Failure in his own eyes??
OK! Good Grief!!! What else is going to happen this football season?? Maybe Delta State is going to reveal that there successful program is because they have a special CORN/Marijuana cross that all the players eat before their game.
That is just about as far out as i would have expected Jo Paterno being in the situation he is today. Saddens me to think that he would not have done any more to prevent this than he did.
I am adding this article that says it all. HOW SAD IT IS!
Paterno failed Penn State more than any coach has ever failed a school, and that’s not the worst of it.
Joe Paterno professed to be part of the larger university community, but in truth, he believed the university was there to serve him, Richard Justice writes. (Jamie Squire/Allsport)
Joe Paterno didn’t do the right thing then, and he wasn’t going to do the right thing now. He was going to do it his way. He was going to please himself, and to hell with anyone who thought he should do it otherwise.
In the end, he seemingly couldn’t understand how he failed the school he professed to love so much. He just didn’t understand that he could not coach another game, that he could not stay at Penn State another hour.
Paterno simply didn’t understand that it would have been unspeakably offensive for him to coach again. How would the victims have felt? How would their families have felt?
How have they felt the last decade when they believed no one would ever be held accountable? They must have felt that Paterno was the law and order in Happy Valley, and that no one — no district attorney, no cop, no one — would challenge him.
Indeed, that’s one of the lessons of this story. Paterno became accountable to no one, and isn’t that sad? He was the moral compass of State College and of Penn State.
He earned that status by winning games, graduating players and not cheating. He seemed different from so many of the others because during his 46 seasons, Penn State proved it could win with honor.
Somewhere along the way, Paterno’s value system became distorted. He had more power than any school president or mayor or athletics director, and because we assumed he always used it for good, because we believed the things he said about winning with honor, we allowed his power to grow and grow and grow.
Paterno built what appeared to be a model program, but he also built a program around secrecy and arrogance. No one crossed Joe Paterno. No one challenged Joe Paterno.
Paterno professed to be part of the larger university community, but in truth, he believed the university was there to serve him.
Someday, he may tell us why why he allowed an alleged child rapist to have his run of the football facilities. Paterno was given an eyewitness account of his most trusted assistant coach, Jerry Sandusky, engaging in sexual behavior with a 10-year-old child.
Even if Paterno thought the best of his assistant, even if he doubted he would ever harm a child, he had the moral and ethical responsibility to send him home and bar him from the campus until there was a thorough investigation.
Only Paterno didn’t do that. He allowed Sandusky to bring children onto the campus, allowed him to continue to be treated like a VIP. If Joe Paterno wasn’t an enabler, he was very, very close.
Maybe Paterno refused to believe what he’d been told. Maybe he believed he owed Sandusky such a debt of gratitude that he simply couldn’t bring himself to do the right thing.
In not acting, Paterno failed the victims. He allowed Sandusky’s crimes to continue. Against children with no voice. Children without fat bank accounts. Children who were not blue-chip recruits. Here’s hoping those children haunt Joe Paterno for the rest of his life.
Sure, he failed Penn State, too. He failed his university as badly as any coach has ever failed a school. Every other scandal — Ohio State, Miami, SMU, Baylor, UNLV — seems irrelevant compared to this one.
After all the years in which he was the college coach, the college educator, others were measured against, his career ends in shame. All those years, all those records, all the good, now will be a footnote to the horror of the crimes against children.
Now that Paterno is gone, Penn State can begin to repair itself. But it won’t happen quickly.
It will take time to replace the leadership and to find new people, and even after the new people are in place, even if they’re good and honest people, the legal case will continue for years, and when each new chapter is written, the world will be reminded of the crimes that took place at Penn State, of the the crimes that people like Joe Paterno failed to respond to.
Someday, Penn State may get its reputation back, but it’s unlikely to ever be what it once was. Joe Paterno has stained Penn State forever, but at least he’s gone.
It must be tough being a football god or thinking you are a football god.
