Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Don’t Blame Joe Paterno For Scandal
If you Googled Joe Paterno a mere week ago, your search would have returned pages with titles like "Iconic Coach Breaks Division 1 Wins Record," "Paterno: The Greatest Coach of All-Time," or "Joe Pa: The King of Happy Valley." Now, just a few days later, the only two search returns on the first five pages that don't contain a word similar to rape and scandal are Paterno's PSU.edu profile and his (extremely tainted) Wikipedia page.
Today's media is so quick to jump at the opportunity to deface a hero that embellishment and falsifications began before the board room meetings even closed after the Jerry Sandusky story was leaked. When the news broke of Sandusky (you may not have heard his name yet, but he is the alleged pediatric rapist who happened to have worked for the same university as Joe Paterno) being arrested on 40 counts of criminal charges, the media looked right past the words "sexual assault," "deviate sexual intercourse," and "unlawful contact with a minor" and zeroed in on the words "Joe Paterno's assistant."
Luckily, I have been an avid college football fan since birth and I still think, and will continue to think, of Paterno as an icon and a face of honesty in an NCAA world constantly marred by scandals and cheating. It takes a huge story to make the jump from "SportsCenter" to "Dateline," and in this aspect, I am fearful of the non-sports fan's view of Paterno in the weeks to come.
Everyone in America knows that Tiger Woods is an adulterer, they all "know" Michael Vick killed dogs (even though he only ever funded it ... different story, though), and they all know Barry Bonds used steroids. What the "Dateline Sports Fan" couldn't tell you is that Tiger Woods is right-handed, Michael Vick is a great runner, and Barry Bonds weighed 185 pounds and stole a ton of bases when he was first drafted.
I'm not defending any of these individuals because they were all guilty. Paterno is not.
The Sandusky story is a slum journalist's dream. Joe Paterno is to college football as Abe Lincoln was to civil rights in the 1860s. What kind of low-life, money hungry writer wouldn't want to take out Paterno as a short cut to the top? For this reason, I think it is the job of every level-minded football fan to decipher fact from fiction so that the iconic face of college football doesn't join the ranks of the aforementioned heroes-turned-zeroes after the Sandusky story spills over to the everyday media. Let's start with a timeline:
1950: Joe Paterno hired as Penn State assistant coach
Joe Paterno begin's his (unknown at the time) lifelong and illustrious career as a coach of one of the most prestigious football programs in the country.
1963-1965: Jerry Sandusky plays DE for Penn State
As Paterno establishes himself as a likely future head coach, Jerry Sandusky befriends him and establishes a very strong player/coach relationship with Joe.
1966: Joe Paterno is named PSU head coach; Jerry Sandusky is hired as a graduate assistant
Joe Pa's trust in Sandusky continues to grow as he is a graduate assistant to Paterno in his first year as head coach.
1969: Jerry Sandusky is hired as a full-time coach at Penn State
After a two years at other schools, Sandusky returns to Penn State as a paid coach, where he would remain on Paterno's payroll until his retirement in 1999.
1977: Jerry Sandusky creates "The Second Mile"
Fully established as a resident of State College, Pennsylvania, Jerry Sandusky creates a non-profit organization called the Second Mile. The Second Mile is (as per their website) "a statewide non-profit organization for children who need additional support and who would benefit from positive human contact" (wow, yellow light). Sandusky does a great thing for the community and gains more trust and respect from Paterno.
1999: Jerry Sandusky retires as defensive coordinator from PSU
Penn State notched its only ever bowl game shut-out under Paterno (24-0 over Texas A&M) in the 1999 Alamo Bowl. Sandusky leaves Penn State with his head held high and the trust of the most revered coach in college football.
2001: Jerry Sandusky releases an autobiography
Jerry Sandusky releases his autobiography about his time as a player, coach, and friend of Joe Paterno and Penn State University. The autobiography was titled, "Touched: The Jerry Sandusky Story" (you can't make that up).
Now we can fast forward to the first allegations brought against Sandusky.
After his retirement, Sandusky was allowed to use the football team's facilities, and was often seen showing some of his Second Mile Program children around the locker rooms. One night, Sandusky was with one of these children, a young boy, and was seen "horsing around" (as the graduate assistant referred to it) in the locker room by a PSU football graduate assistant.
As in any profession, there exists a chain of command within the ranks of a college football team. If a senior linebacker puts a stink bomb in the freshman kicker's locker and another freshman sees it, it is his responsibility to tell his teammate of the culprit, but the fear of the linebacker is difficult to overcome. If a quarterback knows his running back friend is using steroids, it is his responsibility to tell the coaching staff, but his friendship is something very difficult to put aside. If a graduate assistant sees a man acting inappropriately with a minor, it is his responsibility to tell a coach, even if this man is a former coach and "the good old boys" mentality is looming. And it is that coach's responsibility to tell the school's administration, even if the former coach and coach are friends.
Paterno did just that. Even after a 30-year friendship and working relationship with Sandusky, Joe Paterno swallowed his pride and did the right thing. He reported the graduate assistant's findings to the school's administration. University responsibility fulfilled. The case progressed and when called to testify, Joe Paterno said the same thing he had said to the school's administration. He told them that a graduate student had seen Sandusky "horsing around" in a locker room shower. Legal responsibility fulfilled.
I can't think of what more Paterno was supposed to say at the time. If I was walking out of my front door and a person told me they had seen a man looking in my neighbor's car, all I could do was convey that information to my neighbor and keep an eye out for similar activity (Penn State forbid Sandusky from bringing any more Second Milers into the facility). If my neighbor's car got broken into three days later, I can't think of anyone who would blame me in any way, as long as I fulfilled my obligation to tell my neighbor what the person had told me about someone snooping around. Paterno is in a very similar, yet much more serious, situation.
The graduate student who reported what he saw to the coaching staff called the actions "horsing around." It wasn't until a few days ago, when other allegations were brought against Sandusky, that the 2002 "horsing around" allegations are being referred to as "sexually deviant acts." If the graduate assistant told Paterno that "sexually deviant acts" were occurring in the locker room at PSU, Paterno would have turned the organization upside down until the culprits were found. Instead, Paterno was told of Sandusky and a boy "horsing around" in the locker room (still a bit weird considering his book title, but not a sexually deviant act) and he reported this to his boss. He later conveyed the same information to a jury while under oath.
In the coming weeks, Joe Paterno's wonderful accomplishment of becoming the winningest coach in Division I football history will be shadowed by the horrible acts of another person. Jerry Sandusky has not been tried yet, and therefore I won't give my opinions on him, but I will say Joe Paterno did absolutely nothing wrong and the only reason anyone thinks he did is because members of the media think they've found their Holy Grail.
I grew up 30 minutes from Happy Valley and I have lived in five states since graduating high school. I wear a Penn State shirt every Saturday during the football year and, no matter how bad PSU's record was, no one anywhere ever gave me any real grief. Penn State is in the highest echelon of prestige and tradition, and Joe Paterno is the reason for it. People who know I am a huge Penn State fan have made fun of me for Ki-jana Carter and Courtney Brown being busts, Larry Johnson getting in trouble, Kerry Collins being ancient, but no one, not even the most diehard Buckeye fans, have ever had a single ill-word to say about Paterno.
The man is a class act, an icon, and a hero of mine and I hope in the coming months everyone will only give blame where blame is due. If Sandusky was guilty of the alleged acts, then burn him at the stake, but don't take one of the few true heroes that the sports world has left with him. No one blames USC for O.J. Simpson, and no one should blame Penn State, especially Joe Paterno, for the actions of Sandusky.