Joe Paterno And Human Actions

He was well prepared for the fight of doing and demonstrating that which is right and good, but like any smart general, he chose the battlefield. For years over the course of an unending war he led his troops and gamely fought the battles on the practice field, in the Lasch building, at Beaver Stadium, and in the library.

One day, he was the victim of a sneak attack. The battle came to him, he was unprepared, and he floundered. He made bad decisions, the true nature of which will never be known, and he lost that battle. Like a general whose troops die in an avoidable circumstance, kids got hurt. And like a general, he was appropriately relieved of his command. It may not have been his fault, but ultimately he was in charge and must take responsibility. This does not make him a bad guy, or a monster, or evil, or greedy, or conspiratorial, or an enabler, or anything other than what he was — a righteous leader of men. He won most of them, and there was one he lost.

History has recognized the accomplishments of Grant, Patton, MacArthur, and others to far outweigh their shortcomings. With the benefit of time, the world will see the entirely of the picture of Joseph Vincent Paterno, and will recognize that the good far outweighed the bad.

As far as I can tell, the answers to all of these questions are that Joe didn’t believe he understood the issues well enough to get too involved.

On the one hand, he wouldn’t want to be seen to be trying to help Sandusky out of jam, given that Sandusky worked for him and was an important part of the program. But given that Joe and Jerry didn’t really get along, he wouldn’t want to prejudice it the other way.

Given that McQuery’s testimony wasn’t 100% decisive, he wouldn’t want to accidentally leak to the press or public that Sandusky is a child molester if, it turned out, that he wasn’t. But he also wouldn’t want to mess up the investigation in some way that would somehow put the kid in danger, “tip off the suspect,” or mess it up legally. In retrospect, I think this latter horn of the dilemma isn’t that dangerous, but I can see how he might think that.

Dealing with kids skipping class or getting into fights were issues that Joe had been dealing with since he was a player himself. He was comfortable with those issues and their implications. They were in his wheelhouse. This wasn’t even his own employee, let alone a player over whom he had total authority. Comparing those two situations is bogus.

I’ve gone over this hundreds of times in my head and read all of the relevant testimony over and over. And the conclusion I come to is that it was a group screw-up, but Joe’s part if in was minor. The main fault lies with McQuery and Schultz.

McQuery knew what he saw and a) failed to go to the cops immediately, when that would have done the most good b) failed to follow-up after he saw that it wasn’t really being resolved c) failed to tell Joe, when he had the chance “no, I’m not all right with how this is being handled.”

Schultz was the only one who knew about 1998. He had the most information. He also should have known that the reason Joe told McQuery to talk to him was because he was the head of the police. He should have known that he wasn’t really a cop and couldn’t do a proper investigation. He should have known that they needed to cover their asses by having something in the police files, at least.

I don’t know why those two guys failed as they did. I don’t think it was to cover anything up, because they did tell other people and didn’t make much effort to keep it a secret. They will be judged by their conscience.

Even if Joe had followed up with Schultz more firmly, what good would that have done? Schultz would have told him “there’s nothing here that we can go to the police with” and Joe, given that McQuery didn’t give him all the details and McQuery said he was ok with things, would have had to believe him.

And even if Joe had compelled McQuery to talk the cops, I’m not sure there’d be a different outcome for Sandusky. If McQuery didn’t see a rape and only saw glimpses of things, Sandusky denied it and the kid, scared out of his wits, denied it, what evidence would they have to go with? The existence of the 1998 report didn’t keep Sandusky from working with kids. Why would another report do any more good? I’m not sure it would.

M1EK is wrong again.
JoePa proved that you can have a successful football team without violating the NCAA rules or failing to graduate players. The numbers speak for themselves. He could have machine-gunned down a whole kindergarten class and that wouldn’t change those accomplishments.

Thomas Jefferson slept with his slaves and participated in some dirty political tricks and slandered former friends. That he did those things doesn’t invalidate the Declaration of Independence, make the separation of church and state less of a good idea, or tear down the University of Virginia.

What’s good is good and what’s bad is bad.

The problem arises because we are conflating Joe Paterno the legend and Joe Paterno the man. For the majority of our adult lives, Paterno has been rock solid. He successfully carried out the Grand Experiement. He molded men into boys. He cared about family, and was genuinely interested in people. Years of living humbly in State College and successfully devoting himself to a purpose larger than himself helped create an aura around him. That aura, the mystique, began to define Joe Paterno, the legend.

Meanwhile, Joe Paterno the man continued to live his life by the same guiding principles. However, Joe Paterno was human. He made mistakes. He wasn’t the omniscipent being that we began to believe he was. He made decisions with less than perfect information and relied on the people around him to help him with the problems he wasn’t able to. Sometimes, those people failed. Sometimes, he did.

