He begins to tell you a story about witnessing a horrible act, an obscene act. One that would bring shame to your organization. But you hesitate.
Surely your assistant is wrong, surely a guy you've known for years is not doing something so unspeakable to young boys.
So you do what your position requires. You tell your immediate boss. And that boss decides to do nothing.
Nothing.
That's best, right? Why would you want to jeopardize your organization's reputation?
But deep down, you know that's not right.
MAYBE, perhap just maybe you might go along with that. Assuming that the problem would not be allowed to continue.
But it does.
And you do NOTHING to stop it.
Nothing.
Maybe you could justify one instance. Maybe someone has a talk with the bastard who could not only do something so vile, but do it openly, in the showers of the school. Maybe you could talk yourself into believing that it would stop.
But then you could not blind yourself to the other boys that came along. Those that were becoming close to the monster you KNEW would rape them.
If you were a "good man". If you were truly someone to be admired. If you did not believe your almighty football god outweighed the evilness of permitting more rapes of innocent, needy young boys. If you were not even a good man, but at least a decent man, an average man.
What would you do when you realized the second boy?
What would you do when you heard another story, of someone else realizing what was going on?
What would you do when you are discussing the situation in email exchanges with your bosses?
Would you justify that you did only what was required of you? Would you say to yourself in the mirror each morning that you should not report the incident to the cops because it would embarrass your school and ruin the school's reputation?
Would you know all that and still watch another young man's life be ripped apart and you did NOTHING?
For THIRTEEN YEARS???
Were those 111 wins THAT important to you Joe? That you would not just sell out your own soul, but you offered up to the football god you loved so much innocent children who only needed help?
I might believe Paterno was a decent man, not a good man, but at least a normal human being IF he had said with the second boy, ENOUGH. But he didn't.
And neither did the administration. Or the assistants. Or the janitors.
NO ONE said anything.
What kind of evilness/vanity/ego must you possess to sell off more young boys to be raped in honor of the football god?
May the Good Lord have more mercy on your seemingly untortured soul, Joe. He would have to be more forgiving than I could ever be.
Please, for all you college football fans, do NOT tell me how unfair it to the school or the kids that were in those winning games. They still got the "glory" of winning. They still have their championship rings. They just lost their "hero". Who was never a hero at all. He was a man who cared more about his reputation than preserving the innocence of a young boy.
I can sympathize with their loss when they realize their idolized coach was only driven by ego, but I cannot understand how they could be more upset over having their wins recorded as losses over what they must realize was the sacrificed young boys to the ultimate football god.
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I love you like my sister, Rita.
Which means we never talk.
But we had this conversation tonight at home, and I believe those kids are getting, no, wrong word, cheated.
They worked for those wins.
They were not culpable.
I don't care that much, but they didn't cheat to win, or hide a secret.
But the other sanctions should stand.
It is a sad fact for all the kids who played the game, but the school had to be hit hard for the sins of a few. Money, prestige and fame is what it's all about, and hitting them there is all that will wake them up. And I also believe the administration should be held accountable with jail time, too. They aided and abated in the crimes.
We're allowed to disagree now and then Ed. But what was allowed to happen over and over is so unspeakable that the school, the community, college sports needed more than a slap on the wrist. So everyone got slapped, hard. And that doesn't change those boys lives back to before they were raped.
I'm betting there will be other charges Coffey, but from what I understand, the "legal" duty was only to report it to your boss. I just still cannot fathom how all those men that knew and no one stopped him. And I bet not one of them ever allowed THEIR own sons to be around him.
What if that assitant's disturbing news was the SECOND accusation, echoeing reports from a few years earlier? Yes, Sandusky was accused a few years before and no one believed it. Prosecutors dropped the charges.
I am with Ed, the kids playing had nothing to do with it, had no way of knowing what was going on and covered up. You cannot even make the argument they were morally culpable.
Punishing the players at Penn State for something that happened while they were in elementary school is akin to firing Admiral Thomas Moorer as Joint Chief of Staff, stripping him of rank, and drumming him out of the Navy for Watergate and Nixon's cover up.
I respect the current administration of Penn State that they decided to agree with the sanctions. I hope they use this opportunity to help their students learn that football isn't more important than decent human behavior.
The rioting the kids did after Paterno's firing should tell us that they believed that someone who assisted in allowing more children to be raped by remaining silent is worth rioting over. They should have been more shocked to learn their coach kept silent about the massive amount of evil. Instead, they defended him.
Tells me that those kids needed to have a rude awakening and the school now needs to be teaching them the reality of allowing such behavior for years all to protect their "good name" was horrible.
This could give them a good lesson when even the new coach is willing to stay and work through the adversity of a situation he was not involved in.
So if the punishment is too harsh, what should have been nothing?
Surely you guys don't believe nothing should have been done?
I figured out that Paterno knew something when he said so many years ago that Sandusky would never inherit his position and Sandusky abruptly retired from coaching. Does this look to any one else like he was distancing himself?
And the only way to keep this from ever happening again is to make the consequences so harsh, so draconian as to make any college president think twice before taking or failing to take any action that may destroy their program.
And to my friends Ed and Joe.
My point to this is NOT about the punishment.
It's about imagining BEING Joe Paterno. This was someone many thought to be some type of hero.
So, do you think he was first "seduced" to think he was just ignoring it ONCE? Or was he so self-absorbed that he was happy to continue to keep it covered it up?
Can you even IMAGINE going in to work everyday and knowing something this horrible was continuing under your watch and you day after day did NOTHING to stop it?
I would think that by the end of all those years you would become so infected with all that evilness that you are no longer even a decent man.
Dave, I didn't know all that background information.
I suppose things like this is exactly how the holocaust happened. Ordinary people looking the other way out of fear of losing their positions, their status, of it happening to them.
It's unimaginable to me.
The list keeps growing of how many people at least suspected something was wrong and never stopped it.
So, again, it's imagining what you would do.
We are all only human. We make a variety of choices everyday. Do we allow ourselves to become part of the evil by making one choice?
Paterno was HORRID...Sandusky, beyond horrid. My heart breaks for the victims.
And I feel that the Penn State kids whose parents spent a lot of money for them to go to that school, and who studied hard to get in and, some, to play football are being unfairly targeted.
THEY DID NOTHING. Rita, honestly, it hurts me that those kids are now going to school that's had such a big chunk of the fun and pride taken out of its soul.
Is it their fault?
I think something huge had to be done to make sure others would NEVER do this again, but to hurt students of today isn't right.
I personally hope they can place the footballers who dreamt their whole lives of playing college ball with other good teams.........etc etc. This hurts me.
Two SCUMBAGS ruined it for so many.
real scum
I totally agree with you. And the students who have had their wins taken away are further victims, and I am sorry for that. But the victims of molestation and rape never had a 'win' to begin with...
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