They call it Happy Valley, a nickname for State College, Pa., the little college town where long-time football coach Joe Paterno is revered by the hundreds of thousands of students that have passed through Penn State University. But a dark cloud has developed over the town in the form of a child abuse scandal surrounding former coach Jerry Sandusky.
By now, you’ve heard the story repeated over and over again for the last few days. You know that this past Friday, Sandusky, the defensive coordinator once thought to be Paterno’s heir apparent, was indicted on 40 counts of sexually assaulting eight young boys, now nine as another victim stepped forward on Sunday.
Sandusky had access to the children through his organization, the Second Mile Foundation, started in 1977 in order to help guide at-risk youth to make the right decisions. In 2002, a graduate assistant, reportedly current Penn State assistant coach Mike McQueary, told Paterno that he saw Sandusky assaulting a 10-year-old boy in the locker room showers.
As the story goes, Paterno reported what he was told to athletic director Tim Curley and Vice President of Finance Gary Schultz. Approximately one and a half weeks later, Curley and Schultz called McQueary in for meeting and then told university president Graham Spanier of the “inappropriate contact.”
And then it disappeared. No police contacted. No investigation into the allegations. No attempt to track down and speak with the victim. It seems as though friendship trumped the need to stop child abuse from continuing to occur. Spanier’s only reaction was to ban Sandusky from bringing children on campus, a ban that was never actually enforced.
Despite retiring in 1999, Sandusky continued to hold an office on campus and use Penn State facilities for the Second Mile Foundation, seen working out on campus as late as last week despite university knowledge of the investigation for over a year. Joe Paterno, Graham Spanier, Tim Curley, Gary Schultz, and Mike McQueary were all aware of an incident in which a young boy was assaulted and they turned a blind eye when faced with turning in a friend.
This lack of action by men that supposedly represented an ideology of “leading with integrity” is morally reprehensible and they need to be held accountable for allowing abuse to continue for seven more years. Curley and Schultz have both been charged with perjury and failure to report a crime, but what of Paterno and Spanier?
Sure, they met the bare minimum legal burden required of them, but could you have slept every night knowing that a man that you were told assaulted a young boy was never brought to justice? That he was continuing to bring young boys to school facilities?
Sandusky was once Paterno’s right-hand man and sustained close ties with the university long after his retirement. A relationship with a former coach came before the safety and wellbeing of children. Did anybody in the Penn State administration for one second think about the supposed victim?
Perhaps if the police were called after the 2002 incident, Paterno, Spanier, Curley, and everyone else involved would have been branded heroes, responsible for bringing to light the actions of a sick individual.
Instead, they are a part of what reeks of a massive cover-up that could bring down the university’s president, athletic director, and a legendary football coach. There is a big difference between doing nothing wrong, and doing nothing at all. Five men had a chance to say something and prevent something truly appalling, and they all chose silence.
They chose to take the easy way out, and turn a blind eye, and for that Tim Curley and Gary Schultz are facing the consequences. Graham Spanier and Joe Paterno did nothing wrong legally, but they fell far short of meeting their moral obligations as human beings. And they have tarnished the reputation of an upstanding academic institution.
It lies in the hands of the school’s board of trustees to separate Penn State University from this scandal. Whether than means respectfully asking Spanier and Paterno to step down, or launching a full investigation to come up with grounds to fire both, there is no doubt that the pair, along with Mike McQueary, need to follow Curley and Schultz out the door.
It is both unfortunate and regrettable that the illustrious career of coaching legend Joe Paterno will end in this light. After setting the bar in terms of moral standards and humanitarianism among coaches for years, he will be remembered as part of a cover-up that allowed his friend, Jerry Sandusky, to walk free and continue preying on minors.
Thought it will be hard for fans to accept, this has to the last chapter of the seemingly never-ending Joe Paterno era. Instead of being remembered for his Division-1 record 409 wins and most all-time 24 bowl victories, Paterno’s legacy will forever bear the scars of a scandal that shocked the ostensibly perfect State College, Pa.