OK! Good Grief!!! What else is going to happen this football season?? Maybe Delta State is going to reveal that there successful program is because they have a special CORN/Marijuana cross that all the players eat before their game.
That is just about as far out as i would have expected Jo Paterno being in the situation he is today. Saddens me to think that he would not have done any more to prevent this than he did.
I am adding this article that says it all. HOW SAD IT IS!
Paterno failed Penn State more than any coach has ever failed a school, and that’s not the worst of it.
Joe Paterno professed to be part of the larger university community, but in truth, he believed the university was there to serve him, Richard Justice writes. (Jamie Squire/Allsport)
Joe Paterno didn’t do the right thing then, and he wasn’t going to do the right thing now. He was going to do it his way. He was going to please himself, and to hell with anyone who thought he should do it otherwise.
In the end, he seemingly couldn’t understand how he failed the school he professed to love so much. He just didn’t understand that he could not coach another game, that he could not stay at Penn State another hour.
Paterno simply didn’t understand that it would have been unspeakably offensive for him to coach again. How would the victims have felt? How would their families have felt?
How have they felt the last decade when they believed no one would ever be held accountable? They must have felt that Paterno was the law and order in Happy Valley, and that no one — no district attorney, no cop, no one — would challenge him.
Indeed, that’s one of the lessons of this story. Paterno became accountable to no one, and isn’t that sad? He was the moral compass of State College and of Penn State.
He earned that status by winning games, graduating players and not cheating. He seemed different from so many of the others because during his 46 seasons, Penn State proved it could win with honor.
Somewhere along the way, Paterno’s value system became distorted. He had more power than any school president or mayor or athletics director, and because we assumed he always used it for good, because we believed the things he said about winning with honor, we allowed his power to grow and grow and grow.
Paterno built what appeared to be a model program, but he also built a program around secrecy and arrogance. No one crossed Joe Paterno. No one challenged Joe Paterno.
Paterno professed to be part of the larger university community, but in truth, he believed the university was there to serve him.
Someday, he may tell us why why he allowed an alleged child rapist to have his run of the football facilities. Paterno was given an eyewitness account of his most trusted assistant coach, Jerry Sandusky, engaging in sexual behavior with a 10-year-old child.
Even if Paterno thought the best of his assistant, even if he doubted he would ever harm a child, he had the moral and ethical responsibility to send him home and bar him from the campus until there was a thorough investigation.
Only Paterno didn’t do that. He allowed Sandusky to bring children onto the campus, allowed him to continue to be treated like a VIP. If Joe Paterno wasn’t an enabler, he was very, very close.
Maybe Paterno refused to believe what he’d been told. Maybe he believed he owed Sandusky such a debt of gratitude that he simply couldn’t bring himself to do the right thing.
In not acting, Paterno failed the victims. He allowed Sandusky’s crimes to continue. Against children with no voice. Children without fat bank accounts. Children who were not blue-chip recruits. Here’s hoping those children haunt Joe Paterno for the rest of his life.
Sure, he failed Penn State, too. He failed his university as badly as any coach has ever failed a school. Every other scandal — Ohio State, Miami, SMU, Baylor, UNLV — seems irrelevant compared to this one.
After all the years in which he was the college coach, the college educator, others were measured against, his career ends in shame. All those years, all those records, all the good, now will be a footnote to the horror of the crimes against children.
Now that Paterno is gone, Penn State can begin to repair itself. But it won’t happen quickly.
It will take time to replace the leadership and to find new people, and even after the new people are in place, even if they’re good and honest people, the legal case will continue for years, and when each new chapter is written, the world will be reminded of the crimes that took place at Penn State, of the the crimes that people like Joe Paterno failed to respond to.
Someday, Penn State may get its reputation back, but it’s unlikely to ever be what it once was. Joe Paterno has stained Penn State forever, but at least he’s gone.
It must be tough being a football god or thinking you are a football god.
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