Joe Paterno, former Penn State head football coach. photo courtesy scm-l3.technorati.com
In my opinion, no one should object to the negative attention or punishments garnered by Jerry Sandusky, Mike McQueary or legendary head coach Joe Paterno from the Penn State football program. There are two kinds of evil people in this world: those who commit evil, and those who witness it with no intention to intercede. There are no three better examples of each than these men.
For those of you living under a rock, former defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky of the Penn State football team is being accused on 40 counts of molesting eight boys since 1994 that he met through his youth program, The Second Mile, which supposedly aims to help troubled boys.
Sandusky was witnessed sodomizing a young boy in a shower in the college’s locker room in March of 2002 by Paterno’s assistant coach, Mike McQueary. Instead of jumping in and physically stopping the rape, McQueary did nothing. In fact, he ran like the coward he clearly is.
What kind of man sees something so horrible and does nothing to stop it? Where is this man’s moral compass? Where is his sense of justice? I’m no man myself, but had it been me, I can guarantee you that I would have jumped in and kicked Sandusky right in his presumably shriveled testes.
To make things worse, he never even called the police. Instead, he waited a day before telling Paterno what he had seen, who in turn reported to a higher-up in the sports division. Nothing happened from then on. There was no investigation into Sandusky’s actions. There was no medical attention for the victim, who was a mere ten years old. And there was nothing to stop it from happening again.
I was outraged when I saw thousands of students rallying for Paterno after he was fired, because he’s no better than McQueary. He cared more about the sake of his career, in football, for Christ’s sake, than the wellbeing and safety of innocent children. Sure, he told someone about it. And then what?
He just wiped his hands clean and walked away. Was he persistent in seeing that his staff member was brought to justice? No. Did he report to the police? No. Did he show any concern for the children in question? No. Joe Paterno showed that he had concern for one thing and one thing only: Joe Paterno.
While some may say that he’s not responsible for these crimes, I disagree; he’s at least partially to blame for this mess. He was aware of the travesty that was occurring within his own locker room and turned a blind eye for the sake of his good reputation; he didn’t want a scandal, especially one involving pedophilia, to tarnish the name of Penn State football. And that, my friends, is a definition of evil.
He could’ve stopped it and instead half-assed any attempt to do so. Because if anyone had the power to bring an end to the 14-year-long spree of child rape, it was the beloved Paterno. He had nearly a decade to do the right thing, and yet he did nothing. Shame on you, old man. You deserve a far worse punishment than just losing your job.
When it comes down to it, Sandusky, though he’s undeniably a sick piece of work and the cause of much pain and misery, was not the only person at fault in this despicable situation. He was enabled to do what he did by selfish, cowardly men, and every one of them, from McQueary to the higher-ups that did nothing, such as Joe Paterno, deserves whatever awful punishment that Karma plans to throw their way. And as for Sandusky himself…well, let’s just say he better not drop the soap while he’s in those prison showers, or he’s going to have a bad case of déjà vu.
- Sarah Venezio
Features Editor
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