Hearsay is a tricky thing. It think it is important to remember that in 1976, Sandusky was a nobody. It's why the idea of an entire, program, university, city, judiciary, state was covering up for him for 40 plus years is hard to process.
We know of two formal investigations neither produced an arrest, unless you count his eventual arrest, but I doubt those were ongoing for that long.
To date we have one third party person on record as saying I told Joe I saw this. That was in 2002, and it was reported. It appears there is more to this case, but I don't have a clue how you can prove who knew what, when, and to what degree.
To me the most mind boggling thing is how he could have been investigated by the DA, who later became governor, and come up empty. Sandusky never struck me as a clever man in the interviewa he gave. Did someone squash a DA investigation? Could a FB coach actually do that? If there is evidence of that, then we are talking a historic abuse of misplaced power.
I'm not surprised that Sandusky had 40 years of victims, but I'm having a hard time connecting that to bystanders solely through a civil money grab case.