On Saturday, Penn State University is honoring former head football coach Joe Paterno on the 50th anniversary of his first game there, just five years after his dismissal following the revelations that he participated in covering up child sexual assault reports against longtime friend and assistant coach, Jerry Sandusky. Sandusky is currently serving a 30 to 60 year sentence for his crimes. Paterno passed away in 2012.
An independent investigation by former FBI director Louis Freeh concluded among other things, that Paterno “failed to protect against a child sexual predator harming children for over a decade.”
The phrase “tone-deaf” gets thrown around a lot, but when it fits, it fits, and the university continues to show that when it comes to the gravity of the school’s shared sins here—it simply doesn’t get it.
That it would intentionally bring attention and adulation to the disgraced coach in the context of a game, and so soon after the greatest scandal in college athletics, shows an incredible lack of sensitivity to victims of sexual assault, and proves that just as for Paterno, football and finances are apparently all that really matter. State College is the land that Joe built, and that makes him Teflon.
Before Sandusky’s vile behavior and the school’s cover-up of it came to light, Joe Paterno was as close to divinity in Happy Valley as one can get. Actually, the true tragedy is that to many there he still is, despite the evidence that he repeatedly chose the prestige of the program over the welfare of young boys. To these folks, nothing can taint the championships, the winning seasons, and the positive influence the coach was on decades of young men who played for him—no matter how grievous his actions or inaction in this matter have proven.
It’s difficult to accept when we find flaws in our heroes—especially such fatal ones. Paterno was arguably the most powerful figure in the history of college athletics, with more influence in State College than any coach could have had anywhere, which make the atrocities committed on his watch (and their cover-up) all the more reprehensible, and him all the more culpable. To have such unchecked power, and to neglect to defend the most powerless is about as great a personal failure as one can claim. But hey, they won a ton of games, so…
In the same month that saw former Stanford Swimmer Brock Turner released from prison after only three months for the raping of a young woman, Penn State is once again reminding us again of how privilege continues to disregard the most vulnerable of victims, and just how willing people can be to help them, especially when the sacred cow of college athletics is in danger of being slaughtered.
As the father of two young children, I can’t fathom Penn State not understanding that we simply can’t compartmentalize Joe Paterno’s contributions; that the very mention of his name is now a trigger for so many survivors of sexual assault and those who love them. That those in University leadership could completely miss how terribly insensitive such a gesture rings, boggles the mind.
But perhaps what’s worse, is that tens of thousands of parents of young men and women will likely be in the stadium this weekend, standing and cheering for Paterno, while survivors of sexual assault will once again be reminded again that they really don’t matter, that their trauma really is irrelevant, that those who damage them really don’t pay much of a price.
And those victims will hear loudly and clearly that winning and cash cover a multitude of sins.
I guess the innocence of a young boy just isn’t worth as much as the win-loss record of a beloved folk hero.
