Michigan State head basketball coach Tom Izzo (who is already a legend in his own right), said he was ‘sickened’ and ‘saddened’ by the child molestation allegations engulfing Penn State University.
“I just have to say I’ve been a Joe Paterno fan my whole life – my whole life,” Izzo said at his Monday press conference. “He’s coached almost my whole life. I have been a huge fan of his. He’s been very good to me.”
Izzo though for the most part spoke of his sadness for the child victims in the case and his reservations for the seemingly horrible way everything was handled on Penn State’s end.
“It saddens me for the victims,” Izzo said. “It saddens me for Joe Paterno. Yet, not knowing everything, I just struggle with (the thought) that everything is exactly right – which, normally, it isn’t – I struggle with it, because it just doesn’t seem like the way it would be handled. And so I’m trying to reserve most of my comments because I can’t sit here and say he’s the greatest guy in the world, because certain things have gone on that were let go, and yet I can’t condemn somebody that I have great respect for when I really don’t know all the facts.
“We are definitely in this position here, now, where it’s guilty before proven innocent. I don’t know what all the things are. But it saddens and sickens me. It sickens me for the victims. It saddens me for Joe Paterno. I think one of you, or somebody, said to me last week, and I agreed, that certain things affect a program, scandals of any kind, in basketball or football. Some other things are big enough to affect the athletic department. Then there are some things – to be honest with you, I haven’t seen anything before – that affect, maybe, the status of the university. I think this is one that has affected the status of the university.”
Ref: Grand Rapids Press, Fox Sports (image)