Some of you will remember the line from baseball days a very long time ago, and Shoeless Joe Jackson and the "Black" Sox scandal, but I had to borrow the phrase for a moment.
ESPN is at it again, as are many other so called sports outlets as they are trying their best to put all of this on Joe Paterno and the Penn State Football program when in fact, if you look at the Freeh report and you pay very close attention, this was a gross administrative f-up of mammoth proportions, but not a football issue. I realize that this will not be a popular statement, and I am not saying that Joe Paterno could not, or should not, have done more as a human being, Joe said that himself, but ESPN continues to conveniently forget that Joe Paterno was not the one in the shower with these boys. Joe was not the 28 year old, 6' - 4", 220 pound graduate assistant that heard something going on in the shower, did nothing, ran home to daddy, and then decided to speak with Coach Paterno more than 24 hours later. Joe was not the one in charge of campus security. He was not at any point in his career a Dean, a Vice President, a President, or a trustee!! And, oh by the way, he was 75 at the time he was told by Mike McQuery whatever he was actually told.
It is hard for me because I am a 48 year old coach and I know that if I was told this I would have gone and found Sandusky and confronted him, to put it nicely, but by the same token, I am not a head D-I football coach in my mid seventies. I am guessing that if I were, and I was in my office preparing for the weekend, and someone told me "he thought he heard something that sounded like," especially more than twenty four hours later, I probably would have picked up the phone and called the President of the University, or the State Police, or the Chief of Police on campus. I do know that at Chico State I got to know the Chief of Campus Police there quite well and he was always my first call regardless of what the issue was, and I know that I have campus security on speed dial here as well.
Let me be clear, I firmly believe that anyone that molests someone, rapes someone, harasses someone, woman, child, whomever, anything other than the rack, tar and feathers, and then maybe stoning, slowly, is too good for them. Just going to jail is far too easy an answer, the death penalty is far too easy an answer. This type of behavior makes me seethe, as I know is does many people, but it is also important that we punish the right person, or people, and that in the rush to judgement and blame, which is very natural, that we don't let organizations like ESPN skew the truth and the reality to the point that 120 student athletes that were in middle school when all of this started don't end up the ones that suffer the most at Penn State.
I believe that the majority of the Board of Trustees should be replaced, for two reasons, one because the Freeh report does suggest quite strongly that a large portion of the board, not just the chairman, knew more about this scandal than most, and two, because their handling of this entire event since ESPN set up shop on campus with three games to go has been anything but professional.
Should Joe have done more, yes. Was he the lead culprit in a "cover-up," if that is what we should call it, no. Was the football staff, other than McQuery and Sandusky, actively involved in this horrible mess, no. Does anyone really believe that any of the players, then or now, knew what Sandusky was up to and let it happen?? I do not know if anyone believes that or not, but I do not. Division I college football players are a bizarre collection of individuals to say the least, and a large percentage of them seem to find ways to make really bad decisions, and act in some pretty awful ways, but I just find it very hard to believe that this was the fault of the players in 1998, and 2002, and I know it was not the fault of the current players, so please Penn State University, fire your whole administration, all of your trustees, interesting that that is what they should be called given this situation, and send Sandusky and the then President, and hopefully Mike McQuery to jail (for criminal negligence, or behavior unbecoming a decent human being), but please don't make this about football, and athletics.
This was about a large number of humans, beginning and ending with Jerry Sandusky, that did not act very human, and did not put the children first. This was the equivalent of a large group of people in the middle of a city watching a man get mugged because they did not want to get involved, except the victims were far more vulnerable, and far less able to defend themselves, and significantly more valuable.
I just wish someone would go back to making this about these victims and their families getting some measure of justice, not just for what was actually done to them, but for what others allowed.
Thank you ESPN for spurring today's sports thought!!
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