Penn State:

1. Victims - My heart goes out to all of them and hope they can work their way through the residual damage caused by Sandusky. Words don't do this situation justice and I won't attempt it. 
2. Legal - Sandusky has been charged and will eventually spend the rest of his life in jail if he doesn't kill himself first. Curley and Shultz have been charged with apparently trying to cover up the incident and no doubt they are going to spend some time in jail and pay large fines. I do feel an odd sense of sympathy for them as they were put in a terrible position by Sandusky. They had two terrible options. They could turn Sandusky in and see their university endure a scandal that would cost it millions of dollars and see its reputation dragged through the mud. Or they could cover it up and hope Sandusky stopped his actions while they prayed none of his former victims came forward. They chose to do the latter. I don't in any way agree with their decision but anyone that has been in a large organization can tell you that there is enormous pressure to do whatever is necessary to protect it and sometimes lines are crossed. They chose poorly and now they will goto jail while the university will still need to pay out millions in punitive damages. 
3. Reputation - I touched on this in the last point but Penn State will forever be linked to this scandal. Twenty years from now you will still be seeing opposing fans called them "Ped State" and this has to be grating for the thousands of players/alumni/fans that did nothing wrong and only bring credit to the school. That is forever lost due to the actions of a few men. 

I want to end with a thought. A year ago I wrote an article about Jim Tressel and how grateful I was that he was the coach of the Ohio State Buckeyes. He is a moral man that was a great leader of young men that also happened to have the ability to win football games. Over the next six months the Tressel regime came to an inglorious end due to one bad decision. Something similar happened with Woody Hayes about 30 years about so it is safe to say that Buckeye fans are intimately aware of the fragility of their hero's reputations.

Everyone loves heroes. Whether it be Wyatt Earp, George Patton, or Knute Rockne we like to look to these men as models to which we can aspire. We place our values on them and build them up to a level that no man can possibly achieve. That doesn't stop us.

One of the best things I have ever seen on television is a show called "Friday Night Lights". It's the story of a small town in Texas that is filled with amazingly human characters that happens to have a good football team. The characters in the show are constantly making mistakes but they can always count on their football team to bring them relief. As for the team, many of the players find themselves in trouble but you can always count on "Coach Eric Taylor" to get involved and resolve the situation with integrity. He's the rock for the whole community.

That's what we expect of our heroes and whether they want it or not football coaches are revered in our society. They are molders of young minds and in today's age of electronic warfare, they lead their men in to combat. This appeals to the human psyche on a primal level. We want to believe these men are perfect but in truth that is an impossible bar to reach. They are human and as we have seen, they make human mistakes.

We will probably never know the full truth of what Joe Paterno was thinking on March 2, 2002 but one fact is clear. He failed the hero test and this incident will forever be linked to his legacy. That saddens me as the world needs more heroes and it lost one of its brightest with the revelations over the weekend.