For reasonable thinking people, no further evidence was needed to come to the conclusion that Joe Paterno could have done much more when it came to protecting children from serial child sex abuser Jerry Sandusky. And since Paterno seemed much more concerned with the image of his football program than that of the welfare of what looks to be dozens upon dozens kids he was already a complete and utter scumbag.
However Paterno still has his defenders and apologists who continue to maintain the longtime head coach either didn’t know the deplorable actions of Sandusky or did everything in his power to alert the authorities and Penn State administration of what was going on. This despite Paterno saying himself before taking his dirt nap that he wished he did more to prevent Sandusky from preying on countless numbers of kids.
There’s also some JoePa apologists who think too much of the attention has been unfairly directed towards him instead of the former University administration or even Sandusky himself. However Penn State administrators like Graham Spanier are still currently under investigation, Sandusky will continue to rot in prison and the entire college football world has tended to gloss over Paterno’s involvement in the worst scandal to ever hit college sports. And if you don’t believe that consider the relative slap on the wrist the NCAA gave Penn State after the scandal came to light. If you also don’t understand what any of this had to do with football, then why would Penn State put it’s reputation on the line to cover for Sandusky?
Paterno’s legacy of being a dirtbag grows
When you think about it, former FBI director Louis Freeh has been seen as more of a bad guy in the whole Penn State child sex abuse scandal than Paterno himself. Simply because Freeh’s scathing investigation into what happened at the school with Sandusky, the Penn State administration and Paterno himself was pretty damning for all parties despite there being a fair share of circumstantial evidence.
But when it comes to circumstantial evidence the common sense it brings to the surface, especially in the Penn State case shouldn’t be discredited.
Like previously mentioned, any reasonable thinking person didn’t need further evidence to understand Joe Paterno could have done much more in protecting children from Sandusky. Any reasonable thinking person also isn’t naive to think Paterno was totally in the dark about Sandusky’s transgressions. Paterno wasn’t just a football coach at Penn State, He was Penn State. This is the same guy that strong armed the administration to keep him around towards the end of his career after it was becoming more apparent he could no longer effectively do his job on the sidelines because he was old as dirt.
Then there was a bombshell revelation dropped by Charles Thompson of Penn Live that according to court documents, Joe Paterno had a child report to him that they were sexually assaulted by Sandusky back in 1976.
The line in question states that one of Penn State’s insurers has claimed “in 1976, a child allegedly reported to PSU’s Head Coach Joseph Paterno that he (the child) was sexually molested by Sandusky.”
The order also cites separate references in 1987 and 1988 in which unnamed assistant coaches witnessed inappropriate contact between Sandusky and unidentified children, and a 1988 case that was supposedly referred to Penn State’s athletic director at the time.
Keep in mind this was over two decades prior to when Sandusky ‘retired’ from Penn State in 1999 and just a year before he founded ‘The Second Mile’ charity which ultimately became a sick factory feeding into Sandusky’s evil and perverted obsessions.
Not one, but two
To add onto Thompson’s report from this past week, according to CNN Friday another Sandusky victim has come forward who alleges the former Penn State assistant raped him in a Penn State bathroom back in 1971. What makes matters worse (if they could be any worse) this particular victim in the early 1970’s not only accuses Joe Paterno of knowing of the incident but told him to drop his accusations towards Sandusky or the authorities will be called on him.
He found himself on the phone with two men from Penn State.“I tell them what happened — well, I couldn’t get it out of me that I was — I can’t even tell it to this day. It’s just degrading — that I was raped,” he said.“I told the story up to a certain point. I told them that he grabbed me and that I got the hell out of there.”He insisted that he “made it very clear” it was a sexual attack.“I made it clear there were things done to me that I just can’t believe could have been done to me and I couldn’t escape. I said, ‘I’m very upset and scared and I couldn’t believe I let my guard down.’ They listened to me. And then all hell broke loose.“They were asking me my motive, why I would say this about someone who has done so many good things.”They accused him of making it up. “‘Stop this right now! We’ll call the authorities,'” he said they told him.Victim A says he couldn’t think. “I just wanted to get off the phone.”The men on the phone had introduced themselves as Jim and Joe, he said. He had no idea who Jim was, and can’t, to this day, say for sure.“There was no question in my mind who Joe was,” he said. “I’ve heard that voice a million times. It was Joe Paterno.”
But wait, there’s more
It wasn’t just Paterno or the Penn State administration that turned a blind eye to the serial child molester in their midst. According to NBC News a total of six Penn State assistant football coaches witnessed Sandusky sexually abuse children and did nothing about it. This includes an assistant witnessing the acts back in the late 1970’s and three other coaches witnessing incidents during the 1990’s.
“You won’t believe what I just saw,” one of those three coaches blurted out after bursting into a room filled with Penn State football staff, according to sources who spoke to a person who was in that room.
A lawyer for one of the three ‘90s coaches denied his client had seen anything. A second coach declined to comment. A third could not be reached, and the name of the fourth was not disclosed to NBC News.
Chris Gardner of Deadspin makes mention that the alleged dates in the NBC report match up with the widely publicized reports back in 2011 and 2012 as well as other incidents mentioned in sworn testimony. Essentially it’s becoming more apparent that the number of Penn State officials who knew about Sandusky and his abuse of children may be far greater than originally thought.
Then there’s that common sense factor again. If six Penn State coaches allegedly knew about Sandusky can anyone with a straight face continue the narrative that Joe Paterno was left in the dark?
Nonetheless these latest reports regarding Paterno at least keep the investigation into the former Penn State head coach even when the NCAA just simply wanted to move on.
