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.
This is a tragedy. And, the word, “tragedy comes from the Greek, meaning, goat”s song.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragic_hero
Silvermoon, I understand your feeling that this is not always a safe and healthy place. I, too, sometimes feel that I need to keep a distance. There is so much anger, here….and yes, I understand the anger. But, I think, at some point, I want to have some peace.
http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=8161329
kim frederick
What role did Joe play we’ll never know for sure. Was he a good guy or a bad guy when he started out? Again we’ll never know. But the ending was bad. Wouldn’t be surprised to find out that he took his on life because he knew what was going to come out. The timing was convenient. So yeah I agree with you on this.
Life is not about learning to survive the storm, but rather learning how to dance in the rain.
“Silvermoon, I understand your feeling that this is not always a safe and healthy place. I, too, sometimes feel that I need to keep a distance. There is so much anger, here”.and yes, I understand the anger. But, I think, at some point, I want to have some peace.”
What you wrote here is fantastic. The beginning of the end. Anger has it place but it can eat us alive, if we let it. So keep going and get the best revenge there is. Be at peace. Be happy. Love, laugh. Go dance in the rain.
I’m speechless.
I’m in the Paterno is a spath camp.
Yes, we ARE judgemental… we have every right to judge people on their behaviour, exactly because we’ve all learned the hard way, exactly because before for years we judged nobody and always gave more weight to the good behaviour than the bad.
I understand the shock, the clinging to the good memories of those who loved and worshipped Paterno, because we’ve ALL been there with our spaths.
That you claim to have a deeper understanding of disappointment and betrayal, Silvermoon, is a slap in the face of every spath victim, and there is certainly no reason to ‘feel a better human’ over skylar and G1S.
The results of the investigation report together with the exit strategy by Paterno and the money he got out of it nullifies any good he might ever have done, and it nullifies his ‘donations’… Just the 5.5 million $ to quit that he negotiated is 1.5 million $ more than he donated, and he managed to negotiate with foreknowledge, making sure that those who wouldn’t agree to it if they knew what was about to become public knowledge wouldn’t know about it. And he NEVER showed a morself of regret over it, instead kept up lying about it to save his mask. Those are the harsh facts.
ANYONE who truly has a heart and is truly good inside and has values would not have so actively protected Sandunsky for so many years, or not try to do a thing about it, would not lie and deceive about his own responsibility when it became public knowledge, and wouldn’t have scraped the bottom of the barrel out of the retirement negotiations.
In the end Paterno was a sick boy. Was it that he was old and weak and Sandusky was able to play him or was it he was just as bad. Don’t know. Doesn’t matter. When he covered up he became just as bad as Sandusky. Any one else there that had a hand in it. Should be publicly tared and feathered for a start.
This was some sick stuff.
Slap in the face?
Sorry ladies, the spathification of Joe Paterno by the press and people here is a slap in the face to every respectable PSU graduate and I and all of them have the right, in fact the responsibility to call WHOA.
First, you need to follow the facts. And the facts are that Paterno did follow the correct steps, did stay open to investigation from the outside and did speak to the regret that he wished he’d done more.
I do have a deeper understanding because I was there and you weren’t. How could you say to me that you get more than I do about PSU? Excuse me?
Furthermore, the point of discussion was whether Joe was pathalogical because he wrote a letter about Penn State Pride and the value he did hold and did inspire in so many people: Victory with Honor. He acted that belief. And it touched a lot of people positively.
I’ve never yet and never will excuse what happened. It was wrong. But just because I’m not going to agree to burn Joe Paterno on the Lovefraud stake doesn’t make me heartless or pathalogical or sick in any way.
If you read the facts and not the editorial, it comes clear that the situation was handled badly at multiple levels and without the kind of urgency it required.
Shultz and McCreary are going to be tried. I am surprised there aren’t charges against Spanier too. I suspect Joe would have been tried had he lived.
And all of the reports and charges would have come AFTER the whole story was out. The Freeh Report is an opinion. A damning one, but not a legal one.
I’m not buying the vilification of Paterno. I’m not alone. And I was a lot closer to the man and the good that he did inspire than any of you.
As a spath victim myself (and I’m not going to play my spath was meaner than yours here), I’m offended again that if if the cry comes up on this site that there’s a spath, then there is a rush to jump on it.
Its like somebody in the cornfield yells snake and everyone else rushes over to look at the snake. I’ve seen it over and over.
What I am calling out is that. If I don’t agree with the herd here, then the herd has the right to YELL and accuse me of being dysfunction and tell me that its sorry I’m sick?
Cut me a break!
