I've been thinking about Bo's Lasting Lessons a lot lately, which I am in the process of reading.  I lived most of my fandom after Bo's retirement from coaching, and with no real insider knowledge of the program, I cannot know how much Bo lived as he later preached.  So I am not making a Bo vs. JoePa comparison.

However, I'm reminded how often Bo wrote about being able to sleep at night after making a tough, but right, decision.  That seems worth pondering lately.

Although I'm not a fan of Penn State, I really do hate to see JoePa go out like this. He strikes me as the Andy Rooney type, where he's so attached to his profession that he may not last very long after retiring.

[Forgive my bad writing and rambling.  I'm watching my daughter in the living room and hear my son play basketball outside yet am haunted by the "sound" in the grand jury testimony.  I cannot get that out of my head!  I'm hoping that this may be cathartic for my soul]

I grew up about an hour and a half from State College in another small town named Bloomsburg. Bloomsburg is in the center of a regional football hotbed. Former AAA powerhouse Berwick us just up the road and sent many kids on to D1 colleges and a few even got to play on Sunday. Southern Columbia is a few miles away in the other direction, and is a more recent powerhouse in A, but they too have sent a few kids to D1 and on to play on Sunday. Mount Carmel is a AA power and regularly goes deep into the state playoffs.

One thing that ties ALL of these programs together was the universal respect for PSU and JoePa as he is affectionately known. People in these parts are either PSU fans or Notre Dame fans. Had my uncle not attended Michigan and I visited him when I was less than 5 years old, I would probably also be a PSU fan.

I went to PSU.  Even though I'm not a PSU football fan I always respected what they allegedly stood for and how they ran their program. What I didn't like and find detestable now is the worship of all things Joe Paterno. These people don't even worship the man any longer...he's bigger than that. 50 years of running the football factory and putting out quality players and people elevated his persona into something more than any mortal could live up to.

There has been problems in the past, but things were handled “in house”. Well, “in house” kept a monster in the house and allowed him to prey on young children.

Those kids at his house last night weren't there to support Joe Paterno the man, they are part of the Cult of Personality!

People are genuinely conflicted about this whole affair, especially the alums and season ticket holders I've talked to. The local sports radio in Williamsport is full of callers that sound like they just discovered Santa isn't real. Well, I guess we had to find out at some time JoePa isn't real either. After all of the adulation from the fans and good works, he's still a guy that put his reputation and football program ahead of anything, including the innocence of who knows how many young boys.

How many young men were sacrificed so that JoePa could be football's winningest coach?

People that I've talked to who have read the Grand Jury report are horrified and understand he needs to go now! Hearing him attempt to dictate the terms of his exit are just beyond anything that I can wrap my head around. He lost that option when he chose to allow that monster to continue.

To those who still support JoePa and say “He didn't break any laws”, I say read the Grand Jury testimony and then tell me you still support the man that could have stopped it, but allowed things to continue. Tell me the graphic description of what McQueary heard doesn't make you horrified.

As far as Sandusky, when he retired it allegedly was to work for the charity he started for troubled kids. He made a big deal about being adopted and it seemed like he was following a higher calling now that he had reached a point in his life where $$ wasn't the deciding factor.  Sororities took it on as their cause, current and former players dedicated time and/or money to it.

I always respect someone who strives to do something bigger than themselves. Unfortunately, we found out that his charity was just a cover for him stalking his prey.

I told my wife last night that I think the only honorable thing left for that POS to do would be to hang himself after confessing to his crimes and begging forgiveness. There is nothing that the justice system will ever be able to do that can restore what he did to those kids.

Just make that "slapping" sound stop!

really bad mistakes in judgement. That makes them, like all of us, human. That does not wipe away the fact that they are honorable people, no matter how many people like Brian and others, say that. Joe will be remembered for his, as he should be--this is now a part of his legacy, as it should be. But it does nothing to take away the values he stood for or to call into question the worth of the man.

Joe knew, but felt the broader good would be better served by keeping quiet.

Sick. Selfish. Sadistic.

Hell, even my sister, all 90 some pounds of her, confronted a very large hill billy who was slapping his kid across the face in a store.

Takes guts to do the right thing. To hell with Joe.

He would have saved the University in the long run by taking short run pain.

of the people involved—McQueary, his father, Paterno, and the lamebrains in the PSU administration—were able to take a moment and consider their possible futures.

