Joe Paterno, the legendary Penn State football coach, has died.
I can’t help but wonder if the travesty of the last few months, with his former assistant coach, Jerry Sandusky, being charged with sexually molesting 10 young boys over 15 years, killed him.
I’m not an alumna of Penn State. (I am, however, an alumna of Syracuse University, with its own scandal of an assistant basketball coach allegedly molesting boys.) Still, I hate to see the storied career of Joe Paterno forever blackened by the malevolent behavior of one man, if that proves to be the case.
Some people argue that Paterno had to know what was going on. They argue that Paterno was so concerned about his legacy, the reputation of his football program and Penn State University, that he was willing to turn a blind eye to the behavior of Jerry Sandusky.
I’m not so sure.
Since the scandal broke in November, Joe Paterno has given only one interview, to Sally Jenkins of the Washington Post. The story was published on January 14, 2012. It characterizes Joe Paterno as unable to comprehend what Sandusky may have done, because it was simply too foreign to the way Paterno himself lived his life. Jenkins writes:
He reiterated that McQueary was unclear with him about the nature of what he saw and added that even if McQueary had been more graphic, he’s not sure he would have comprehended it.
“You know, he didn’t want to get specific,” Paterno said. “And to be frank with you I don’t know that it would have done any good, because I never heard of, of, rape and a man. So I just did what I thought was best. I talked to people that I thought would be, if there was a problem, that would be following up on it.”
Is it possible to be that unaware of the existence of evil? Yes, it is, and we all know it.
While I was uninitiated, meaning, before my direct, personal encounter with a social predator, I never in my wildest dreams thought that I would cross paths with evil. I didn’t know that someone who appeared to be so loving and caring could have a hidden agenda. I lived a life of integrity, and I believed that the people who were part of my life were like me.
But, some may argue, sex abuse of children has been in the news for years—look at the stories about the Catholic Church. Well, my cousin was abused by priests. He received financial compensation many years ago—it was probably one of the first cases to be settled. I heard people in my family talking about it. Still, I did not comprehend what he must have experienced.
I didn’t understand the human capacity for manipulation and evil until it happened to me.
So, yes, I can believe that Joe Paterno was clueless. He grew up in a different era, when although the sexual abuse of children probably occurred, it certainly wasn’t talked about. He was inspired by his father. He believed in education. He believed in turning troubled athletes around. His whole life was about winning with integrity.
So for Paterno to realize, at this late stage of his life, that he may have been hoodwinked by someone so close to him must have been a terrible shock. It probably didn’t cause his lung cancer. But it may have sapped Paterno’s strength to fight it.
Read Joe Paterno’s last interview, on WashingtonPost.com.
Sky, thanks so much for posting that article.
Know what really stinks about the whole report? Not one word of concern about what the children went through or harm that would be done to those kids “down the road.”
I hope they put them all in jail.
I hope this one gets splashed across all the national headlines and stays there for weeks on end.
What this shows is how selfish these people were, i.e., “Joe Paterno and Sandusky did good things for the school. So, a few kids got something they didn’t bargain for. We have to keep the good times coming so let’s get Sandusky some therapy and the whole thing will go away.”
Oh, and what a bunch of ball-less wonders these guys are. Couldn’t these brainacs do anything on their own? Couldn’t they figure out that crimes had been committed? Against innocent children?
They had to contact Paterno to see what he thought? Had to?
Couldn’t they figure out the gravity of the situation all by themselves? And they get paid the big bucks?
Puke.
One Joy and Grace,
yeah, they flock all right.
This also explains why they canned Paterno right away. They were pissed off because they knew he had led them down the slippery slope. They needed another scapegoat.
I guess that scapegoat didn’t do well bearing the sins of the community, he was too old and he died. Now they’ll actually have to answer for their behavior.
Maybe they’ll paint him out of that mural, too.
I wonder if any of the others are in it?
Maybe they should just paint over the whole wall?
Vile. Hell is too good for him. He got away with it.
Totally gutted for the victims
This brings me to a possibly stupid question: what will be the fate of Penn State?
How will any parents or prospective students EVER trust that there will be any safety at any college/university or activities hosted by one?
I’ve always been able to accept and understand that colleges and universities are a hotbed of danger, from on-campus rape to bad professors destroying students’ academics. But, this is something that is so heinous that there is no punishment fit for Sanspathsky OR Penn State.
Makes my stomach flip just to think about those poor kids being damaged like that, and feeling that they had NO VOICE or that they somehow DESERVED what had been done to them. Godalmighty……….Sanspathsky doesn’t deserve to breathe the same oxygen as other human beings.
Yea, THANKS for this article SKY, it looks like it may yet BITE THEM IN THE ASS “down the road” and I agree with Truthy, “Sanspathsky doesn’t deserve to breathe the same oxygen as other human beings. ” I also think that Paterno deserves a hot spot in hell and I hope he is having to face God right now from that spot for what he did to those children that Sandusky raped AFTER he knew what he was.
Yes, none of us wanted to believe what we knew and saw ourselves but I don’t think it is the same thing as what Paterno did and those men did in the cover up. I think they were protecting the institution and themselves at the expense of others.
