All I'm saying is there is a lot of assuming going on.
The incident the janitor? He didn't tell ANYBODY. How can you hang that on Paterno?
No question it's wrong. I'm just jaded enough and have seen enough to know that the self-preservation response is more common than most of you appear to think. I guess what's amazing to me is that many of you seem to think this is the first time it's ever happened.
Take the emotion out of it.
The first incident happens. Whoever is in charge -- whether it's Paterno or whoever -- makes the decision to preserve the dignity of the school and bury the shit quietly.
The second time comes up. Well fuck. Can't go public with it now, you've already buried it once and how's it going to go now? It's self preservation. Yeah, it's wrong but again? Not the first time. Won't be the last.
I did read the report. I saw a bunch of incidents that were interconnected, but each was isolated in their own way. When you view it in its totality there are assumptions made that everybody involved had that same perspective, they could see all of that and did nothing.
McQueary told nobody but his dad and Paterno (and we don't know that he told Paterno "anal rape"). The janitor didn't tell anybody. The wrestling coach didn't tell anybody. Turcheletta didn't tell anybody. The president didn't. The parents of victims in 1998 didn't. Each only had a slice of the pie.
This is such a horrific thing that I think it's human nature to want to assume that what you know is an isolated incident. Sandusky was apparently pretty good at manipulation and at getting people to believe what he wanted them to believe.
We read the report and know everything he did. Looking at it impassionately, I don't think anybody else involved had that perspective. Based on the facts that are in evidence only McQueary and the silent janitors had actual knowledge of the acts. What they told and who they told it to is less clear.
It's my nature to try to see the opposite side. If this were anybody else I'd be less inclined to do so, but from everything I've ever read, seen or heard about Paterno, from what's said about him by anybody who's ever worked with him, who's ever had any interaction with him I can't reconcile that with the monster he's being portrayed as.
I'm having a hard time understanding why he's a greater villain than Sandusky himself. Or than any of the about a hundred people who knew something or had suspicions but didn't act either.
I get that kids are sacred. Mine certainly are. I get that people have a moral obligation to protect kids above all else. It's what I hope I would do in the circumstances. I also know that far too often it's NOT what happens. Doesn't make it right, just makes it what is. So I'm trying to figure out why and reconcile that with what we know about the people involved.
This is a horrible situation. Sandusky is going to roast in hell as he should. The repeated offenses are, IMO, worthy of the death penalty (and in the most heinous manner possible). Everybody else failed in some way. All failed the morality portion of the exam. Most, apparently, tried to cover the legal portion and with a few exceptions seem to have done so. Again, not right, just what is. So why? What led them to make that decision?
Maybe it's wrong on my part to be able to take the emotion out of the issue and try to figure out the mindset of those who were involved and try to determine (and explain) why they might have acted as they did. Again, doesn't make what they did (or didn't do) morally right, just trying to get some perspective on it and understand.
Nobody defends a serial child rapist. Nobody. Not even the worst criminal. So why did these dozens of (by all accounts and by every action they've ever taken prior) good, decent, upstanding men and women of high integrity end up doing just that? That's the explanation I've been trying to find. It doesn't make sense to me.
Here's the thing. If we don't understand how and why somebody like Paterno -- somebody who was until last week one of the most respected men in the history of all sports -- allows something like this to snowball, if we're unwilling to shed the emotion for a minute and figure out how we got here then we aren't going to learn anything.
If it could happen to him are you really saying it could never happen to you? I think that's a question nobody wants to even entertain.
It didn't just happen to Paterno. Dozens of people failed to act. I'm trying to understand why. What motivated them to keep what they knew or suspected to themselves. With the janitors, it was nothing but job security. Why did everybody else? Was it out of friendship/loyalty to Sandusky? Was it merely self-preservation. Was it the realization that they'd fucked up royally in 1998 and saw no way to resolve it without ruining everything and everybody? Was it that simple? Did one small decision based on limited knowledge keep impacting bigger and bigger decisions down the line?
How did we get here? Are we all 100% sure that nothing like this could ever happen to us or anyone we know? That's the question. If all we do is gather wood to burn Paterno at the stake, how do we learn enough to keep from making the same mistake?
Obviously that's something most are unprepared to contemplate or consider. I'm only turning the rock over to see the other side. I'm trying to get you to step back and look at the slippery slope, look at the choices people were presented and try to understand what drove them to make the decisions they did.
I guess, to me, a blanket crucifixion of Paterno without a thorough analysis of what his actual knowledge and motivations were does nothing but make us feel better about ourselves. We get to pound our chest and say what we unequivocally would have done. And yet time after time we see people -- otherwise good people -- fail to do what we've all said would and should be the natural reaction. Why?
Throwing stones at Paterno, as righteous as that might be, doesn't solve anything or prevent the next situation. Maybe it even drives a witness in the next situation even deeper.
Apparently a dispassionate discussion of the rationale and motivation and an attempt to understand why something happened here (and happens regularly elsewhere, but without the enormous media splash) makes me the same devil as Paterno.
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