A Truly Tragic Missed Call

I’ve become quite interested in the controversy swirling around sexual abuse allegations at Penn State recently. To understand what’s happening, it’s important to first have a little background on who the important actors are.

Let’s start with Joe Paterno. Paterno, 84, has been head coach of Penn State University since 1966 and has more wins than any other major college coach in the history of college football. He is a legend and an icon, in college football generally and especially at Penn St. Two factors are important to remember about Paterno: 1) He has a reputation for being one of the best teachers and most ethical people involved in college football. Under Paterno, Penn State has been basically the only national championship caliber football program in the country to have never had major recruiting violations. 2) Paterno has a very long history of hiring former players as coaches, and bringing them up through the coaching ranks.

Second, is Jerry Sandusky, the man at the center of the controversy. Sandusky is charged with multiple accounts of sexual assault of minors, mostly boys in their early teens. Sandusky was a former player at Penn State, and for 30 years was Paterno’s defensive coordinator and right-hand man. For awhile, it was even rumored that Paterno was even grooming Sandusky to be his successor as head coach. In that 30 years, Sandusky coached 10 different future NFL linebackers, an amazing track-record. Sandusky used his prominence to found a charity, The Second Mile, aimed at helping economically disadvantaged kids–reportedly, it was through that charity that he came into contact with many of his alleged victims. Sandusky retired in 1999 from Penn St., but maintained close ties to the school and the football program, was given an office, and was allowed free access of the workout facilities.

The third major actor here is Mike McQueary, currently the recruiting coordinator and Wide Receivers coach for Penn St. McQueary was the quarterback for Penn St. during the 1996 and 1997 seasons, at the end of Sandusky’s tenure, although he would not have been coached directly by Sandusky.

The current controversy really stems from an incident in 2002. McQueary was then a Graduate Assistant working for the football program, when he apparently witnessed inappropriate contact between Sandusky and a minor in a locker room shower. McQueary went home, apparently thought better of it, and the next morning went to Joe Paterno’s house and reported what he saw. Paterno then reported the event to two administration officials: Athletic Director Tim Curley, and Vice President for Finance and Business (a position which also put him in charge of the Campus Police) Gary Schultz. Curley and Schultz then did… nothing. The allegation died. No one at Penn State investigated the allegations or contacted the police, although reportedly Penn State did tell Sandusky to no longer bring children to the main campus. It should also be noted that no one bothered to identify or check-up on the victim of the 2002 incident; Pennsylvania officials are trying to find out who he is right now.

Curley and Schultz have been fired from Penn State, and are currently under indictment for perjury because they apparently denied to a grand jury that they knew anything about any allegations against Sandusky. Legally, Paterno and McQueary have been cleared by the DA for their actions in the 2002 incident, although there are growing calls for both men to be fired. So that’s the question: how much are Paterno and McQueary to blame here?

Let’s start with McQueary. Imagine that you are a young grad student, who has a job doing grunt work at the school where you played and where you hope to coach one day. Late one evening, you hear some funny noises coming from the shower; you check it out, only to spot a legendary figure at your school standing there naked and engaged in some kind of sexual activity. I don’t know what McQueary did, but of course my first reaction would be to leave quickly, so I’m guessing that was his first reaction as well. But then you stop and think about who Sandusky was having sex with–that wasn’t just some guy, that really looked like some kid. You think to yourself, “it’s none of my business if he’s gay–although that allegation could destroy his reputation in football circles… but if that was a kid, I should tell somebody.” Apparently McQueary thought about it, went home and called his father, who told him that he needed to tell Coach Paterno. So you tell Paterno “I really can’t be 100%, but it looked like I saw Coach Sandusky naked in the shower with a boy.” And Paterno says “Thanks for coming to me, I’ll take care of it.”

I can’t be sure that’s what happened. But if we assume something like that sequence of events happened, I can’t blame McQueary at all for anything he did. He reported the incident to the head of the football program, a man who he has known for years and trusts implicitly. Should he have confronted Sandusky at the time? Perhaps, although that would have taken a lot of guts unless he was 100% sure of what he just saw. But how could he be 100% sure, when he just saw a man he respected doing the unthinkable? Who wouldn’t doubt their own eyes in that case, at least somewhat?

Paterno, on the other hand, doesn’t come off nearly as well. Paterno reported the incident to the two people in the school administration in the best position to investigate the situation: the head of the athletic department and the head of the campus police. That was commendable. Where Paterno dropped the ball was that he didn’t follow-up on the matter. The graduate student can be forgiven for trusting that his legendary coach would handle the situation. The long-time head coach, however, ought to know better and should have made sure that someone bothered to investigate the situation or to report the situation to authorities.

Is that a fire-able offense? Yes, with the caveat that Paterno has faithfully served his community and his university for 45 years and he’s 84 years old. So in deference to his many years of service, let Paterno retire at the end of the season–but in response to this transgression, make sure that he does.