One future stems from calling the police immediately upon seeing Sandusky commit the act, or being told about it. Yes, it would quickly become a gigantic scandal with repercussions all the way up and down the line, but they would have the knowledge that they did the right thing for the children, and did the right thing legally and ethically. If they had done that in 2002, by now this would have been old news. No more children would have been assaulted, Sandusky would be in prison where he belongs, and whatever criticism Paterno might have received for having Sandusky around would absolutely pale in comparison to future #2:

Which is to do nothing, and allow an apparent coverup to proceed, if not put it into motion themselves, for almost a decade. To allow Sandusky continued access to PSU facilities. To allow Sandusky to continue to attach PSU's name to his football camps, giving continued access to young boys. To allow this rot to continue to grow and fester, in other words.

How could they think for one second that the disgusting truth wouldn't eventually be exposed? How could they not foresee the stark reality that they would be exposed themselves as enablers of Sandusky's crimes? How could they think that future #1 wasn't infinitely better in every conceivable way, for everybody involved, than future #2?

I would bet a big box of money that every one of these supposed adults who had a chance to do something now wishes with every fiber of their being that they had done what they should have. All it would have taken is picking up the goddamn phone and calling the real police. A relatively simple act that none of them were capable of doing, at any step of the way.

What a colossal failure in using their god-given ability to imagine alternative actions, and their consequences. Doing that is one of the fundamental attributes of being a human, and they couldn't manage it. For that failure, more children were assaulted, personal reputations have been ruined, and a large and very important institution has a stain on it that will take years if not decades to clean off, if it can be done at all.

you continue to impress.  Get this man a salary.

Adddendum: When people say "Well Joe did so much good we need to focus on that".

WRONG.

The best Joe could have done for the University was turn in Jerry. He didn't, he took the easy way out. He hurt the University by doing the wrong thing. It's amazing certain people can't see the simple truth of how he could have avoided this mess.

Joe's legacy is stupidity, pride, and selfishness.

Joe took immense pride in his humility, thus making him no better than the boastful persons he advised his players from emulating.

as someone who has a brother who is a die hard PSU Football fan, I can't even imagine where his mind is at. As long as I've known my brother (I'm 24, I met him when I was 12. We have different mothers and he lived with his in PA), he has loved Penn State more than anything in the sporting world. He, like so many others, loved Joe Pa. He has been inside the PSU locker room, witnessed practices, and even had HS friends play for Penn State. His entire worldview on college football has crumbled. It's easy for me to sit here and feel sorry for him, but I have to admit, I don't think I, or we as an MGoCommunity, can even fully comprehend this unless it actually happened to Michigan. I don't want to have to feel that, knowing that people who I looked up to and rooted for every Saturday could be guilty of such a horrific crime against children.

This all being said, those are just secondary thoughts about the trickle down effects, as Six Zero mentioned. The main issue is still to fix this. For the good of not only the Big Ten, the state of Pennsylvania, and Penn State University and it's football team, but also for the family's of and the victims themselves. I urge everyone on here. If you are the praying type, say something before your head hits that pillow tonight. Pray that our society can learn from this. Pray that other coaches can learn from this and realize what they need to do if a situation like this inevitably happens again.

is how few of us would know about this story if it hadn't been associated with Penn State (or some other big-time football program). There are 60-70,000 arrests each year for sex crimes against children in the US alone. It's unspeakable what people like Sandusky are doing, and unacceptable that institutions of any kind are covering for them. Maybe one thing that will come out of all this is a heightened awareness of this issue.

EDIT: Cited in Rick Reilly's piece (ESPN): "According to a 1998 study on child sexual abuse by Boston University Medical School, one in six boys in America will be abused by age 16. For girls, it's one in four by the age of 14."

Thanks for sharing.  It's a really well written piece. 

I being a realively young sports fan (25) have always viewed PSU as one of those programs that stood for so much more than football.  I am a die hard Michigan fan, but have always cheered on Penn State because of what I thought the program stood for.  

I find it very hard not to think about everything that has been brought to light recently.  It is not a story I want to spend any amount of time thinking or reading about, but it seems to fill every spare moment.  What it keeps coming up to me is that all of this could have been avoided if when the first instance came to light it was dealt with properly.  There was no need for a decade plus cover up, lying, or looking the other way.  These young boys have had their innocense ripped away from them, and their families are suffering tremendously.  All of it could have been avoided if those involved would have simply done what everyone thought Penn State stood for honesty, morality, doing things the right way.

It is a tradegy in every sense of the word.

Very well written. You can feel the tearing of one's heart for an ideal, a program and an icon. I really hope that the healing of the PSU community can start especially  for the young individuals involved. 

