Those Who Blame Joe Paterno are More Than a Little Misguided

It appears as if I jumped to some incorrect conclusions in my last post regarding the issues at Penn State. It that post, I basically stated that Joe Paterno didn't do when he needed to do because he didn't alert the authorities. It turns out, I was wrong.

Upon hearing whatever it was that he heard from Mike McQuery, JoePa contacted not only the Athletic Director, Tim Curley, but also the University Vice President, Gary Shultz. Why is this significant? Because Shultz was the "overseer" of the University police Department; in effect, Shultz was the Chief of Police at Penn State. So, no, Paterno didn't pick up the phone and call some desk clerk at State College PD, he called the man in charge of the Campus Police (and anyone who has spent 50 years on a campus anywhere would have called campus police and not the city cops).

I've done my best to try to remain as objective as possible here. Obviously, the magnitude of the situation involving the (alleged) sexual abuse of minors by former Penn State coach Jerry Sandusky is one that brings about great emotion. But the bloodlust of the national media and seemingly anyone with a twitter account has gone well past too far. Paterno is the one being burned for these crimes; though he's not the one who committed them. If I can find objectivity, I can see how, if I were in Paterno's shoes, I may have reacted the exact same way he did. He's known Sandusky for 30+ years when McQueary came to him. There are people who say "how could Paterno not have known?" as if child molesters divulge this information to their friends. Guess what? They don't. For all any of us know, our best friend might be doing the same thing Sandusky was doing and we would never know it. It's not something that is advertised.

They say that Paterno, upon hearing the news, should have followed up when nothing was done about Sandusky. But if it were your friend, a person you've known and trusted for 30 years or more, that you heard was involved in this (and we still don't know how many, if any, details Paterno was given), wouldn't the natural reaction be one of disbelief? "Surely," you'd think to yourself, "this can't be true. Not this guy. That doesn't sound like the man I know." But doing what he should have done, Paterno did report what he had heard not only to his immediate supervisor, but also to the defacto chief of police. I can only assume (as we all can on this) that he was told they would look into it.

But, nevertheless, the Board of Trustees decided yesterday that Paterno had already coached his last game, ending a 62 year career that was filled with nothing but dignity, honor, and goodwill. They also fired the University president, Graham Spanier. Meanwhile, Curley and Shultz, both facing charges in this case, have been placed on leave from the University. McQueary, the only man (apart from Sandusky) that actually knows anything for certain, as he is the only one who saw what was happening, has not been fired. McQueary didn't intervene with Sandusky when there was an alleged rape in progress, he didn't call the police, he simply phoned his father and waited until the next day to inform Paterno of the situation.

If Paterno was fired for failing to do enough to protect the children that Sandusky (allegedly) abused, and he actually did inform the police, why then does McQueary still have a job? Paterno didn't abuse the children, he didn't witness the abuse, he didn't call a relative and gossip about it. All he did do was what he should have done, what, I think, most of us in his same position would have done.

McQueary walked in on a 10-year-old boy being raped by a hulking 55-year-old man. He didn't stop the assault, he didn't yell or scream for help, he didn't call the cops in his horror of seeing what had taken place. Instead, he waited until the next day and went to his boss about it. Of all the people who had the chance to end Sandusky's reign of terror over these young boys, McQueary was the one who could have made an immediate and lasting impact. The Grand Jury report states that the victim and Sandusky both saw McQueary when he entered those showers. Can you imagine how much more magnified that child's horror would have been when he saw McQueary turn and walk away instead of helping him out of that situation?

How is McQueary punished for literally turning his back on this assault, on this young man? "His status is unchanged", says the Board of Trustees. McQueary has kept his job.

You can place the blame a lot of places in this Penn State debacle, but if you want a hierarchy, it had better start with Sandusky, and the next name on your list had better be McQueary. Joe Paterno's name might also be on the list, but given all the actual factors, it should appear at or near the bottom.