A Take on the Penn State and Joe Paterno Situation

We have stayed away from this story, but I wanted to publish an interesting take on the matter from Andrew Green who is a contributor to City of Champions Sports. It’s a little late, but worth the read nonetheless.

The monolithic power structure at Penn State and in the locker room,
head coach on down, made the decision for a junior coach to turn in a
senior coach on that team nearly impossible without fear of
retribution or ramification.  This kid just got done playing at Penn
State, failed to stick in the FL as a player, and was really looking
to get his career off on the right foot, and the fear of being labeled
as a whistle-blower was too much for him to bear.  My wife went to
Penn State, it might as well have been called Joe Pa State and the
Penn State Cops are pretty much the local cops.

The defensive coordinator at Penn State.  Long-time friend to Joe
Paterno.  I mean, Joe Pa’s name literally means “father,” everything
goes through him, and it shouldn’t have to.  It would have been career
suicide for a GA to take Sandusky head-on by going directly to the
cops, which meant he wasn’t thinking about right and wrong.  When a
power structure like that makes clear decisions too murky to make,
especially in a setting such as sports where there is no life or death
involved, and in an academic setting, where people get their jumping off point to the real world and where students should come first,
there is no reason for someone to have to fear making the right
choice.  Yeah, they fired Sandusky, reported to the administration,
and told his foundation, but the worst part about the whole thing is
that Sandusky was quietly let go with no public warning about him,
meaning it was just another pedophile priest getting sent to another
parish, free to do bad things again with no suspicions.

In my estimation, the entire Penn State football program should be
torn down, all of the coaching staff removed, and bring in a fresh
start altogether.  I know it’s easier said than done, and many of
these people on staff did nothing wrong (and you can write them a
letter of recommendation for another job), and it’s out of character
for Penn State to suddenly hang all your loyal staff out to dry, but
Penn State needs to hit the reset button, rebuild from the foundation
up.  Character has always been stressed at Penn State, and it should
be again.  Only be removing all vestiges and memories of this incident can the university ever truly move on. It will be a painful process
for everyone involved, but very necessary.

Joe Pa did nothing wrong, and it wasn’t good enough.  There was too
much to lose by making this public.  That by itself is enough of an
indicator the lines of right and wrong were too blurry, and Joe Pa
should have left then to preserve the values of a program he had made
initially.  Nobody would have thought twice about a 70-year old man
retiring.

Colin Powell said “Never let your ego get so close to your position
that when your position goes, your ego goes with it.”  Joe Pa should
have left once he realized the myth of Penn State football became
bigger than the people it was supposed to be helping.