I don't know exactly how or when it all started for me. I can recall spending time at my Grandpa's house and he would have a ballgame on the TV and another one on the radio. This was common during baseball season. Grandpa was also a football fan, but not to the extent that he loved baseball. I guess I'm much the same way.
Somewhere along the way, it became obvious that, in Grandpa's world, there were a few rules when it came to sports. He didn't seem to mind whether or not you followed "his" teams, but you'd better not be a fan of his rivals. When it pertained to college sports, that meant no Ohio State and no Notre Dame. (Aside: there have been very few times in my life where I've ever lost any respect for my father, but when he became a ND fan because his wife is an ND fan, I felt a bit of shame. Grandpa would not approve. C'mon Dad, you married a woman, not a football team.)
Anyhow, whether it was the colors that so closely match those of my beloved Detroit Tigers, or the history and tradition of the uniforms and the ageless head coach, somewhere in my earlier years, I became hooked on Penn State football. I remember the Fiesta Bowl win against a heavily favored Miami team, I remember the days when Penn State was independent. I grew up being proud to sport that Lion's head deep within Ohio State territory. I wore it like a badge of honor.
When the news broke a couple of days ago that former longtime Defensive Coordinator Jerry Sandusky had been indicted on charges that he sexually abused young children, I was shocked. That type of news is always difficult to swallow; it's a subject that makes anyone uncomfortable at best, and downright sick at worst. While I've never met Sandusky, I did almost feel as if I knew him for all those years. Years that I had extolled the virtues of his defenses and told anyone who would listen how great he was. It wasn't ever just Joe Paterno, it was Paterno and Sandusky (and later Tom Bradley) that made Penn State so wonderful on the field.
In reality, however, "on the field" is all any of the fans ever knew, ever saw. Perhaps it was the innocence of my childhood, or maybe just the blindness I chose to have because I was a fan, that lead me to believe that these leaders of men were infallible. Much the same way a son looks up to his father and doesn't see the flaws, we do the same with our sports heroes, right or wrong. In this case, it looks like I was wrong.
I drove into work this morning in a great mood. I had just finished voting and was feeling pretty good about myself; like I had somehow made a difference. Listening to the radio, I was besieged by nothing but stories coming out of State College. This was the first time that I had heard some of the more damning details. Mike McQueary, a former Penn State quarterback now wide receivers coach, apparently witnessed an incident involving Sandusky and a young boy in 2002. McQueary told Paterno, who told the Athletic Director (who has been charged with perjury in in this case) and that was it. But, you know what? I'll get back to that in a moment.
Much of the coverage by the media here has centered on Joe Paterno and, to a lesser extent, Mike McQueary. There seems to almost be more outrage directed at them than at Sandusky. This seems backwards, but I do understand the mentality. It's almost as if we accept that Sandusky is a monster, but we want to vilify the Penn State officials for not doing enough to stop said monster. We aren't blaming Godzilla, we are blaming the Japanese citizens for not being able to kill the monster before he destroyed their city. I think it's important to remember that it was Sandusky, not McQueary or Paterno, who (allegedly) abused those children. It is Sandusky who should bear the brunt of the ire that is reigning down of State College.
I think it's easy to say that if it were me that witnessed this act, that I would have done things differently than McQueary did. Or that if I were Paterno, that I would have followed up with law enforcement or made sure Sandusky was banished from the University (at least). I think that, because so very few of us are put in those positions (thank God), we imagine ourselves doing the heroic thing, the right thing. But none of us were there and none of us knows exactly what happened. I'm doing my best here to maintain as much logic as I can in thinking this through, but it really isn't working.
For as long as I can remember, I have loudly and proudly supported Penn State and Joe Paterno. Never once, no matter how many of the players were arrested in bar fights, no matter how many 3-8 seasons took place in the down years, no matter how loud the cries for Paterno to retire grew, never once did I ever feel anything but pride in "my" Nittany Lions.
All of that changed this morning. Because for as much as we don't know what we would have done if it were we that walked in on Sandusky raping a young child, or what we would have done if it were us that heard that our longtime friend and co-worker was capable of such reprehensible behavior, I know that I assumed that Paterno, and even McQueary
I don't know how much responsibility to heap on the shoulders of the Penn State staff, but I'm not sure it matters all that much. Paterno had avenues he could have taken if the athletic department wanted to cover this up (and it appears they did). He could have removed Sandusky from the program, he could have called the authorities himself, he could have done more than he did. But he didn't. And while Sandusky is the real monster here, it looks as if Paterno didn't do everything he could to protect those kids. And I can't support a program or a coach that would quietly accept what McQueary described to him.
But how much more could Paterno have been reasonably expected to do? Sandusky was an employee of Penn State; he did not work for Paterno, although Paterno would have to have been considered his immediate supervisor. Paterno also works for Penn State and Tim Curley (the AD) was his immediate supervisor. By all accounts, paterno heard the allegations from mcQueary and passed them along to his boss, a man he could have and should have assumed would investigate the claims and take the proper action. It was Curley's negligence, much more than Paterno's, that allowed Sandusky to continue to have access to the University. Ultimately, it was Curley's job to take this information and alert the authorities. That's seems logical and reasonable to me, but it still assumes that Paterno bears no real responsibility here, and I'm just not comfortable thinking that's true.
If we blindly assume that everything we've heard about the situation at Penn State is true, we may have no brain. But if we blindly assume that no one but Sandusky should bear the responsibility, we may have no soul.
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