Most days, I live in an idyllic community. Or at least I did before Jerry Sandusky's arrest for child molestation last fall. In the days since then, it's been hard to be a resident of this 'Happy Valley'. We've come under the national spotlight in a way that nobody expected and short of a few individuals, nobody deserved. What I've found throughout this tragic scenario is that if you support Penn State, or God forbid, if you support Joe Paterno, there's an endless stream of people (most of whom do not live here) ready to label you as dirty, corrupt, immoral, or worse.
Like most everyone, I was anxious to read the Freeh report. I wanted to believe that an independent, unbiased investigation could shed light on a tragic situation. That it would put an end to the lingering questions about who knew what and when. And that it would finally detail Joe Paterno's role in all of this. After the initial shock and sadness and repulsion wore off last fall, I stood firmly in Joe's corner. I believed that he was a man of strong moral character who, with limited information, made the same decision that many of us would have made. That he left the allegation in the hands of people he thought better suited to deal appropriately with it and then he went back to his life and his work.
When the report was released last week, I read it in great detail... something I suspect that the majority of people pointing fingers at Penn State have not done. Instead, I suspect that most of these 'informed' people gathered everything they know from sound bytes, from television reports, from news articles on both reputable and less-than-reputable sites. Seems everyone has something to say on the subject...
I am going to go out on a limb here and express what I suspect is the minority (and likely not popular) opinion - after reading through the report, I fail to see the 'smoking gun' that equates Joe Paterno to the devil.
I don't think it's simply because I am an alumna of the university or a resident of the community. I think it's because I sat down to read the report with an open mind. I think it's because in considering the investigation and its results, the conclusions that the Freeh report makes seems to be simply conjecture or, at best, based on circumstantial evidence.
Before you judge me too harshly, I believe that terrible things happened here. But I also believe that people have lost sight of who the criminal is in this case. It was Jerry Sandusky that groomed and molested children. It was Jerry Sandusky who used his high visibility at the university and in this community to take advantage of disadvantaged children. It was Jerry Sandusky that was convicted of these atrocities. Penn State did not do this. The tens of thousands of students, alumni, and faculty didn't do this. The residents of this community didn't do this. Jerry Sandusky did this.
I read something the other day about how Penn State allowed a convicted child molester to have unfettered access to its campus and its football program as if Sandusky had been convicted long ago rather than just last month. This offends me. He was not convicted of anything in the spring of 2001. Nothing.
I understand that different choices could have been made, that there are men who could have intervened and made a difference. But, do I know this simply because of hindsight? Because I have the benefit of knowing what happened in the years after Sandusky was investigated in 1998 or in the years after Mike McQueary walked into Lasch Building in 2001?
I don't know the answer to that. What I do know is this:
Sandusky was investigated in 1998. His behavior was considered inappropriate, but was not considered criminal. The local district attorney chose not to pursue charges. From the Freeh report, I know Penn State administrators believed that the investigation was appropriate and hoped that the event was behind them.
I also know that "Coach" was interested in the investigation because that's what Freeh wants me to know. When asked about it in grand jury testimony, he said that he didn't remember anything... and maybe that is true. Isn't it possible that without charges, without being actively involved in an investigation, this could easily become a 'forgettable' event to a man who at the time was in his 70s. When he was called before a grand jury in January 2011, his health had been on the decline for some time. His speech was sometimes garbled and confused. It's not clear to me that Joe lied rather than time and age made his recollection unclear. And I am not sure it should be so clear to anyone else either.
I know that there's the presumption that Joe himself made the decision to keep the shower incident from authorities. But this assumption comes from one line in one email message... "After giving it more thought and talking it over with Joe yesterday-- I am uncomfortable with what we agreed were the next steps; I am having trouble going to everyone but the person involved". This is the most 'scathing' evidence used by Freeh and the media to reduce the legacy of a man to nothing more than that of a criminal. One sentence from one email. That's it.
I can't help but wonder... if Paterno's sole intent was to hide the crime from the public and from law enforcement, why would he have brought it to Tim Curley or Gary Schultz in the first place? Do any of us have inside information about the conversation that took place between Joe Paterno and Tim Curley before that fateful decision was made?
No.
There's speculation of course, because we are told that Curley would do whatever Joe asked. But look at that statement again... "I am uncomfortable..." and "I am having trouble..." Not 'we'. Never 'we'. 'I'. Always 'I'.
I think that is an important distinction. Perhaps the most important distinction. I find it so difficult to believe that an eight-month long investigation cannot see the difference between these two words or to consider there is different meaning than what was ultimately assigned to it.
Quite honestly, I cannot help but feel as though Freeh went into this investigation with a conclusion already formed and simply looked for the 'evidence' to support it. I believe the investigation was far from complete, despite the more than 400 interviews and millions of email messages. The key players in this tragedy - Sandusky, Shultz, and Curley were advised not to speak to Freeh (who had no authority to subpoena witnesses and could not ask for testimony under oath). McQueary was not interviewed. Nor Tom Corbett.
