"Getting it"

I don’t speak for anyone other than myself, and I never intend to. I view a lot of the information put forth by the media as ignorant or biased based on the content of the individual article or report. They most often contain factual inaccuracies and convey speculation as fact in order to reaffirm their narrative. This doesn’t apply to every voice in the media, as through all of this we have seen individuals stand out against the collective voice. Coach Ditka, Coach K, Phil Knight have all spoke out in support of what Paterno has accomplished.

I watched the B1G “Tribute” to Paterno, and I was appalled at the content. A man who spent 62 years at a university, and for the majority of that presentation, the only topic was the final 3 months of his life. Sometimes it’s just not the place for those discussions, and a man’s memorial is not one of them.

Coach Ditka said it best in his remembrance of Paterno: “Class is a hard thing to define, but you know it when you see it.” What I have seen from many members of the media and from many people in general is a complete lack of class. I’ve said the same thing to family as I’m stating right now: if you can’t respect the man that died, at least respect the people that are mourning their loss. A lot of people haven’t shown that respect and that lies at the heart of all the ignorance and bias. I feel disrespected because of it and for the disrespect several members of the media have shown throughout this entire situation. While you might see a statement made such as “they (the media) are ignorant”, it is based on individual accounts. Just as you typically generalize everyone on this site into a collective “they”, those statements are made in the same vain. The only groups that I’ll define are those that have mourned Paterno’s loss and those that haven’t. For those that have mourned, I share in your loss. For those that do not, I’m sorry for what you haven’t lost. You can call me a cultist if you would like or tell me that attitude is unhealthy, but fortunately for me, I don’t define myself based on other people’s perceptions. That was the final lesson that Paterno taught me.

M1EK is judging Paterno’s conduct from the view of knowing everything we know now, not from the basis of what he knew at the time. He is saying that the follow up he did (talk to McQuery and talk to Curley) was inadequate. It’s only inadequate if you assume he fully understood the nature of the crime, which he could not have because McQuery himself didn’t, and if you assume that he has reason to think that Curley or McQuery weren’t being honest with him when they said it was handled.

In Britain, they call this kind of illogical argument “moving the goal posts.”

But just for fun, I’ll explain it for the 100th time.

What Joe knew at the time was that McQuery saw something upsetting that may or may not have been a crime. Joe trusted Schultz and Curley to handle it properly. Curley talked to Sandusky. Schultz and Curley had a more complete conversation with McQuery. That’s all any investigator could do. That doesn’t mean they did it as well as a professional detective would, but it’s not “they did nothing” as is continually alleged. Schultz was the only one of the group that had heard about the 1998 report and he had to have known that the reason he was in the loop on this at all was because he was the police chief’s boss. If he knew he wasn’t the right person to handle it, it was his job to explain that to everyone else. He did not. He investigated it on his own. And yet he decided there wasn’t even enough evidence to file a formal police report. I don’t see how he came to that conclusion, but he says he thought CYS was aware of this. Not sure why he would think that.

But either way, Joe only having a sketchy report of something that McQuery thought he saw, was told by McQuery – the only witness – that the situation was ok. If McQuery didn’t want to go to the police, there was no point in Joe going to the police, because all they would do is tell him to send McQuery to them. Curley told Joe their plan was to just keep Sandusky from bringing kids around. We don’t know the details of that conversation, but given that Joe knew that McQuery had told Curley and Schultz the whole story and that Joe trusted Curley and Schultz (with good reason, at that point) he had every reason to infer that, if that was their plan, then the situation was as handled as it possibly could be. And Spanier signed off on that plan. Why would Joe contradict Spanier?

And its the “as handled as it can be” is important. It’s quite possible that these guys all came away from this with deep suspicions about Sandusky but not enough proof. They still should have had the real cops investigate it, but their actions are completely consistent with a finding of “suspicious but not proveable.” They did what they could to keep Sandusky out of their locker room thereby shutting down the one “place of opportunity” that they had any control over. It’s not much, but it’s a good step. They also told Second Mile who should have figured out they needed to do something more. They did not.

They may or may not have told CYS. If they did and CYS forgot, then all of this is their fault, 100%. If Schultz really thinks they did, but didn’t because he’s incompetent or suffers from DID, then it’s his fault but it’s not malicious, just stupid. If he’s just lying, then what the hell are we blaming Joe for when the guy he trusted to handle this turns out to be a brazen liar? Those are the three options with Schultz and none of them put blame on Joe. The AG and grand jury seemed to understand that clearly. Why can’t everyone else?

Joe is not Henry VIII. He can’t just have a guy thrown in jail based on suspicion. And even if McQuery felt certain that Sandusky was a child molester, he knew that, if he couldn’t prove it, he couldn’t go around accusing Sandusky of it publicly. A) because that would ruin the man and the Second Mile, so he better have proof (Which, by the way, is what ESPN says about Bernie Fine even though the proof they had was way better than what McQuery had) ( B) If it ever came down to just McQuery’s word over Sandusky’s, absent all of this other evidence that McQuery knew nothing about at that time, the public would believe Sandusky, the well loved assistant and near-saint rather than the young ex-QB who was never all that good and was kind of a dick in high school. McQuery knew that too.

I admit, when I first heard about this, I was not in Joe’s corner. I knew it wasn’t a cover-up because of all the people who knew about, but I really did think that Joe must have had a senior moment. But after understanding who GJRs are written and hearing the testimony in the preliminary hearing, the only mistake I can see that Joe made was trusting the wrong people. Even if he had followed up as M1EK seems to think was essential, Schultz would have just told him “it’s as handled as it’s ever going to be.” Do you really think that Schultz thought “oh, if Joe calls me a second time, then I’ll get off my ass and do my job and prevent child rape, but his first call and McQuery’s testimony isn’ t enough for me to do that. I need further prodding.” Seriously? Just think that through. This is not a 10 year old being asked to clean up his room. This is a guy who rose to being VP of a Big Ten university. If he didn’t grasp the situation after McQuery talked to him and Curley talked to Sandusky, there is absolutely nothing Joe could do to make him grasp the situation.

Besides, as Joe said himself, if he did keep pushing, he would appear to be trying to get Sandusky busted and given the well-known rift between Joe and Sandusky (well known in State College and in PSU circles, but totally unknown by all the assholes in the press who repeat the “heir apparent” canard) he didn’t want to influence the investigation that way.

As for “I wish I’d done more,” most in the press I’ve seen conveniently drop off the “with the benefit of hindsight.” Let me tell you a story about that. An old high school friend of mine killed himself last year. He was more a friend of a friend, but I was still pretty shaken by the news. It was shocking. Nobody saw it coming. He was a well-liked doctor and had two kids. The tough thing is that none of my friends had been able to talk to him in years. For reasons we don’ t understand, his wife apparently forbid him from talking to his old friends or he had decided to cut off communication. We’re not sure. With the benefit of hindsight, we all wish we’d tried harder to reach him. We wish we’d talked more to his brother about it, who had more of a clue what was going on. We wish we’d driven to wear he lived to just say “hey, is everything ok?” We could have done all of these things but we had no reason to think it was necessary. But now we do and it’s too late.

I imagine everyone has stories like that. At least Joe is willing to accept it.

So that’s it. The rest of you will have to pick up the torch of arguing with all the haters on the internet.

[drops mic on stage. Feedback. walks away]