It was obvious that the witness was distraught over what he saw, but he at no time related to me the very specific actions contained in the Grand Jury report. Regardless, it was clear that the witness saw something inappropriate involving Mr. As coach Sandusky was retired from our coaching staff at that time, I referred the matter to university administrators.
In the meantime, I would ask all Penn Staters to continue to trust in what that name represents, continue to pursue their lives every day with high ideals and not let these events shake their beliefs nor who they are. Sunday was the day that television cameras began to surround the Paterno home on McKee Street. On Monday, the family tried to persuade Paterno to read the presentment. He objected that he already knew what was in there, but they told him there was no room left for illusion.
They think you had to know because you know about everything. The attorney general of Pennsylvania, Linda Kelly, had been in office for only a few months. Her predecessor, Tom Corbett, had initiated the grand jury investigation of Sandusky more than two years earlier.
He was now governor and would play a substantial role in what was to follow. On Monday, though, Kelly held a press conference to discuss the Sandusky indictment. Had he used what so many people saw as his immense power to stop Jerry Sandusky? One of the people on the podium with Kelly was state police commissioner Frank Noonan.
After the press conference ended, Noonan made his way out to the reporters. He had something to say: "Somebody has to question about what I would consider the moral requirements for a human being that knows of sexual things that are taking place with a child I think you have the moral responsibility, anyone.
I think you have a moral responsibility to call us. The story was charging toward Paterno at warp speed. Even if Noonan had not said anything at all, the question of whether Joe Paterno lived up to his moral responsibility would have been asked again and again, in offices and bars and churches across America. It would have been argued ceaselessly because he was Joe Paterno, the all-time winningest coach, and he had been celebrated for almost a half century as a man of integrity.
On Monday, Paterno coached practice while the media swarmed his home. He had a regularly scheduled Tuesday press conference, and when he got home he prepared what he would say. He intended to use that press conference to explain what he did and when he did it. On Monday night, Penn State sent out a press release to the media stating that Paterno would answer questions only about football.
Paterno said they never talked about it with him. Scott Paterno told his mother, "I think you need to brace yourself. They could fire Dad. Journalists began to line up outside the football stadium three hours before the press conference on Tuesday morning.
On one side of the stadium, students rested and studied in the tent village they called "Paternoville," waiting for front-row seats to one of the biggest games of the year. Around the corner from Paternoville, journalists were camping out for front-row seats to the biggest press conference the school had ever had.
Back at the house on McKee Street, the family prepped Paterno for the press conference. It was not going well. He had never developed the talent for being concise. His whole life he had rambled. This was a charming quality when people were asking him about, say, Al Davis, and he started to talk about all the people who had grown up in Brooklyn. In this case, though, his ramblings made him sound unsure. Even in the short time he had spent before the grand jury, he had rambled. Here is his answer when asked if "fondling" was the right term to describe what McQueary had told him:.
Obviously, he was doing something with the youngster. It was a sexual nature. Obviously, I was in a little bit of a dilemma since Mr. Sandusky was not working for me anymore. Each of these could lead to a dozen other questions.
Family and friends play-acted as reporters and fired questions at him: Did you know about ? What did McQueary tell you? Paterno answered, got upset, answered again, rambled a bit more. The reporters who knew Paterno best understood that this press conference was going to be a fiasco of the highest order. With his hearing problems, his age, his crankiness, and his susceptibility to talking around his answers, along with the blood-in-the-water media frenzy that was building, they knew this press conference would make things much worse for him.
Later, a rumor surfaced that the university was going to have its own press conference. McKee is a quiet, tree-lined street just off campus. For the next few days, the parking lot of Sunset Park was crowded with satellite trucks. Family members remembered looking out the window and seeing their neighbor raking autumn leaves in between the legs of camera tripods. That night they called consultant Dan McGinn, whose job, in his own words, is "to help our clients solve their most complex problems.
