Penn State- YICK

I stand on the outside of this for the most part because everything about this pisses me off. I am one of the few that finds the blame heaped on Joe Paterno as unwarranted and unfair. I will throw about some arguments that you may or may not agree with, but I feel without question his departure was unceremonious and unfair. Before I argue for him he spent 46 years at that University making it something. He donated over $5 million dollars in the last 10 years to build a library and hospital. I really think Paterno has done more for Penn State than any other man has done for any other University in history. On to the uncomfortable stuff.

Paterno is a head football coach and at the time in question he was 70-something years old. A graduate assistant says, with NO conviction or specific graphic language, that your colleague and probably close friend of over 30 years was doing something in the shower with a boy. Paterno goes to his A.D. & the campus police with the knowledge, which underwent two investigations that NEVER became a case tragically, and when nothing becomes of it that's the end for him. He's not a detective, crusader, or anything besides a 70 year old football coach. McQuery deserves the most ire for his failure to better portray what he saw into something meaningful. He's the witness, the person who actually saw a sexually perverse act, but somehow failed to convince anyone of it's seriousness. His wholesale failure is the issue. The scorched earth policy of condemning other people is a bullshit cop-out by the University to distance themselves from something they completely failed to deal with. Universities will try to handle things are their own instead of jumping to the police, my sister explained that to me about the situation following her three years stint as a Hall Director & her husbands experience with campus security. Paterno went up the chain of command, passed his limited knowledge to those in power to do their jobs. Paterno is the biggest name, so he gets the biggest blame.

A group of trustees and gutless assholes decided to use this to finally get him out the door. They wanted him out in 2004 but Paterno refused to resign. His life is so intertwined to Penn State I feel like he can't live without it. He's given more years of his life to Penn State than anyone reading this has lived. To think he'd do anything to bring shame to the school makes no sense. I don't understand how anyone could want him to do more than what he did. He took the limited information he had to the people he was supposed to and they failed the victims, just like McQuery failed the victims. Paterno has no reason to get crucified on this. There were 50 other people who have more blame than Paterno, but this gets heaped on him to force him to stop coaching football to save the University his salary, but to lose their souls. Penn State is fucked either way, now they are fucked and without honor or loyalty. Rolling over on Paterno solves nothing and proves nothing. Salinsky will still burn in hell and prison for the rest of his days, Penn State will suffer in recruiting and enrollment for the foreseeable future, and Joe Paterno will still be involved in trying to make Penn State better even after it threw him on a grenade that they pulled the pin on.