As I got the chili ready for today’s Pats game and thought briefly about whether or not Pat’s offensive coordinator Bill O’Brien can possible clean up arguably the biggest scandal in NCAA history, I read that JoPa had passed.
My immediate reaction was to think of various Catholic priests (John Geoghan for instance) who met untimely deaths soon after their being brought to justice and even Cardinal Law being shuffled off to the Vatican.
I am not sure Paterno’s death changes anything for Sandusky’s victims, or for us as we try to sort out how a sports program went from national envy to national shame in less than a year. But it does make me sad, I have to admit. In Paterno’s last interview he said:
“I didn’t know exactly how to handle it and I was afraid to do something that might jeopardize what the university procedure was,” he said. “So I backed away and turned it over to some other people, people I thought would have a little more expertise than I did. It didn’t work out that way.”
None of which forgives anything. But it does at least explain what was going on. Paterno was a man from a different generation. A generation that was ignorant when it came to sexual abuse. A generation that all too often swept violent rape of boys, men and women under the rug.
And that makes me profoundly sad.
Abuse is not the end, it can be a beginning. My young life was tarnished by the evil of abuse and while I would never wish this injustice on anyone I am a better person today because of my experiences. Wrapped up in all the sadness and hurt of abuse are great opportunities. I am a powerful and accomplished man, whose past has shaped his character, passions and pursuits. Injustice in all forms can be a motivation and catalyst for greatness. The focus should be on helping the victims not upon hanging the accused. Justice should be served but I… Read more »
Whenever someone like this dies and they leave behind great accomplishments and terrible injustices I’m left torn (especially since I was involved in neither the accomplishments or injustices). On one hand yes he should be remembered as a man who fulfilled the proverb, “the only thing necessary for evil to flourish is for good men to do nothing.” But at the same time his career was as a coach was top notch. I just don’t think its right for someone to just declare that his bad deeds should washout his good deeds and we all should just pretend the good… Read more »
He did his job and reported what the sicko was doing, he doesnt really deserve a bad rep.
Hell, all the stress of dealing with the situation is probably what really killed him.
Good riddance.
And to 100%Cotton, I am outraged by all molestation and rape. It matters not the gender of the victim or the abuser. It is simply wrong in all cases. I hope your son has gotten the help he needs and is able to go on to do and achieve great things.
My son was falsely accused of rape by his molester when I threatened to report her. Her history of making prior false accusations and false police reports were rape shielded. The prosecutor barred me from aiding in his defense, so at age 16 he was on his own. She threatened me with civil prosecution if I did not stop “revictimizing” her by telling the truth. My son passed multiple polygraphs and dozens of people wrote letters in his defense. None of it mattered. In my son’s case, an innocent person went to jail, and a guilty person was anointed “victimhood”.… Read more »
Now, more than ever, we need to have honest open conversations about sex. How can we be more honest and authentic? How can we get what we really want, without hurting the other people involved? I believe that we compromise a lot because of arbitrary societal rules. But if we stop and question them, we can avoid major issues like this. Yes, we live in an overly sexualized culture. But that’s neither good nor bad. It just is what it is. And we need to deal with what we have.
The sadness is that Paterno’s bio will always have an asterisk: “the winningest coach… *the sex abuse scandal.” But it’s deserved. I disagree that his failure to act was “generational” – he was 19 years old in 1945…when the horrors of Nazi death camps were revealed to the world. And the lesson of those camps: “the only thing necessary for evil to flourish is for good men to do nothing.” He may have been a good man…but he did nothing in the face of evil…and that was wrong. A final thought about Paterno, that I learned in the Army: “One… Read more »
Well – The Cynic in me looks and says it all just makes his motives clearer. Some will say such things as “You Should Not Speak Ill Of The Dead”. I’m reminded of Betty Davies who was interviewed after the death of Joan Crawford. Betty said – “You should never say bad things about the dead, you should only say good . . . Joan Crawford is dead. Good.” When asked about that and if it was a suitable thing to say she responded – “Just because someone is dead does not mean they have changed!”. JoePa was a game… Read more »
As the mother of a son molested by a woman I can’t help being a bit bitter over the Paterno bruhaha. In a society that routinely tells boys they are “lucky” is a woman rapes or molests them, a society that routinely administers a slap on the wrist for such infractions (“too pretty to go to prison”) I am speechless at the blame and viterol shown toward Joe Paterno – a person who didn’t see it happen, wasn’t involved in causing it to happen, and reported what to him was hearsay to the proper authorities. We live in a society… Read more »
Paterno’s death doesn’t resolve anything but it gives us a new vocabulary word, a term we can say that is coded for something else…it gives us a new way to open up the discussion about something so horrific and right under our noses…If we can talk about Paterno, then we can talk about other long avoided taboo topics, too, …. the discussion needs to happen now out in the open…Who is being victimized now? Who was victimized? How many of us are victims and don’t even realize it? How many people are perpetrators and hiding behind the veil of authority,… Read more »
When I saw that Paterno had died today I thought to myself, I am sure the scandal and him getting caught brought his death to him much sooner. It makes me sick when I read him, in power, and not doing something to stop a bad situation, but I wonder, truly wonder, how many people in Paterno’s place, that saw what he saw would actually have the guts and courage to do the right thing. All I can speak for is myself and knowing what I would do. It’s not a maybe, it’s not a could, it’s not a should,… Read more »
Joe Paterno “saw” nothing. It was a second hand “hear say” report from another coach that he passed onto the proper authorities.
The rest was pure witch hunt.
He did not have “power” to stop a situation he heard about second hand and did not know to be true. While it’s obvious you certainly ARE willing to act on (possible) misinformation he put it in the hands of the proper authorities, who, in turn, did not act on it.
Joe Paterno was a better man than you are a “good woman” for passing on false information and wrongful accusations.
As the father of two adopted daughters who were abused by their biological parents and foster care parents, I have a great deal of anger about Joe Paterno’s passive response to alleged sexual abuse. It seems to me that his behavior was more attuned to protecting his legacy, than protecting innocent victims. Paterno was a leader, a role model, an icon. This was the best he could do? Why didn’t he do more? These question will never be answered as he won’t be around to answer them. After watching his canonization on sports TV this morning, I am filled with… Read more »
Thanks Andy for adding your personal perspective here. My sadness is really about the victims who had to endure this hell with no one to help them.
He didn’t die soon enough, but his passing can be viewed as poetic justice. Hope Jerry Sandusky follows suit. “So I backed away and turned it over to some other people, people I thought would have a little more expertise than I did. It didn’t work out that way.” That is answer is a blatant excuse out of accountability. Even if he claimed to not have “expertise”, he ought to have followed up on the case and follow it closely, to ensure Jerry Sandusky’s actions didn’t repeat themselves under his watch. Paterno backed away for selfish reasons, he was looking… Read more »
Taylor – I’ve dealt with too many cases of child abuse to Buy JoePa’s lines. I have yet to met a single person in a chain of command, where child abuse is reported, where they are not interested in outcome and wanting to know why that was the outcome.
The only time you see it, is when it’s adult sexual abuse and where they are wilfully blind because they know the abuser and don’t want to be “Tarnished” by association.