When McGinn arrived at the house, the Paterno family and friends were almost physically holding Joe back from giving a press conference right then and there. McGinn made a couple of quick assessments: First, Paterno was in no shape to speak to the media; with the atmosphere this toxic, anything he said would make the situation much worse.
Second, Paterno was going to have to retire; the damage had been too great. Joe Paterno, in his 66 years at Penn State, has done so many things for this community. Not only is he the winning-est coach in college football history, the greatest college football coach of all time, have the most bowl appearances and bowl wins, but he has won in life as well.
He has won with the hearts of all who he has affected. Even though his body may have died, his legend still lives on. He lives on in the millions of dollars he's donated to the library and other projects at the school.
He lives on in the hearts of all the players, coaches, co-workers, and people who have openly stated over the years and especially in the past few months how Joe Paterno has taught them to be successful in life, to be a better person. Many current and former Penn State players talk about how great Coach Paterno was, and how they wouldn't have been who they are now, successful in life either in the NFL or another profession, if it wasn't for this great man.
Recently the scandal broke out with Jerry Sandusky, and Joe Paterno took a lot of heat. But now, in his time of death, I feel it is only right to set the record straight. They were bashing Joe Paterno all along for only reporting to his superiors, but yet, with the Syracuse scandal, they did the same thing, and didn't report to the police. What makes ESPN's situation even worse, is that while Sandusky is on trial now, ESPN's failure to do anything resulted in an alleged pedophile getting away, as he is now out of the statute of limitations.
As far as the Penn State, no, the Jerry Sandusky scandal, there is some information that the media leaves out so Joe Paterno, this great legend, can be attacked. First off, Mike McQueary allegedly witnessed the incident, he should have been the one to go to the police. He may have been a graduate assistant, but he was 28, not some helpless year-old. Second, Joe Paterno did what he was legally supposed to do by reporting to his superiors.
Third, both the District Attorney and Attorney General knew, but refused to press charges. Yet Joe Paterno seems to take more blame than the alleged pedophile Jerry Sandusky, the witness Mike McQueary, his superiors, and the DA and Attorney General who refused to press charges or do anything about the alleged incidents.
Joe Paterno was the only one who really did what he was legally supposed to do, and yet he got attacked by the hypocritical and heartless media. The Board of Trustees then fired him in the most disgraceful way—over the phone. The Board of Trustees wouldn't even send someone to his house to inform him, or let him finish his season after he said it would be his last season.
This was classless. At the final home game against Nebraska, I was in the student section. Now Joe Paterno is gone, and some say his legacy has been tarnished, or at least damaged. I say it hasn't. If you actually look at the facts, and see how Joe Paterno, if anything, is the least to blame in this scandal, along with everything he has done for this University and for many people in and out of the University, you will know that his legacy should not, and will not be tarnished.
The more strongly we identify with a particular group, the more vehemently we defend its members and ideals—a trait that experts think evolved along with early human society.
Banding together and protecting one another allowed our ancestors to survive, and so to this day we are quick to cheer on our comrades and feel animosity toward rival groups. Many scientists think this in-group psychology explains prejudice , racism and even sports fandom. Most of the Penn State students who rioted Wednesday night have social identities that are built around a lifelong allegiance to the school.
But setting that aside for now, the fact remains that these particular students do have an incredibly strong identity as Nittany Lions—and recognizing that identity can help us understand their behavior.
Their actions during the riot were systematic and easily explained from a social identity perspective, Galinsky points out. And leaders in general are hard to indict, especially those like JoPa who have near-mythical stature. The idea that a living person can be deified is not surprising from an evolutionary point of view. A crucial component of the social cohesion that allowed our human ancestors to survive was religion, explains Freek Vermeulen , associate professor of strategy and entrepreneurship at the London Business School.
Joe Paterno is both a deified leader and the living symbol of Penn State, inextricably bound up with the identity of the students who reacted so emotionally last night. In that light, it makes more sense that they took to the streets.
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