There are investigations and trials yet to come in the PSU case. We know that the one guy who absolutely needed to be removed from society has been and we have seen everyone who was in a position to make poor decisions has been let go from the University.
I’m not buying that Joe Paterno was a psychowack who protected and empowered Sandusky to molest kids on purpose. And I think that there is a pretty large community of folks that feel the same way in the world.
To not buy that Paterno should be vilified the way he has been in the press and in particular by liberal editorialists who want to tear at the fabric of the entire University because of it isn’t an affront to Spath or sexual molestation victims.
Its an outcry against mob mentality.
The mob mentality that finds a spath behind every bush, that vents its anger about the “My Spath” by blaming anyone who won’t go along with it.
To get over the experience, you have to regain balance. And as long as we’re not talking about Joe Paterno, but we’re really talking about every personal experience, we’re not talking about Joe Paterno.
And as everyone has here, you’re going to say that I am heartless, dysfunctional and arrogant because I said I don’t think Joe Pa was what you’re calling him and I was there. Does that put you in the position of being able to tell me that because you know more about your experience with a spath or an abuser that my understanding of who Paterno was or what he did at PSU is incorrect?
No, it does give you the authority to speak to me and say that based on your experience, there might be more to the story. I read that concern. I don’t think Paterno was evil. In fact, I think he was a pretty simple guy. A good football coach and family man from a practically backward part of the country.
Why is it ok for you to invalidate me? I’ve watched this occur over and over on LF. And I think its scary. Sometimes the rush to yell spath is provoked by less than facts and a lot of not first hand knowledge.
Its a witch hunt. And the mob follows the one who yells spath the loudest. More than once, I’ve seen the accusations and insistances. Regardless of how the news turns out with Joe Pa, take a look and see this behavior here.
Because the day could happen here that some very bad harm is done from it.
I’m not a better human and I’ve never claimed to be. Where that kind of personal attack comes from I don’t know, but I know this: I won’t change my thinking about Paterno being a nutjob because you insulted me. I’ll wait for the facts. And the jury on Paterno is still out. Its going to be a while.
How deeply considered the accusations of pathology are in this community is of concern to me. And the attempts to convince people that either Joe Paterno or their son or daughter, husband or wife is one is terrifying from the perspective of what if you’re wrong?
Sometimes, perhaps you might be. So, how do people here communicate what they know and have learned in such a way that the facts are clear and their opinions are separated so that anyone who comes here might learn, reach their own conclusions and benefit without being bullied?
There isn’t need to accuse of scream at me. And if you do it to more vulnerable people, you might cause some real harm to people you don’t know. It may already have happened.
You’re reacting to me as though I was invalidating your experiences as victims of the disordered. That isn’t true.
I’m calling whoa to something that happens over and over and that is that folks here are way certain there is a snake in the cornfield because they are highly emotionally triggered and still in a state of owning a spath to the point that no opinion, no question and no comment doesn’t strike the cord.
And everybody’s off and running.
It isn’t an experience I’m going to seek and I bet there are others who are warded off too.
Being railroaded and yelled at pisses me off. I don’t like it and I don’t like to see it happen to other people.
After all the good LF did for me, I am discouraged to see this behavior and it is something that has changed here over time.
Like the Paterno story, a bad chapter doesn’t change a whole lifetime completely but it does raise a lot of serious questions about what is going on. And the aftermath is change.
So, I hope now, that you’ll look at the whole thing here in a way that results in a little gentler and more cautious outcry of SPATH! because there is a rush to judge and at least in my opinion, judgement is something that should be reserved for a careful review of the facts.
I hope you’ll knock off being the kind of insistent that offends first someone else’s experience and second reasonable doubts based on that judgement.
The comments about Joe Paterno have been as strong as have been made in other cases where someone’s story raises the same question. And I didn’t use the word vicious lightly.
This has been on my mind for a long time about Love Fraud and having had that same experience I walked away from a few times, I don’t think I’ll look for it again.
But, I will in parting, speak my mind and you can do with my thoughts what you will.
Vio con Dios,
silvermoon
Hate to see you go and I do know what your talking about.
No one has the right to be yelling at anyone.
Agree or disagree respect should be given. It’s called respecting the others boundaries. I want my boundaries respected so it goes I need to respect others peoples boundaries. It’s basic common courtesy. But the sad thing about this world is that there are many who don’t get this.
Take care
Yeah, and while everyone is out in the cornfeild looking at the snake, the psychopaths are still wreaking havoc in our lives, but we are too distracted to really take a look at what they’ve done to us personally. We can be absolutely outraged at the snake, but not deal with our own wreckage at all.
One of the articles I read said something like this,”it’s easier to focus on bronze than to look into the soul of a scandal.