The Velcro Wall

<sigh>

Over the past few months, I’ve had a swirl of thoughts about the Joe Paterno situation. I’ve started to jot them down now and again, but then something new comes up or other interests take precedence, and I never really complete my commentary.

And I want to preface this by saying that I have NOT been a lifelong Joe Paterno fan. My parents were Big Ten, Ohio State, all the way, fans (having attended THE Ohio State University), and despite having grown up in PA, I was not a Penn State fan. I really didn’t like them. And as I grew older, I developed a serious chip on my shoulder about how big-athletic program schools give their athletes everything…scholarships, money for room and board, tutors to “help” them pass their classes, all the stupid shit and perks that athletes get for playing a stupid game and never having to work at classes, while the average Joe Student has to work three jobs and graduate under a mound of student loan debt, just to go to a relatively cheap state school that no one has ever heard of. (Penn State is NOT a state school — it is affiliated with the state system of higher education in PA but it is NOT a state school and is therefore more expensive than the 14 state schools in PA.)

I didn’t become a Joe Paterno fan until I learned about how he makes sure his players go to class, and how he makes sure his players graduate with an education, just in case that whole football thing doesn’t work out. In an industry that seems to promote a strong sense of entitlement “just for being you!”, Paterno did things differently. He made sure his kids earned their accolades, and earned them for legitimate achievement. He cared about the future of his players, not just about the years they played for him.

This weekend the famous, and now infamous, and yes, Legendary Joe Paterno has died. And while many have shown their respect and reverence for the man, many still insist that the rest of his life’s work was negated by one single decision about the alleged actions of another man. Yes, I use the word alleged, even though there seems to be no question that Jerry Sandusky did molest young children, and worse yet, created a charity ostensibly to help those same kids but more likely to lure them in as victims.

But let’s go back to Joe. All I want to do here is provide some possible perspective — I don’t know more than any other sports fan about what actually happened. I’m just trying to figure out how it’s possible, given the person Joe Paterno is believed to have been, that he didn’t do more about what Sandusky was doing. How is it possible that he made the decision he did — to not be pro-active or to pursue more information.

Two friends of mine have made comments similar to the following:

“I know that you knew you made a horrible mistake, looking the other way and ignoring the blatant signs that your friend and colleague was a pedophile.”

“His inaction in the Sandusky scandal overrode any good he did. Common Sense would indicate to follow through if you heard a child was being sexually abused.”

I want to be clear, I’m not trying particularly to defend Joe Paterno. But those statement are just RIFE with the kinds of assumptions and generalizations about the situation that make me want to have this conversation with the rest of you.

Let’s start with who Joe Paterno was. Joe Paterno was “old school.” There are absolutes in life that hold true to who YOU are and they are the kinds of absolutes to which you hold your friends and collegues. I generally believe that the following are included on the “Joe Paterno List of How to Conduct Your Life”:

1. You go to college, you study, and you get a degree.
2. You go to work every day and you work hard.
3. When you play a game, you play to win, but you play it fair.
4. You don’t EVER hit a woman.
5. You DON’T have sex with children.

Okay so I don’t think it’s a stretch to assume that these are some of the standards by which Joe Paterno lived his life. I also don’t think it’s a stretch to assume that Joe held the people around him to the same standards.

Sandusky had been a graduate assistant in the football program in 1966, and then returned to Penn State as an assistant coach in 1969. He coached in increasingly higher levels until he retired in 1999. That’s 30 years.

So first, I want you to think about someone you’ve known and worked with and trusted for 30 or more years. I can’t because except for elementary school friends, there’s no one I’ve known for 30 years, and certainly no one I’ve been close to, outside of family, for 30 years. But I can go back 20 years for a few close friends. 15 years to people I know and would implicitly trust. Bet you can too.

So think about that person.

Now…think about someone you don’t know as well and with whom you have not worked for very long, coming to you and telling you that this person you’ve known and worked with and trusted and had dinners with and shared successes with…you’re being told that “I saw him horsing around with a kid in the shower…I’m not sure what they were doing, and it might have been sexual. I just don’t think it was right.”