I find it hard to believe that the entire coaching staff didn't know Sandusky was a pedophile.  Sandusky used the showers in the coaches' personal locker room in the football building as the site for many of his attacks, including the one McQueary witnessed in 2002.  Assistant coaches at these programs spend 16+ hours a day at the football building.  Sandusky took victims on Penn State bowl trips and shared hotel rooms with them, all within plain sight of the coaching staff.  Sandusky was barred from bringing young boys into the football building after 1998.  The entire coaching staff had to know all this, and yet they all watched Sandusky bring young boys around.

If the other assistants (especially Tom Bradley, who has been coaching at PSU for over 30 years, most of which as Sandusky's DB coach) knew these details (as I believe they did) how can any of them be allowed to coach at Penn State?  And so, how can Penn State's football season continue?

I know it's not fair to the players, fans, and PSU opponents to not have these games, but isn't it less fair to the victims and their families that these men be allowed to continue to have the jobs that let the victims be in harm's way?

oh, I don't know, how about encouraging people to call the fucking police when they're a witness to a violent crime?

Aw, what the hell am I thinking?  Paterno was the very essence of integrity. He was a great leader, coach and molder of men. He did things the "right way".  So wtf?

If JoePa doesn't exercise any common sense when it's most required, then there's little hope for rest of us.  Sadly this shit will keep happening over and over again. Fuuuuuck!

I applied to 3 schools when I was a senior, and visited 2 of them. One of them was Penn State UP. I remember seeing how large Beaver Stadium was, and I remember the gift shop next door which had all the Joe Pa merchandise. It really is a fantastic place, and it's a shame the nation saw riots on TV there last night. 

PSU will recover, but the process will take time. Let's remember PSU is still a highly regarded academic school. They will be fine academically. I can't say the same about the sports program though. They are in better hands if Bradley returns, but no one knows for sure if he will even be retained. 

Folks in East Lansing are watching the scene in Happy Valley and thinking....  
 
"Sheesh...amateurs. You guys are doing that ALL wrong...lift the car with the LEGS."

Joe Pa really believed he was Penn State.  That was his downfall.  Like Woody Hayes, they both thought that they could do anything they wanted, on their schedule, on their timeframe.  The last evidence of this was when he was on his front lawn leading the "We are Penn State"  cheer in light of what was happening around him.  He has lost all preception of reality.  His only concern was adding to his win total.

I believe his biggest regret was that this cam forward.  He really believes he did nothing wrong.  And for that his legacy will now be of an old man who lacked the moral conviction to stand up to a monster in favor of a few more football victories.  Sad.

I grew up in PA and was raised to believe PSU was not an acceptable school to attend.  I never quite understood why.  I knew my parents were loyal Michigan fans, but my father was also a PA native so it seemed so odd he'd be so militantly against the state school.  

I always found the fanbase to be a little insular and a little weird.  I tried not to judge though, they had Paterno and worshipped him, but of course we had Bo and our whole "Michigan Man" them going.  

Last night I finally understood why my mother calls PSU "too rednecky".  The students proved they didn't follow Joe for the code of conduct he espoused, they followed him.  When it came down to being "Paterno Men" or "Penn State Men", they chose to follow their coach down in flames.  No one flipped Sandusky's car or trashed his yard.  No one rioted outside his house and chanted "Let no act of ours bring shame".  When the BoT started cleaning house though, then it was time to flip cars.  

It's disgusting.  Sandusky likely had more than the 8 victims that have come forward so far.  Victims who are adults now.  Victims who after witnessing the community react are less likely to come forward.  Victims who now have reason to fear an angry mob should they dare to implicate Paterno as a man who was silent as they were raped.  

Any respect I ever had for Paterno is gone.  He still admit what happened.  He uses terms like "terrible events" or "that thing we talked about earlier".  He can't even accept that rape happened.  He has to dance around it.  A man would walk down his front steps and admit what happened.  A man never would never have let it happen.  

The only way Penn State can regain any respect out of this for the new adminstration to clean house.  This was a failure at some many levels.  The Athletic Department, the General Consul's office, the Police Department, so many reporting mechanisms failed.  

If the students want to act like animals in the street and riot to protect their precious Saturday afternoon hobby, fuck them.  They're animals and clear them out the street like animals if needed.  The only way forward at this point is to make it clear that child rape is not tolerated.  That no angry mob will be allowed to target anyone who comes forward to accuse some at PSU of rape or remaining silent about rape.  

It's time for the BoT, the Provost, and the police to make it clear no code of silence or intimidation will be tolerated.  Should that fail to happen, fuck it.  The B1G was better with 11 anyway.