Just to start this all off I want to let you all know I am in a hospital and have been since about 12:30pm on 11/9/11, currently with some IV antibiotics being pumped into me. So being me I chose to watch Sportscenter multiple times even though it's essentially the same thing. Now there were two major stories focused on today. The NBA lockout, which garnered significantly less attention, and the subject of this blog. The Penn St. scandal. I am going to skip the background here because if you chose to read this you probably have an idea about it already.
Gerald Sandusky had inappropriate occurrences with young boys ages 7-13 roughly. I read the court case behind this which I will link at the bottom of the article for those interested (Warning: It has graphic and in depth material throughout so proceed at your own risk.) In this court case there were eight victims being dealt with. Now seven of these eight victims had been violated on Penn State's facilities. This in itself is a problem. Sandusky would invite the boys to football games and other team things. These were like gifts to the boys, which he was meeting through a charity he founded for young boys called "The Second Mile". He would then continue on the relationship between him and the boys which I will not go into depth in this blog. But why is this a big deal in the sports world? For those of you who don't know Joe Paterno (Joe Pa), Penn State's head coach from the past 45 years, was just very recently fired over this. Now in the court case it was only said that Joe Pa was aware of one of the offences. Victim number two was brought to his awareness. Now chronologically Victim two was the 7th out of 8 boys to be violated (The eighth occurred at the high school Sandusky went to coach at after his time at Penn State.)
Joe Pa was notified by a graduate assistant who witnessed the act. Joe then proceeded to notify the athletic director who was his direct superior. The AD and also Penn State's Senior Vice President for Finance and Business had a meeting with the graduate assistant who was a witness, Paterno was not present. The graduate student later received a phone call from the AD saying they took Sandusky's keys to the locker room away from him and they reported the incident to Sandusky's charity. The graduate assistant was never questioned again until he testified in front of the Grand Jury in late 2010. To me this implies the AD and VP threw this under the bus and decided to not worry about it. Joe Pa did his legal obligation in this matter by reporting this to the upper levels of Penn State, who are to deal with any occurrences of this like as stated by law. He also was not aware it was a case of rape. Paterno did say though on 11/9/11, "In hind sight, I wish I had done more." Joe Pa who is 84 and spent 61 years of his life has now been fired by Penn State due to this mater.
This firing is highly questionable, first off Penn State is currently 8-1 (5-0 in the Big Ten). Penn State is in the running for a Big Ten title. This is not necessarily important though. I can understand the firing in a sense. Do I think the firing was justified? No. Paterno had announced earlier on November 9th that he would retire at the end of the year. The Penn State board of advisers decided to fire him. How they went about it was very disrespectful too. The man who had given 61 years of his life to this program was fired by phone call, not face to face. And even more so they gave Joe Pa a number to call, they couldn't even call him themselves.
I have lost a lot of respect for Penn State's adviser board and Penn State as a whole for how they handled the case to start. Joe Pa is still highly regarded and respected by me. I wish he was not fired but I don't have the power to decide. I my opinion a legend was unjustly fired today. Best of luck Joe Pa.
Let us remember as well the victims. There is more than just a sports story here. May the victims be in our thoughts and have the best of luck as they move on with their lives.
http://cbschicago.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/sandusky-grand-jury-presentment.pdf-----Link to court case, once again it has graphic material so enter at your own risk.
