If there are to be arguments about this, at the very least people should agree on the facts.
I'm always caught by the media spin that diverges far from the facts. There is one reporter who broke this story and has been on it from the beginning, and that's Sara Ganim. She has been writing articles on it daily. But it seems the rest of the world has moved on. I understand. The story is full of horrors. But then the knee-jerk reactions in the diaries show a need to respond to Paterno's death with little curiosity about the actual details.
1. The media used the grand jury presentment to make its decisions about what Paterno did or knew. There seemed to be little care as to what type of document a presentment actually is. Quite apart from the presentment is actual grand jury testimony.
2. Both the pretrial and the actual grand jury testimony conflicted with what the prosecutor presented.
3. McQueary, the witness to the molestation, stated that while he did not witness child rape, he saw Sandusky behind a child whose arms were on the wall. Prior to that he heard slapping sounds (the prior hearing was before the visual). This is what McQueary said in his testimony. Certainly, that image is consistent with anal rape. But McQueary's own testimony states that he never told Paterno this. He was distraught, he said, and never revealed what he saw to Paterno.
4. McQueary's testimony has actually been countered by multiple people, including a doctor who spoke to him on the night of the molestation. McQueary told others that he saw a nude boy in a shower stall with Sandusky but that there was no sexual contact. He reported that he saw a boy stick his head out of a shower stall, while an arm reached over and pulled him back in. The doctor for some reason said this did not rise to the level where he thought fit to report it. I don't know why, sound fishy to me. I think the witness dropped the ball back in 2002 by not conveying what he saw.
5. Now, what he did see was certainly enough to report to child services and the police, and Paterno should have done so. I think that was a big mistake by Paterno. But a cover-up?? No. People say this was done to protect football BUT that doesn't explain two things.
A. If they were so interested in protecting the football program, then why did they report the 1998 shower incident to the police and the local DA. In fact, they even reported it to child protection services for the State of Pa. So, someone needs to explain to me why, given the report in investigation in 1998, it was deemed a cover-up in 2002? It makes no sense. They wanted to protect the program in 2002? But not 1998? What's the difference? The only differences I can think of are that Sandusky was a coach in 1998, but not 2002. But that means they should have been more concerned about reputation in 1998. Yet, the incident was first reported to PSU sports and PSU head of police Schultz and was subsequently reported to police and the DA, who conducted a sting on Sandusky before dropping the charges. Both the DA and child protection services deemed the incident a case of a man showering with a young boy and scrubbing him down. They let it go. Now, there's a lot to say here about the DA and the protection of children. The Schultz fellow is the same head of campus police that Paterno reported the 2002 molestation to, and Schultz is also the guy who did not report 2002 to other police forces. His investigation consists of confronting Sandusky and getting the name of the child (nothing is known yet if he did more than that).
B. About PSU's rep, realize that the Sandusky story had been out for years and was being reported by Ganim without many taking an interest in it. It was out there since 2008. If Sandusky's association with PSU was a blight on the school, no one seemed to notice. I believe two things caused the media conflagration. One, a possible cover-up. Two, the horrific details of child anal rape. If you compare the case to what happened at Syracuse, you notice that Boeheim's reaction to events was very similar to Paterno's (i.e. not having a clear picture of the gravity of the situation) and so were the Presidents' reactions at either school. The difference: the sordid details about the actual molestation that occurred. The audiotape of the molester at Syracuse did not delve into actual details of the molestation. At PSU it did. Furthermore, there were multiple victims in the PSU case, while at Cuse we only have a couple guys and the wives of a few men who are now dead.
6. Paterno screwed up, and deserved to be fired, IMO. But it was a mistake, and not a cover-up. I don't know if any of you are in the position to hear complaints about abuse. I have heard them in the past. In all cases, I reported to my superior, had discussions about the nature of the complaints. In a few cases, my superior suggested that the claims not be pressed through official channels. In one case, I felt uneasy about the recommendation. In another case, I agreed with the decision not to push the allegations officially, which turned out to be the proper decision. Honestly, as a subordinate, I was glad that my superior made the decision for me. I may have CYA'd by reporting it officially with all the ramifications involved. Now, I'm even more glad that my place of employment issued a memo shortly after PSU/Syracuse stating that all allegations of abuse and/or violence are to be reported directly to police, not superiors. That clarifies things. Paterno says he felt these tensions, and since it was reported to him that Sandusky was in the shower nude (again) with a boy, he was inadequate to deal with it, was uncertain of the protocols, so he reported to the head of campus police, assuming it was within his expertise. I think that was the wrong decision, but people are making it out that they'd know what to do with 99% certainty. Having been in that position myself, I think people who state that are little too confident. If someone reported anal rape to me, then yes of course, you report a rape without a doubt. Even a boy in a shower with a man is enough, but as you saw in 1998, apparently the authorities are not that keen to prosecute. I might deserve to lose my job even by making the wrong decision, but to go so far as to say Paterno was complicit or involved somehow, that's too much for me.
I encourage people to read Sara Ganim and to realize why the presentment was crafted in the manner it was. There's a political element involved here too, hatred between state leadership and theformer leadership at PSU, and Ganim is on top of this in terms of how the partisan political forces issued a presentment that ended in charges on two people (Curley and Schultz) who--however you feel about their failure to act--will almost certainly not be found guilty of perjury. Why? Because the witness did not reveal the extent of what he saw (assuming he saw child rape).
