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Message: [QUOTE="LStudfellow, post: 2219032, member: 5436"] Ok - so as not to over-react and say your post reads as a typical JoePa apologist who makes it seem as if JoePa was all mighty and powerful at Penn State for decades on everything except this situation... Let me ask you and anyone else who defends JoePa and his lack of action the following questions: 1. What would YOU do if you were the head coach of a team, and one of your assistants was accused of abusing a kid. The story you are told is not clear, but you know something must have happened. Would you do nothing? Would you just report it to your superiors and leave it at that, never inquiring about what came of it further? Or would you have interviewed everyone involved in the situation (including the kid, who is there at the football camp YOU are running) to get to the bottom of it... and then push to get law enforcement involved once you realize that something terrible and criminal may well have happened. Add into it that no one at Penn State at that time had more power than Joe Paterno - not even President Spanier. Paterno could have easily gotten law enforcement involved with zero interference from anyone. But he didn't. If you can honestly say you would have taken Joe Paterno's path, I am sorry, but you are totally lying. Furthermore, in your post you are doing what I have read so many people who support Paterno do - you try to separate the 2001 incident from anything that came before it. As if Paterno's memory was erased between what happened in the 1970's, 1980's and up through 2001, and then in 2001. [URL='http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/06/us/jerry-sandusky-victims-paterno-penn-state/index.html']Sandusky victim: Joe Paterno told me to drop abuse accusation - CNN.com[/URL] and this [URL='https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/early-lead/wp/2016/07/12/joe-paterno-knew-of-jerry-sandusky-abuse-in-1976-per-testimony-in-newly-unsealed-records/']New court documents suggest others at Penn State knew of Jerry Sandusky abuse[/URL] As these articles and many others state, you can not. The fact is that Joe Paterno was complicit in allowing a sexual predator to roam freely under his watch for upwards of 40 years after the first incident we know about that was brought to his attention (in 1971, then 1976, for starters). 40 YEARS! Yes, there is a lot of 20/20 hindsight and Monday morning quarterbacks in a lot of situations. But not in this case. There is way too much evidence available that shows Joe Paterno could have, and should have done something to stop Jerry Sandusky, a coach on his staff, from sexually abusing young boys for decades before it finally came to an end. The capper for me was this: why did Joe Paterno refuse to back Sandusky as his successor in the mid 1990's, leading to Sandusky leaving his position as Defensive Coordinator in 1998? The general belief at the time was that Sandusky, the supposed mastermind of such brilliant game plans as the one that held the explosive Miami Hurricanes to 7 points in the 1987 de facto National Championship game in the Fiesta Bowl, was Paterno's heir apparent. Paterno's refusal to back Sandusky, his supposed friend, never made sense - until this scandal broke. This scandal brought the missing pieces together. Paterno knew that he could never back Sandusky, because he already had an idea of what Sandusky was. This whole episode was disgusting - and unfortunately there are only filthy hands of those in power at Penn State, and a number of other state government positions at different points during those years - and that absolutely includes Joe Paterno. [/QUOTE]

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