I am on record as not a fan of pressbox coaching and calling for Joe Paterno to step down. He’s fired and dead now, but neither brings any joy. The Freeh report basically says that the worst possible facts are the ones that are true. Penn State knew. Joe knew. They protected the program. They covered for the criminal. They avoided disclosure, and put the fear of Joe into the potential whistleblowers.
Freeh Report: Joe Paterno, Penn State ‘Failed To Protect’ Children – SBNation.com.
Basically, nobody did what they should have done to stop Sandusky from abusing children and to ensure justice was delivered. Former head coach Joe Paterno, former president Graham Spanier, former athletic director Tim Curley and and former vice president Gary Schultz are all named repeatedly and damningly, as “four of the most powerful people at Pennsylvania State University” who “failed to protect against a child sexual predator harming children for over a decade.”
According to Freeh, Paterno and the others knew about the 1998 investigation into Sandusky, and didn’t do anything even when told by Mike McQueary in 2001 that Sandusky had struck again.
Leave the statue up. Not to honor the man, but so that Penn Staters never forget their idol’s colossal failures as a human, and their own institutional arrogance in bestowing honors on a gym coach that are ordinarily reserved for soldiers or other heros who’ve left us. This is Penn State’s Michael Jackson tattoo, its 12 year old son named Favre Vick Bonds. You’re stuck with it now. Use it to brings some good out of this.