I find Corbett's omission from the report stunning. This is a man that started the investigation while he served as the Pennsylvania Attorney General. He assigned one officer to the case and let the wheels of justice grind as slowly as possible (nearly three years in total) - perhaps in the name of his own political career. Knowing that Joe Paterno had a strong support base in the state and was an influential member of the Republican party, I think Corbett recognized that to move the investigation forward quickly, to bring down Penn State football and by default, Joe Paterno, could have dealt a death blow to his own aspirations. Once elected, Corbett became an automatic member of the Board of Trustees. Not once in that role did he ask questions in a way that could have tipped Penn State's hat to the coming storm. Not once. How is his inaction viewed so differently from the university's administrators? Why do so few seem willing to bring Corbett's sins to light?
When Joe sat down with Sally Jenkins in January, he said “I didn’t know exactly how to handle it and I was afraid to do something that might jeopardize what the university procedure was,” he said. “So I backed away and turned it over to some other people, people I thought would have a little more expertise than I did. It didn’t work out that way.”
Nothing I saw in the Freeh report conclusively proves to me that I should not believe Paterno's final statement on the matter. And because of that, I find it difficult to condemn him, to discount all of the good things that he did over his lifetime.
I can remember how everyone said eight months ago that more was expected of Joe Paterno... though I do not think that is fair. Part of the problem with a man of Paterno's longevity, his very public stature, is that we, collectively, made him out to be something more than he was. Simply put, he was a man. He was flawed. Fallible. Just like you or me. But most people failed to see him that way. Instead, he was larger than life. He was revered by many. Even now. He was iconic. Even now. But make no mistake. He was human. He made mistakes we like to think we would never make.
Could he have done more? No doubt. But so too could Tom Corbett, Mike McQueary, Tim Curley, Gary Schultz, Graham Spanier, and others who were witness to questionable behaviors.
I find it interesting that in a court of law, one of the few not guilty verdicts that came out of the Sandusky trial related to Mike McQueary's testimony. And I am left to wonder... if he was not seen as credible under the stringent standards of a criminal court, perhaps his tale seemed equally uncredible in the hours and days after the shower incident. Perhaps it really is possible that none of the men recognized Sandusky as the monster he turned out to be.
Certainly when Graham Spanier suggested that he was comfortable with the decision not to go to everyone, but worried what repercussions there would be if anyone found out, when Tim Curley and Gary Shultz agreed with that, these men were making a terrible, immoral choice. Even in not recognizing a monster, they must have realized something was amiss.
I think there is clear evidence that Spanier, Curley, and Schultz knew what choice they were making and what it could mean to them and to the university. But there's nothing concrete that tells me Joe Paterno knew of that decision, that he supported that choice.
To live in Happy Valley these days, you are constantly subjected to the judgements of outsiders, people who call for action... tear down the statue, take his name off the library. I think these are the wrong choices. I don't think a lifetime of good deeds should be easily forgotten. And for now, until there is irrefutable proof that Paterno orchestrated the cover up himself, I stand by my sentiments in Goodbye, Coach.
"Joe Paterno leaves a legacy... When (he) came to State College in 1950, Penn State was an agricultural school in the middle of nowhere. And while we are still in the middle of nowhere, he put this town and this college on the map. There were less than 10,000 students here in 1950. Today, there are nearly five times that number at the University Park campus and nearly ten times that number throughout the Commonwealth. We are an internationally known and respected research university.
Beaver Stadium expanded six times during his tenure here, more than doubling in size and currently seating over 106,000. Because of its success, the football program supports many of Penn State's other athletic programs...
There is a wing of the library named after Joe Paterno, he and his wife donated to the spiritual center and the soon-to-be completed Suzanne Pohland Paterno Catholic Student Faith Center. He's donated a significant amount of money to the Mount Nittany Medical Center, which is currently undergoing an ambitious expansion. They've also supported countless other local charities.
My community is a much better place because Joe Paterno lived here."
Those words are still true. Freeh did not convince me otherwise, and I for one think it's a shame to see so many people jump to conclusions simply because the media says it's so.
As was the case in November, the media is after the big story. Eight months ago, it was not Sandusky, but Paterno they went gunning for as if it were Paterno himself that molested children, that it was Paterno himself that walked into the shower and did nothing. Nobody seemed happy until he was removed from the university. And even then, nobody was happy.
I expect that the next media play will be to call for the NCAA to hand down the 'death penalty' to the football program. Like many people I know in this region, I fail to see what that would accomplish. It would punish football players that were in elementary school when this began. It would punish every student athlete here at Penn State whose athletic program is supported by football revenue. It would punish the charitable organizations that raise funds by working the concession stands during home football games. It would punish the small business owners that depend on the traffic that comes to town on fall weekends.
I am not saying that Penn State should not be held accountable for the actions of their administrators, but I feel like they've taken so many steps in the right direction. Students supporting child abuse organizations, wearing blue to remember the victims of not just this tragedy, but the tragedies that happen across America every day, alumni raising money for RAINN, a significant portion of last winter's bowl game proceeds to sex-crime advocacy groups.
At the end of the day, I feel like everyone needs to remember that it was the action of a few men, not the university as a whole. And to remember that Penn State is taking steps to make things better.
I've said before and I will say it again, I am ashamed of these people who were in a position to do more, to do better, but failed to do so. But I am not ashamed of Penn State.
Instead, I am anxious for the next set of criminal trials. Anxious to see if charges will be filed against Graham Spanier. Anxious for Jerry Sandusky to be formally sentenced and to know that he'll spend the rest of his life behind bars. And after that, I am anxious to move forward. To watch Penn State emerge from this stronger than ever.
And most of all, I am anxious for my Happy Valley to be happy again!
Well said!
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