This is just like the Church covering up what the priests did and protecting the priests AND the Church from the consequences of their behavior…
I just read a book about the Japanese rape of Nanking during 6 weeks in the 1930s when they took over China. They killed about 300,000 civilians and raped the women and mutilated them, ahd contests to see who could decapitate 100 civilians the fastest, and the Japanese government to this day has refused to apologize or even acknowledge this holocoust in killing, burying alive, burning alive, using them for bayonet practice, and raping these people over a 6 week period.
A Nazi, and several Americans and British who were there at the time managed to get word out to the world including photographs and film of it happening and it was flashed across the press in the US and the world and the world sat by while it happened….and now ignores this horror like it never happened.
Institutions, be they governments, schools, churches or other groups cover up what they don’t want to admit.
There is a theory that the reason the soldiers and officers engaged in such horrible behavior was the entire culture of the government and the military and how they abused the soldiers visciously, and when people who have no power are abused by those above them, they frequently strike out when given power over others lower on the Totem poles than they are. Psychopathic abuse begets psychopathic abuse in a culture of violence.
Man’s inhumanity to man, and the psychopaths’ desire to engage in such inhumanity to others has not changed and never will as long as psychopaths are placed in positions of power and control without any recourse from the victims.
If fence sitters sit on their fences and do nothing then the psychopaths get by with their violence toward the victims.
Sky said she doesn’t understand why my son C sat by and allowed his brother to knowingly abuse the rest of us….well I understand…it all depends on “whose ox is gored.,” C was not (he thought) abused by his brother personally….and until HIS OX WAS GORED and he realized that his brother was out to get him as well, to have HIM killed as well as me, then he became a “believer” in his brother’s evil intentions.
C had no loyalty to me….and was willing to stand by and see his brother abuse me and his brother D because he wanted above all else to seek his brother’s approval. That’s the short story. It is also why I don’t trust C any more, never will…and have no desire for a relationship with him above working with him to keep his brother in prison. C may not be a psychopath himself, but he is as far as I am concerned just like Paterno, willing to let others, knowingly and willingly, to let others be abused.
OxD, that’s a pretty good explanation of how people get sucked into enabling and engaging in atrocities. Makes sense to me. “If they aren’t doing it to me, then it might not really be happening.”
And, I agree with you – ignoring is enabling, and enabling is just the same as committing the crime.
The female ex-con that is a “close” friend of the exspath used to complain BITTERLY and continuously about her husband’s drinking – often, calling him an alcoholic in front of me (and, others). So, what would she do? She’d go out and purchase everything from hard liquor to a BeerMeister for him. SHE set that man up to fall and fail. What a scumbag predator.
Son D and I were talking the other day about C and though he knows what C has done, yet he still loves him and wishes we could have a relationship with him. He gives C more credit than I do about what he did…the lapses in moral compass, the lack of loyalty….but I am DONE…D*O*N*E* with C. I too love him, where as I feel no love at all for Patrick…not for the man, I still love and miss the little boy, but not the man in the cell, he is a stranger to me. I wish I could have a relationship with C but it is not possible given the fact that he is not loyal to me, apparently never has been,, and “the best predictor of future behavior is PAST BEHAVIOR” AND HIS PAST BEHAVIOR HAS BEEN TOTALLY DISHONEST as far as I am concerned. He sat by while his brother and the Trojan Horse psychopath abused me, or tried to. Nah, can’t let that one side, EVER.
Oxy and truth-Not only do I think that people just hand down the abuse, I think they sometimes abuse, or ignore the abuse, so that they are on the side of the original abuser in an attempt to avoid the “king/queen” abusers abuse.does that make sense? Think about kids who stand behind a bully, why do they do it? So he/she doesn’t bully them.
So sad, and our society teaches us to stay out of it. We are taught to tell some government agencies. While these people may have good intentions, I would imagine it is an overwhelming responsibility and a some point the work just becomes a paycheck. What ever happened to looking out for one another? What ever happened to seeing cruel acts and stepping up? If one person in my life would have stepped up and beat the shiat out of my nh he would have left me alone.
In the case of these men as well as the Catholic church, I see them as taking their roles –their jobs– as leaders and protectors of the institutions, more seriously than their roles as human beings and protectors of other human beings.
This is same mentality that makes CEO’s more responsible to the “bottom line” than they are to relationships. And parents more responsible to their role as bread winner, than they are to their role as nurturers.
Compartmentalizing is what spaths do and our culture is so spathy that we all learn to do it and think it’s a great thing. Yeah, it does make it EASIER, to do our jobs but it doesn’t make our lives more human or the job more fulfilling.
I also see the problem with power vs. responsibility. They assumed more responsibility than they had power. They thought they could “fix” Sandusky and make it better. Nobody can fix a pedophile, it’s not in anyone’s power to cure them. Why did they think they could? Because they were powerful men who were used to making decisions for other people.
It seems to me that the problem of spaths is always about separating power from responsibility. Spaths always leave someone else holding the bag. My spath neighbor witch couldn’t stop saying those words, “We’re going to leave Ed, holding the bag.” “Let’s throw Ed under the bus.” It was a tell. She really meant “Skylar”.