Penn State, until recently, known for its football team and legendary coach, is now involved in a child sex scandal that will take years for it to recover from. There are a host of characters here who placed the reputation of the school over the safety of young kids. Ironically these key men who are icons to the university, may be the ones to bring down the reputation they misguidedly tried to protect.
Foremost is Joe Paterno, 84, the Penn State head coach for 46 years and the winningest coach in the history of college football. He is legendary, known for being squeaky clean and standing up for all that is right.
He took pride that his players had great grades, a high graduation rate and had life goals beyond football. He was one of the "good guys” in a sport that is often considered semi-professional on so many other campuses.
The alleged perpetrator is Jerry Sandusky, 67. Paterno's friend, a former player and the former defensive coordinator at the university. Sandusky is also a known figure within the community.
In 1977, he founded The Second Mile, a charitable foundation for troubled youth. It was through this organization that Sandusky chose his victims. They were poor and from broken homes, and he was supposedly a role model they looked up to.
In 2002, graduate assistant Mike McQueary allegedly witnessed the rape of a young boy by Sandusky. Shaken, the next day he told Paterno, who followed school protocol and went to his supervisor, Tim Curley, the athletic director who then discussed the incident with Gary Schultz, a university vice president.
University president Graham Spanier was then informed, though how much was shared with him is not clear. All of these men failed to report the alleged crime to police or to Child Protective Services. In light of the allegations, Curley and Schultz have just been charged with perjury and failing to report a crime (against a 10 year old, no less), and calls for Spanier’s resignation are now rampant.
So far, nine boys or men have come forward, implicating Sandusky, but authorities are bracing themselves for more to come. It is known that troubled youths are the easiest for a predator to victimize.
It is now alleged that Sandusky used his position and his charity to lure young boys to not only the football lockers and showers, but also his home, in order to rape and sodomize them, and that he's been doing this for years.
It is a known fact that child sex abusers often work with kids. It's not the stranger with the trench coat and hat that's pulled down, lurking at the playground. No, the majority of sexual abuse victims know the perpetrator and this is often a family member, camp counselor, coach or some other respected figure in the child’s life.
In this case, Sandusky had the pick of the litter, because if someone talked, who would the public believe -- some kid who came from nowhere or an upstanding professional who gave his time and was in good standing with the community? It was a slam dunk.
Even though, if the allegations are true, Sandusky should be placed under the jail, what about the school officials who knew what was going on, and yet turned their back? There were eye witnesses and the mother of one of the victims filed a report with police when her son told her what happened -- and yet nothing at all was done.
This was Jerry Sandusky, after all! They weren't going to waste their time and money investigating the rants of some kid or his mom.
As of Monday morning, Jerry Sandusky's name was still on The Second Mile's website. Tuesday it was removed. Wednesday Joe Paterno was fired along with President Graham Spainer. What a difference a day makes. This prototypical college town has been turned upside down and the initial shock is now rapidly turning to anger as more details emerge.
The mother of Victim Six says, "I'm so upset. My son is extremely distraught, and now to see how we were betrayed, words cannot tell you. To see that Graham Spanier is putting his unconditional support behind Curley and Shultz when he should be putting his support behind the victims, it just makes them victims all over again."
I ask you, if you had witnessed something as disturbing as the rape of a 10 year old boy, or heard about it, or were in the position of authority over an alleged perpetrator, what would you do? Do you even have to think about it?
Joe Paterno often said these words to his players: "Do the right thing, because it's the right thing to do." What he should have been saying was, "Actions speak louder than words.”
Dr. Archer