Stop! I know what you’re thinking…and just hold on for a second.

A New York Times article from November 2011 on the Sandusky scandal, stated the following — as was indicated by the grand-jury report. (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/17/sports/ncaafootball/internet-posting-helped-sandusky-investigators.htm)

Paterno, by his own account to the grand jury, met with Tim Curley, the university’s athletic director the next day and told him of McQueary’s account, saying the assistant had seen Sandusky “fondling or doing something of a sexual nature to a young boy.”

McQueary, who by then had been elevated from graduate assistant to an assistant coach and recruiting coordinator, laid out for investigators what happened next. It took a week and half, a time lapse that investigators find deeply troubling, for Curley and Schultz to call him to a meeting. McQueary told investigators, and later the grand jury, that he had explained to the two men in graphic detail what he had witnessed.

Curley and Schultz gave different accounts to the grand jury of what transpired in that meeting. Curley said McQueary saw “inappropriate conduct” that he termed “horsing around” between Sandusky and the child, and Schultz said he had “the impression that Sandusky might have inappropriately grabbed the young boy’s genitals while wrestling.”

McQuery says that he “explained in graphic detail what he had witnessed.”  That statement, and that statement alone, is the thing I find suspect about all of this.

McQuery witnessed the event in 2002. If Joe Paterno died at age 85 in 2011, in 2002, he would have been 76.

I will grant you that Joe Paterno was probably not your typical septuagenerian. But I would be willing to bet all the money in my wallet right now that the 28-year-old McQuery, when talking to this “God of a Man” within Penn State, never once used the words “rape” or “anal sex” or “sodomy” or “molest” or even “pedophile” when he told Joe Paterno what he saw or what he thought he saw. Which means that once that information got passed on through Paterno to the head honchos at Penn State, it probably got filtered even more.  To the point at which no one even bothered to discuss any of it with the school’s counsel.

So when my friends use the terms “blatant signs” and “heard about a child being sexually abused” to describe what Joe Paterno MUST have known, I bristle a little because I honestly don’t think he saw it that way. I honestly don’t think he was given anywhere near enough information to change what he thought he knew about Sandusky. A man he had known and worked with and trusted for OVER 30 YEARS.

I have a little perspective on this that I’m going to share with you now. It’s not a direct correlation but it does give me some understanding as to what happens when you report sexual conduct of other people in the workplace based on heresay.

At one of my jobs, I was the lead tech writer and we had gotten a new writer recently, as well as a new manager. This new girl wasn’t young but she was really cute and while not stupid by any stretch, didn’t seem to be terribly familiar with the politics of office workspaces and the best way to get by and be able to succeed at your job.

Anyway, one day she came to me and wanted to talk, outside, privately. She told me a story that indicated that our new boss had effectively told her that as long as she wore tight, low cut outfits, that she would be able to succeed at her job and maybe even get promoted. It might have even been more blatent and lurid than that, but it was a while ago and frankly I can’t remember for sure. But I know the incident, as told to me, was clearly overt sexual harassment — promising success at your job because of sexual favors, even if not specifically sex.

Well she told me this, and she didn’t know what to do. She didn’t want to report it because she didn’t want to get fired. But she didn’t want to spend every day at work avoiding a guy who was going to be trying to look down her shirt or up her dress every day.

So I took it upon myself to report it. First to someone I trusted who was in a managerial position — I needed advice as to how to proceed. At this point the whole thing is just heresay — “this is what she told me” — and I wasn’t sure who would want or need to know, and what they’d even be able to do about it.

Well, long story short, I had to re-tell the story she told me several times over – to managers and HR people and blah blah blah. And each time I told it, it sounded more and more ridiculous. I don’t know if this guy actually said or did these things or not. I hadn’t worked with him for that long and really didn’t know what kind of guy he was. He certainly never said these things to me. Other people were interviewed about the incident, people who may have had similar experiences or known peripherally what was going on. But they really didn’t want to be a part of it either. I reported it because I thought this girl was telling the truth and really was concerned for her job. But in retrospect, maybe I was wrong in that assessment. And whose job was really on the line? Did I ruin his life because I passed on her story? Was she telling me the truth or what she just being a bitch? Or is he the sleazeball? I have no idea. And again – didn’t know either of them well enough to say I trusted what either of their stories was.

