Today the NCAA came down pretty hard on the Penn State football program in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky trial and the Louis Freeh investigation. Now the family of Joe Paterno has released a statement, saying in part:
How Sandusky was able to get away with his crimes for so long has yet to be fully understood
and
the sanctions announced by the NCAA today defame the legacy and contributions of a great coach...
Sandusky was able to get away with his crimes for so long precisely because Joe Paterno ignored the fact that a coach that reported to him continued to rape and sexually abuse
children, sometimes right on college grounds. Why does the Paterno family refuse to grasp this? If Paterno had done what any self-respecting person would have done and called the cops on Sandusky back in 1989, many more children would have escaped the abuse they now must live with for the rest of their lives. But Paterno
allowed it to happen, making him complicit in the abuse. This is no better than the Catholic bishops who knowingly moved pedophile priests from parish to parish rather than end their abuse of children.
Paterno himself is the one who defamed his own legacy, and that of Penn State. The NCAA made the right call. As obsessed as some people are with it, football is just a game. The rape and abuse of children cannot ever be considered to be less important than that.
