Until the hierarchy is scrubbed clean—Spanier going first, then Paterno and assistant coach Mike McQueary, all of them following Tim Curley and Gary Schultz, the athletic director and vice president for finance and business who have each been charged with perjury—what parent would send their child to play sports at Penn State, knowing administrators and the sainted football coach for years pretended they didn’t notice pedophilia in their midst, Lisa Olson writes.
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AP PhotoAfter Joe Paterno's press conference was canceled Tuesday, fans flocked to his house to show support.They’ll still stream into Happy Valley this Saturday, some 100,000 strong squeezing inside Beaver Stadium to scream and stomp as the Nittany Lions of Penn State take on Nebraska in a critical conference clash that could go a long way in deciding the first-ever Big Ten Championship. This much won’t change.
But beyond that small matter, the difference between now and mere days ago in bucolic central Pa., is so cataclysmic, so horrifically incomprehensible, it’s as if a comet fell from the sky and left giant craters in its wake.
Until a week ago, it had been a mighty fine autumn for the Penn State football team. With an unblemished 5-0 record in their division, the Nittany Lions are still the only unbeaten team in the Big Ten; they’re still riding a seven-game winning streak and are a strong 8-1 overall. Saturday is also Senior Day, and so 20 players will still be introduced in a pre-game ceremony that on any other weekend in any other decade would be the shining focal point of a community that has always prided itself on hovering above the slimy underbelly of college sports.
Imagine being in the cleats of those 20 seniors. A lifetime from now, what will they tell their grandchildren about the 2011 season? Will their narrative begin with the abrupt departure of Joe Paterno, the most beloved coach in the history of college football who recruited them, who promised their families they’d be taught to do things right and learn what it means to be productive citizens and good men?
In his usual Tuesday press conference, Paterno was meant to take questions about the Nebraska game—that tiny, inconsequential topic in comparison to all else—but the session was abruptly canceled by Penn State president Graham Spanier, who finally emerged from the cave in which he has been hiding. Shortly afterwards, media reports began circulating that Paterno, in his 46th season as head coach, would soon be dismissed by the board of trustees.
Will the narrative that is eventually told explain how an omerta overtook a top-flight university, causing otherwise intelligent men to stage a diabolical cover up, all for a football program?
The current players have been unfairly tossed into the vortex of this heinous scandal involving alleged sexual acts committed against young boys by Jerry Sandusky, the once legendary former defensive coordinator, and the ensuing inhuman and immoral response by a line of Penn State officials, including Spanier and Paterno, guru of the moral high ground.
The current players are also said to be furious over the swirling storm. Can you blame them? Turns out the sports program most everyone lauded for its squeaky clean image apparently sacrificed the welfare, well-being and souls of children so it could maintain a false charade that yearly brought in millions.
“This is a case about children that have had their innocence stolen and a culture that did nothing to stop it or prevent it from happening to others," said Commissioner of Pennsylvania State Police Frank Noonan, and his words should forever haunt anyone whose skewed priorities swept aside the safety of those kids.
Until the hierarchy is scrubbed clean—Spanier going first, then Paterno and assistant coach Mike McQueary, all of them following Tim Curley and Gary Schultz, the athletic director and vice president for finance and business who have each been charged with perjury—what parent would send their child to play sports at Penn State, knowing administrators and the sainted football coach for years pretended they didn’t notice pedophilia in their midst?
This is all alleged, of course. It could all be a terrible mistake, like the Duke lacrosse case in which false accusations of rape were made against three members of the 2006 team. That was a shameful moment for both the media and the legal community, as some in the press ran with whispers and rumors and the lead prosecutor was eventually convicted of criminal contempt for knowingly making false statements during the proceedings.
So sure, the grand jury that for nearly three years exhaustively investigated Sandusky and subsequently charged him with 40 counts of felony sex abuse against minors could be wrong. The 23 pages of the report that describes in grotesque detail how Sandusky lured his victims into a web fortified by both the charity he founded to help at-risk kids and the Penn State athletic department that gave this predator shelter and access to places where he could assault those kids? That report could be flawed, rubbish even.
Those eight boys who reluctantly and bravely came forward to recount the crimes, and the other victims who might still emerge? The janitor who in 2000 claimed to have witnessed Sandusky performing a sex act on a boy he had pinned against the shower wall at the PSU football complex but feared losing his job if he reported it? The mother who notified university police Sandusky had sexual contact with her son on campus grounds, an accusation investigated but then closed?
Sure, there’s a possibility that all these individuals who hail from diverse corners got together and conspired to come up with a narrative so repulsive, it defies logic.
McQueary, the current wide receivers coach and recruiting coordinator whose grand jury testimony led to the indictment of Sandusky, is the wild card here. A graduate student in 2002, McQueary testified to witnessing a naked Sandusky pinning a 10-year-old boy to the wall and having sex with him in the football building’s showers. A brutal rape, in other words.
Imagine being in McQueary’s cleats.
McQueary, a former Penn State quarterback, did not pull that child out of Sandusky’s clutches. He did not call 911. He did not run directly to the hordes of police who buzz around the athletic program, keeping it safe from harm. He merely left the building. Only the next day, after consulting with his father, did McQueary contact Paterno about the incident.
