I swore I wasn’t going to do this – I wasn’t going to weigh in on the Sandusky/Penn State University controversy, but I can’t help myself. I haven’t blogged in forever (as evident by the date of my last blog post), but the ever-evolving tale of Jerry Sandusky’s transgressions has jolted me out of my blog retirement.
When I first caught wind of the story, I was running on the treadmill at my apartment’s gym, headphones on, the West Side Story soundtrack blasting, not really paying attention to the flat screen at the gym, and the ESPN headline came across the screen: “Scandal at Penn State.” Of course my first thought was that Joe Paterno had finally been caught in a recruiting scandal, thus sullying his name and tarnishing his tradition at Penn State. Though that would have been a blow for college football, I wish that had been the case.
Over the next few days, I dug deeper into the sordid story of Jerry Sandusky’s many counts of molestation against young boys. I knew if I wrote a post on the PSU scandal, I wanted to have my facts straight. I started with a series of basic questions.
When?
The alleged incident (I say alleged because of the American “innocent until proven guilty” phrase, though the evidence against Sandusky is damning) occurred in 2002 in the showers of the football locker room at Penn State. Mike McQueary (a graduate assistant at Penn State at the time) witnessed Jerry Sandusky sexually abusing a boy around the age of ten and reported the incident to his coach. But this was not an isolated incident.
Reports state that close to 20 boys have come forward and admitted sexual abuse at the hands of Sandusky (the original report was 8). Sandusky molested young boys over the span of roughly 15 years through the guise of his charity The Second Mile. How many boys suffered at the hands of Jerry Sandusky because no one said anything?
How?
How could this happen? How did Sandusky not get caught? How did he have access to these young boys?
To answer the first question, this happened because Sandusky was an opportunistic monster in a position of power. The orchestrator of the famous Penn State defense, of “Linebacker U,” Coach Sandusky could do virtually no wrong in Happy Valley. The football program at Penn State operated like one at a major university but was even more tight-knit – it acted as a family. Oftentimes, family members are the last to know a loved one has a “problem”, whether that is an addiction or something even darker. It’s hard to notice those kinds of things when one is so close to the subject.
Sandusky didn’t get caught because he was smart. He was sneaky. He preyed on underprivileged young boys that would be unreliable in court. He assaulted boys that came from broken homes or single parent households. He was discreet in his perverse dalliances. He didn’t get caught because he was a coach at the biggest show in town – who would believe a poor, hysterical child over a well-respected coach at a sterling NCAA institution?
Jerry Sandusky was intimately involved with The Second Mile, a nonprofit organization serving the youth of Pennsylvania. He was able to bring children from the organization on the campus of Penn State University, take them on road trips with him and have access to them after school. Though Tim Curley reported that Sandusky had been seen in the shower of the Penn State locker room with a Second Mile child in 2002, he was allowed to continue working with the children until 2008, when he informed the organization that he was under investigation for child molestation. Even if there was no merit to the initial account, how could the Second Mile allow Sandusky to continue on as a mentor?
Why?
In asking this question, I don’t want to know why Jerry Sandusky molested all those young boys. I don’t want to step into the mind of a pedophile – I don’t want to know his reasoning or urges; that is one place I sure as hell don’t want to go. I want to know why no one at Penn State, no one in the town of State College said anything.
Sure, it’s easy to point our fingers at Joe Paterno, former athletic director, Tim Curley, former senior vice president, Gary Schultz, and former PSU president, Graham Spanier, because they’re notable figures, but why didn’t a teacher step in when Sandusky was pulling these boys out of class to molest them? Why didn’t a parent start asking questions? Why didn’t anyone notify the authorities? And if the police were called multiple times, as some accounts say, then why were they unable to do anything to stop a child predator?
I understand that it is incredibly hard to prove cases of abuse, especially when the victims are young, unreliable witnesses. I get it. Who would want to put a terrified, abused child on the witness stand to stare at his rapist and recall the trauma he was put through? No one. However, I am sure if the police conducted a thorough investigation - if they dug deep enough, Sandusky would have been off the streets a long time ago and behind bars.
Anyone that knows me will attest to the fact that I am an avid sports fan. I love all sports, but college football has a special place in my heart. However, I cannot get past the fact that a coach, a team, a university and a town all ignored seemingly obvious signs of child molestation. Was this because he was a coach at Penn State? Possibly. Did knowing individuals not want to get involved? Probably. Could many children have been spared from a ruthless child predator? Definitely.
Instead of stepping up and speaking out, Penn State University did the unthinkable. They chose to fade into the background and blend in. They ordered a “white out.”
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