We also live in a world in which we want desperately to believe that we have some control in our destiny. That every decision we make will provide a desired outcome. We want to believe that if we are good enough, if we live our lives principled enough, than nothing bad can ever happen. So we see a situation like this in which horrible things have occurred. We attempt to examine the timeline and devise a narrative that explains how this could have happened. We want someone to blame. It is a necessary function of belief in complete autonomy.

And so, we examine a situation in hindsight, build a narrative, and blame someone. It helps subvert our own existential thoughts and prevents us from thinking that we don’t control everything. It gives us a false sense of hope and security.

In this case, we see Joe Paterno, the legend, and wonder how he could have not done more. We forget that he was just a flawed man while we search for questions about our own deeply flawed and scary existence. We want to believe we can irradicate evil, and wonder why Joe Paterno, the legend, didn’t see it coming. Why he couldn’t recognize the signs on the wall that are so clear in our narrative written in hindsight. We blame him because we can’t accept that sometimes we can’t prevent evil.

Joe Paterno was human, and as such, was flawed. He made mistakes. One mistake clearly resulted in unimaginable suffering. But that mistake was not made in malice. That mistake could have been made a million times by a million people without the same consequences being suffered. If we judge errors in judgement simply by the consequences and not by the facts surrounding the judgements themselves, then we will always find ourselves confused, angry, and hurt because we will never make sense of this world by doing so.

It’s really this statement by M1EK that is so violently wrong.

“Paterno’s good works now can’t be pushed as an example. That’s horrible to have to say, but it’s how I feel.”

If Joe really did something awful here – which I don’t think he did, but even if he did – you might be able to say that he is not an ideal to be pushed. But that’s probably true for a whole lot of other reasons anyway. Kids growing up today live in a different world than Joe did so he even if he were an absolute saint, he wouldn’t be an example to follow in every aspect of life.

But it is absolute unmitigated stinking bullshit to suggest that because somebody does something wrong, that the things they did right are no longer right. That just doesn’t make any sense.

And with respect to Joe’s “legacy,” it is not what newspaper writers will say about him. So many columnists think that’s what Legacy means – what the wiki article will say or what the biography will say. That is an insignificant part of a legacy.

A legacy is the real stuff one leaves behind, and when it comes to Joe, we can say, as the kids do now, “SCOREBOARD, BITCH.”
Five kids, 17 grandkids, 60 year marriage.
409 wins.
No NCAA violations.
Graduation rate way over the average.
Gazillion dollars earned and donated.
Countless boys made into men and, most importantly, a lot of those boys were headed the wrong way had they not gotten into football and may have gone the wrong way had they gone anywhere else to play (as it is, a few still did go the wrong way. He wasn’t perfect).

Nothing Joe could have done in 2002 would tear down the library or turn those men into bad people, etc, etc. So all those writers out there can shove the"legacy" up their ass.

and quite thought provoking. Its a shame that SOME of our fellow posters have to resort to their usual, knee-JERK reaction that Joe was, somehow, standing next to JS, cheering him on. Unfortunately, the moderators have not sought to ban their ignorant asses yet, but I can hope as I did that, one day, Bin Laden would get shot in the face.

As to the issue of what Joe knew, did, etc., it almost doesn’t matter. The evidence indicates that Joe did follow up with McQuerey and Schultz, at least once with each. But, the evidence shows that he did nothing more. I’m not exactly sure what more a 76 year old football coach was supposed to do beyond donning his red cape and tights and swooping down, picking JS up and hanging him from the top of the Beaver Stadium flagpole. Yet, some on these threads seem to insinuate that Joe should have went vigilante like Charles Bronson in Death Wish 1-11,000,000.

Nevertheless, I personally believe that Joe did the appropriate thing in reporting the possible abuse of children he was not responsible for, allegedly perpetrated by a former employee over whom he had no authority, to the guy who was, at the very least, the administrative head of the campus police department, which had full investigative and arresting powers. However, some think he should have done more…that’s fine.

However, the man, Joe Paterno, a husband, father, teacher and mentor has passed away and there are thousands how mourn his loss. What he did and didn’t do relative to JS is irrelevant at this point as any potential vindication won’t do him any good. All those of us who still believe in the goodness of the man can do is hold on to our beliefs.

For those who, for some reason, still feel the need to villify a man who has passed, a man who has done more for society than you could ever hope to accomplish, might I suggest that you dine this evening on the business end of a Glock 9mm. Short of that, I’m sure the hateful scum at ESPN.com would welcome you with open arms. Either way, STFU and leave us to greive as a community which you are NOT a part of.