Is a man who admits to witnessing a child being raped but does nothing to stop it suitable for coaching and serving as a role model to other young men? What sort of perverse culture is this where that’s even a question?
McQueary was described as being distraught and near hysterics, his full conversation with Paterno unclear. How much of the revolting details did he share with the coach for whom he once played? McQueary was an offensive co-captain in 1997, proudly taking part in Senior Day and trained by JoePa himself to do the proper and just thing. Will the narrative include McQueary being rewarded for his silence? He’s now also the national recruiter for the Nittany Lions, a highly coveted gig in football’s universe.
There’s a possibility McQueary didn’t reveal everything he saw to Paterno, but at the very least the coach was told Sandusky fondled a boy in the Lasch Building showers. Either Paterno lied to the grand jury about what McQueary told him, or he didn’t bother pressing McQueary for the gory bits about whatever illegal and reprehensible activity had happened to a naked child on campus.
Any responsible citizen would still have placed a call to Children and Youth Services, even anonymously. State law requires educators to inform “appropriate authorities.” Most reasonable people would believe that to mean the cops or a state agency, and certainly a person higher than one’s boss. All Paterno did was contact Curley, the man who’s technically his immediate supervisor.
It’s a fallacy to even call Curley Paterno’s “boss,” no matter how the sycophants try to spin it. Curley is the athletic director who also once played for JoePa—see a pattern in this narrative?—and couldn’t even coax Paterno, now 84, into retiring a few years ago. Like McQueary, neither Paterno nor Curley dropped a dime on Sandusky. They must have been too busy prepping young men for football and the world after it, for that sacred duty does require an astounding amount of time.
(A brief aside: Did Sandusky’s wife Dottie also not worry something was amiss? She and Jerry have six kids, all adopted. Several of Sandusky's alleged victims described staying overnight in the Sandusky family's “basement room” on numerous occasions, the bedtime rituals including Sandusky crawling into bed with his young guest. Victim No. 4 said he accompanied Sandusky to bowl games and charity golf outings, where the two would share accommodations. This victim also said Sandusky promised him he could be a walk-on Penn State football player. Victim No. 7 testified that Dottie called him right before he met with the grand jury.)
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Penn State football coach Joe Paterno speaks briefly to reporters as he leaves for football practice, Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2011, in State College, Pa. Paterno said he wanted to speak about child sex-abuse allegations against a former assistant but could not at this time. (AP Photo/The Citizens' Voice, Michael R. Sisak) Through it all, Sandusky, Paterno’s longtime pal and former coordinator, was allowed to retain his office and other amenities he received as part of his 1999 retirement package. But Sandusky was banned from bringing any kids from his Second Mile charity into the football facility, so Paterno and Spanier could at least high-five each other for sharing space on their strict moral compass.
Surely this could have been one of the questions posed to Paterno, if he had been allowed to go through with his Tuesday press conference: How is it that years after the ban, Sandusky was still seen in the company of kids at closed practices, and was spotted on campus as recently as a week ago?
Another: How is it that you are the same coach who was so upset when several of your players were involved in an off-campus fight, you punished the entire team by making them all be part of the cleanup crew at Beaver Stadium following every home game in 2007, yet now you hide behind mumbo jumbo about meeting your bare minimum legal obligation? What happened to the austere educator you claim to be?
Another: How do you sleep at night? A grand jury wasn’t impaneled until 2009, after one of the boys told authorities at his high school of Sandusky’s alleged crimes, and those authorities went to the police—the only, ONLY response any educator could possibly have. What do you say, coach, to victims who might have fallen prey to Sandusky after you fulfilled your legal requirement and then spent years looking away?
Massive lawsuits are expected if it’s proven that facilities at a state school were used to commit these atrocious crimes, the incidents allegedly occurring before and after Sandusky’s ’99 retirement. From a civil, legal standpoint, any firings could be construed as an admission of guilt, so the Penn State trustees furiously wipe their brows. Meanwhile, Spanier, the university president, has offered “unconditional support” for his underlings charged with lying to the grand jury, and PSU is still reportedly paying their legal fees.
The good people of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania must be overjoyed their tax money is being funneled so properly.
They’ll still flock to Beaver Stadium on Saturday, for this is a big conference game against Nebraska and there are 20 seniors who deserve to be honored. The Big Ten Championship looms, then possibly a coveted bowl game. Yes, through nine scintillating weeks, this had been a fine season indeed.
McQueary is still expected to be on the sidelines Saturday, for his work with the wideouts is viewed as vital to this winning season. As of now, the most popular coach in the history of college football still has his job, for he has stacked such vast goodness and success across six decades of coaching and educating.
Why, there was even a heart-warming pep rally outside Paterno’s house Tuesday night, Penn State students and bands of locals converging to wave supportive banners and hold aloft candles. They sang the lyrics to their alma mater, screeching when they reached the line “May no act of ours bring shame.”
JoePa himself emerged, waved and addressed the crowd, saying, "“I’ve lived for this place. I’ve lived for people like you guys and girls. It’s hard for me to say how much this means."
This, too, is part of the narrative, the masses crying for Joe Paterno, this great moral man.
-- Lisa Olson
AOL FanHouse Columnist
