USA Today
November 8, 2011
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/story/2011-11-07/Jerry-Sandusky-Joe-Paterno/51116886/1
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| Charged: Law enforcement officers escort Jerry Sandusky, right, to court in State College, Pa.osition: left top; |
[with video]
OPPOSING VIEW: 'I did what I was supposed to,' Joe Paterno saysIf the grand jury's account is to be believed, any of several university officials and employees, including revered football coach Joe Paterno, could have done much more to protect young boys from the predations of an assistant coach now charged with multiple counts of child abuse. They just didn't do it.
Maybe they feared bad publicity or a lawsuit, an all-so-familiar excuse for unethical behavior in organizations facing embarrassment. Think of the Roman Catholic Church, which covered up hundreds of cases of sexual abuse, allowing pedophile priests to prey on boys for decades.
Maybe, like bystanders at other crimes, they just didn't want to get involved.
Or, maybe, they just didn't want to believe horrifying allegations about a man they had known for years.
Regardless, they ignored warnings that Jerry Sandusky, a longtime assistant coach once rumored to be Paterno's likely successor, was a predator.
Sandusky, who worked with Paterno for 30 years, has been charged with sexually abusing eight boys, some in Penn State athletic facilities, first as an assistant coach, then as a retired coach and fixture on campus, and always as a leader of a charity he founded to help disadvantaged boys the ones he is now accused of abusing.
The severity of the charges makes the year's other college football scandals pale in comparison. According to prosecutors:
In 1998, when Sandusky was still working for Paterno, campus police investigated charges by the mother of an 11-year-old that her son had been touched and held by Sandusky in the locker room showers. Two detectives heard Sandusky admit the allegation to the boy's mother but, inexplicably, the case was closed with no action.
In 2000, a janitor saw Sandusky, then retired, in the showers performing oral sex on a young boy. The janitor told a supervisor, "I just witnessed something I'll never forget." But no one reported the abuse to higher-ups or police.
In 2002, a Paterno assistant said he witnessed Sandusky in the showers sexually abusing a boy, who looked to be about 10. Shaken, the assistant reported what he had seen to Paterno, who told athletic director Tim Curley. Gary Schultz, a university vice president, was also notified. Curley said he reported the allegations to University President Graham Spanier. The upshot? Sandusky was told not to use Penn State's athletic facilities with young people.
Apparently, abuse of more boys wasn't their concern, as long as it happened off campus.
Curley and Schultz have been charged with perjury and failure to report the allegations to authorities, as required by state law. They, like Sandusky, have denied the allegations against them.
Paterno, who hasn't been accused of any legal wrongdoing, issued a statement Sunday insisting that the 2002 charge was the only one that came to his attention, and that the grad student didn't tell him specifically what he saw in the shower. Maybe so. But didn't Paterno ask? Didn't he think to follow up after he notified Curley? Wasn't he worried about boys Sandusky was bringing through his locker room?
And why didn't anyone involved particularly Schultz, who knew about at least two allegations leap to the defense of the potential victims? Protecting children is about as basic as moral behavior gets.
Football supposedly builds character, but that doesn't seem to have been the case in Happy Valley. Sandusky's alleged victims have to live with their psychological scars. Those who were in a position to limit the damage have to live with themselves.
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