So take that scenario and make it bigger…with a lot more implications and investigative involvement. Heresay that may or may not have been terribly clear or terribly well relayed, talking about not only ruining lifelong careers but personal lives as well. We all know how once the media reports something it MUST be true, regardless of what actually plays out in the courts (see John DeLorean for a prime example). So when you’re talking about a friend and co-worker of three decades, and you’re talking about molesting kids, (the same guy you’ve watched raise money and found an organization to HELP young kids), you’re going to be kinda particular about what you say and how you say it and what happens after that. Especially if the information YOU’VE been given is second hand. I know how hard it is to tell someone, “well this person told me that they…”

As an obvious aside, it seems to me that McQuery knew enough to go to the police, especially if his latest statements are true. His were the first-hand accounts. Which is what makes me highly suspect of his saying that he told anyone about what he saw “in graphic detail.” But that’s not the topic here.

In hindsight, it appears that Jerry Sandusky is a very very VERY bad man. And hindsight being what it is, yes, Paterno, Curley, Schultz, and Spanier all should have done more than they did. Yes, the attorney general’s office should probably have done more than it did and a damned site sooner than it did. This guy had been under investigation with allegations brought against him as early as the mid-90′s. But any prosecutor will tell you that prosecuting sexual crimes is VERY difficult, especially when the predator is as good at what he does as Sandusky clearly is. He picked his victims very carefully and primed them very carefully and there’s a reason he was able to get away with it for so long without anyone doing anything about it.

My son asked me the other day why Joe Paterno got fired. I thought about it and I tried to explain a little of what happened — that Joe was told what someone saw and while he reported the incident to his bosses, he maybe should have gone to the police or followed up on the report. My son asked me, “Well, he didn’t do anything wrong. And didn’t he do what he was supposed to do? Why did they fire him for that?”

And I thought for a second and said, “He got fired because he was in charge. It happened while he was the head coach and when things like that happen, you gotta blame someone. When bad things happen while you’re the boss, sometimes the boss has got to go.”

And that’s pretty much the crux of it — Joe was the Head Honcho and it was one of his coaches (retired or otherwise) who was busy using Joe’s facilities to do bad things. I strongly doubt whether Joe really knew what was going on — there’s a whole set of layers of coaches and staff between the Head Coach and the day to day happenings at athletic facilities. God knows, I worked at Army Athletics at West Point, and while I would have regular contact with a lot of the “lesser” sports and coaching figures, I didn’t meet the head football coach once. Assistants, yes. Lackeys, yes. But even at a lower-echelon school like Army, the head football coach is more a figure than a real person. Yes there are lots and lots of stories about how personable Joe was and how he certainly never saw himself as larger than life, and certainly never acted that way. But that doesn’t change the reality of the caste system that exists in top-level college football programs.

So thinking about it with the perspective of a 30-year relationship with the accused, the possibility that McQuery’s eyewitness account to Paterno or anyone else in PSU leadership positions wasn’t exactly graphic or detailed, makes me think that the hindsight in this situation is way way clearer than any understanding of it at the time of any of the incidents in question. I just don’t think it’s possible for Joe Paterno to have actively covered up anything, or to have known that he should have done more. It’s easy to think of ourselves as objective from out here. But what if someone came to me and told me that YOU had done these things. Should I believe them?

I think everyone believes that Joe was wracked with guilt over his inaction once he realized how serious the allegations against Sandusky were. Once he realized for certain the kind of man he’d harbored in his fold, and how he’d facilitated those horrifying acts, albeit unintentionally, I think Joe must have actively wondered whether the good he’d done in his life was enough to make up for it.

That’s certainly not MY call to make. But I think, on the whole, it was. It doesn’t excuse it. There are no excuses in life. But it does tip the overall scales in his favor and does not, in any way, undo his positive effect on the generation of people who crossed his path.