Louis Freeh, who headed the Penn State investigation, has released a copy of the remarks he plans to give at a press conference at 10 a.m. today. You can read the full release online, but here are some highlights:
- “The most powerful men at Penn State failed to take any steps for 14 years to protect the children who Sandusky victimized. Messrs. Spanier, Schultz, Paterno and Curley never demonstrated, through actions or words, any concern for the safety and well-being of Sandusky’s victims until after Sandusky’s arrest.”
- “Our investigative team made independent discovery of critical 1998 and 2001 emails – the most important evidence in this investigation.”
I want to focus on Joe Paterno. Here is a man who shaped and molded young men for six decades, and whose legacy has now been shattered because he valued his friend over what was moral and right. He portrayed himself as a just and moral man, and it was all a fraud. All of it.
Forget Spannier, Schultz, or Curley, altho they too should be held in the deepest of contempts. Given their positions, and their first loyalty to the university, we can expect this to be a difficult choice for them, precisely because we expect them to be sleazeballs in the first place.
But JoePa went to great lengths to flout his sense of right: he would bench players who weren't making it academically, for instance. He rubbed the collective noses of Penn State fans and alumni in his self-righteousness. And in so doing, he harmed all of those who believed in him for what? A pedophilic creep? A college that couldn't unlock itself from fundraising long enough to hear the ticking time bomb in their midst?
I feel sympathy for Paterno's friends and family. They were as hoodwinked as the rest of us, but had closer ties to the whole mess and are probably wondering if there was something, anything, they could have done. They may still be in deep denial, but that's a natural reaction when someone you admire to the point of deifying him suddenly crumbles in your face. You will expend mighty efforts to defend his memory and defend his legacy.
Better you should defend the family name now: acknowledge the truth, and work hard to make sure the future is brighter than the past for the Paterno family. JoePa's kids, grandkids, and great-grandkids will have to suffer the degradations and shame of this, unless the family pulls its collective heads out of its ass and starts working to fix things.
I feel sympathy for them for that work.
But I grieve for the children who JoePa and his cronies discarded like so much trash. Sandusky was a sick man. He could not control himself, clearly. It was up to the adults around him to make a stand, and these cool deliberate men chose evil. They did not.
They deserve whatever special hell awaits them.
If you are an adult male who suffered sexual abuse as a boy, I urge you to visit this site. You are not alone. There's 1 in 6 of us out there.
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