Flag on the frikkin' play!

Sandusky and JoePa

"Penn State honors victims of child abuse w/a moment of silence before game"!?! Exactly what abused kids need, more silence from Penn State.” ~ Comedian Leo Allen


I find myself wondering again if I’m able to add anything to what’s already been said and pointed out and written, in this case about the devastating Penn State sex abuse scandal that led to the firing of the legendary “JoePa,” who had been head coach of the Nittany Lions since I was four years old. (I’ll be 50 in four months.)

For the three people who live under rocks and don’t know the details: a little over a week ago, on November 5, former Penn State college football defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky was arrested on 40 counts relating to sexual abuse of eight young boys over a 15-year period, including incidents that occurred at Penn State. (Graduate assistant Mike McQueary, who was later promoted to assistant coach, allegedly walked in on Sandusky raping a young boy in a locker room shower back in 2002. He did nothing to stop the assault.)

Two former university officials - athletic director Tim Curley and finance official Gary Schultz – have been charged with failing to alert police after they were told about Sandusky’s rape of the boy in the shower. Paterno, who was also told, wasn’t charged but was fired, along with university president Graham Spanier, and more details are emerging.

On the night of November 8, hundreds of Penn State students protested Paterno’s dismissal by rioting, tearing down lampposts and overturning a TV news van. There have been no reports of riots to protest the anal and oral rape of little boys by Penn State staffers or the apparent cover-up of those crimes.

As Jodi Jacobson points out at Alternet.org, “Fifteen adults at Penn State – fifteen individual adults, all men – either witnessed directly or had knowledge of rape, sodomy, and assault of children by Jerry Sandusky and either did not act or whose actions were for naught. These include twelve adult men who were in positions of power, some of them members of law enforcement, who did not do anything to protect children raped and abused or to prevent other children from being raped and abused.”

I get why Paterno is so exalted. He holds more bowl victories, 24, than any coach in history. Under Paterno, the team won the Big Ten championship three times: in 1994, 2005 and 2008. He’s been named “Sportsman of the Year” and “Coach of the Year” and was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2006. The Nittany Lions generate $50 million in profit for Penn State every year and have been listed as the most valuable team in the Big 10 conference. Oh, and each Penn State game pumps $59 million into the local economy.

What I don’t get is how anyone thinks Paterno’s failure to respond more forcefully to allegations that his assistant was buggering little boys is okay, or why a bunch of college kids would turn over automobiles in support of a guy who fumbled the ball when the safety of children was at stake.

JoePa’s silly press statement on Sunday, November 6, included the b*llsh*t claim that he was “as shocked, saddened and surprised as everyone else to learn longtime assistant Jerry Sandusky was charged with sexually abusing young boys over a 15-year period, including four years when Sandusky still was a member of the Nittany Lions’ staff.” The coach also said, “If it’s true, we were all fooled, along with scores of professionals trained in such things, and we grieve for the victims and their families. They are in our prayers.”

If it's true? Really, Coach?

You know, I’m a little sick and tired of the whole “let’s keep them in our prayers” crap. I’m pretty sure prayers don’t mean sh*t or else the prayers of the little boys Sandusky repeatedly molested would have been answered. And how exactly were you “fooled,” when you were apparently told to your face by a witness that Sandusky was caught reaming a ten-year-old in your locker room? Doesn’t seem like a lot of room for interpretation to me.

As others have pointed out, if I were a former Penn State quarterback like Mike McQueary, who’s not a small man, and I stumbled upon a middle-aged guy repeatedly penetrating a ten-year-old boy from behind in a shower, the child’s palms flat against the wall, I wouldn’t turn around, go to my office and call my daddy for directions. I guess we never know for sure how we’d react, of course, but I’m willing to bet my wife’s retirement that I’d walk in, forcibly separate the man and boy, and probably physically express a little outrage on the man before removing the boy and calling 911.

Ray Gricar

Not enough attention is being paid to the fact that District Attorney Ray Gricar – who tried and failed to prosecute Sandusky back in 1998 – disappeared in 2005 and was never found (although his car was found parked adjacent to Pennsylvania’s Susquehanna River and his laptop was found in the water). The district attorney for Centre County, Pennsylvania, had told his girlfriend he was going for a drive and was never seen again. A friend who is also a district attorney insisted that if Gricar had committed suicide, he would have made sure his body would be found. Foul play is suspected; he was declared legally dead this past summer.

I’m no tin hat-wearing conspiracy theorist but I find Gricar’s unsolved disappearance a tad troubling.

I don’t have any unique observations to make about sociological implications of sexual perversion or the apparent correlation between male-dominated institutions and the sexual violation of women and children. I agree with what’s been said and written about how Penn State football was too powerful, too important to the community, and that the boys who were repeatedly abused, sexually and emotionally, were let down and betrayed by grownups who knew better, who were supposed to help and protect them, not sweep them under a rug.

As I’ve said before, I generally think we’re too litigious, too sue-crazy, but I’m not going to shed a tear if Penn State has to lay out some cash to the victims and their families – if not because being orally and anally raped ten years ago has left scars, then because a message needs to be sent that we’re sorry. Football isn’t more important than children, no matter how much money is tied up in the program. Firing an 84-year-old man who was about to retire anyway isn’t enough, nor are ineffectual prayers and moments of silence before football games. Men need to stop doing whatever we want regardless of what it will mean to and for those around us because we think we need more money, are married to the status quo or just because we’re men.

It’s beyond ironic that one could until recently have purchased a copy of Touched: The Jerry Sandusky Story at Amazon.com. The aptly-named book, published in 2001, “goes behind the scenes to explore the successes and challenges that Jerry Sandusky has faced in life, both on and off the football field.”

It’s safe to assume Sandusky’s challenge now is to stay alive.



Sources: Daily Mail, MichaelMoore.com, Washington Post, Alternet.org, BusinessPundit.com, Daily Item.