Race Credit Karma: Brett's Blog

So, unless you have been living under a rock, you are aware of the allegations that are swirling around Penn State and the football staff.  I do not want to go into all of the details, but according to the official indictment (which can be read online), in 2002, the assistant coach, Mike McQueary, but then a graduate assistant, witnessed the accused, Jerry Sandusky having “anal intercourse” with a young boy who appeared to be around 10 years old in the shower room at Penn State.

After witnessing this heinous act, McQueary left the shower room and called his father.  His father instructed McQueary to leave the premises immediately.  The next morning, McQueary reported the incident to the head coach, Joe Paterno.  The following day, Paterno reported to his superiors that Sandusky was seen in the “showers fondling or doing something of a sexual nature to a young boy.”  A week and a half later, a meeting was called with the higher ups in the Penn State administration in which McQueary recounted what he saw that day.  That was
in 2002.  It is now nine years later, and for most of us, there was no indication that any kind of nefarious activity has ever happened under the watch of the once highly respected coach Joe Paterno.

As I write this, McQueary has been placed on administrative leave.  He was not fired, but placed on leave.  This distinction is important.  Paterno, although stated that he would retire after the end of the season was fired yesterday by the board of trustees of Penn State.  With the firing came approximately 2,000 supporters protesting the firing of Paterno.

After a long hiatus from blogging, why have I come back to write about this particular story?  I am writing about it in part because it is a current story, but mostly because it is an example of how people can be really, really stupid.  I have never hidden the fact that I believe the average person has the IQ of a turnip.  However, I remain shocked when I hear about human behavior that is beyond idiotic.  So, let me take a moment to explain to all my readers that not a single person has a valid reason to support any of the men at Penn State with knowledge of an alleged raping of that young boy in the shower by Sandusky.

Although I could write an entire blog on McQueary, and would prefer to not even think of the depravity of Sandusky, I will focus on why Paterno is anything but innocent in this situation.  The one thing I will say about McQueary, is if he did see what he stated he saw in the indictment, how has he lived with that image for the last nine years?  I have only read the account of the shower scene and I can’t get it out of my mind, and I wasn’t there.

So, what was Paterno’s responsibility in this situation?  And should he be held accountable?  After all, he did nothing wrong, or did he?  Let’s pretend for the sake of argument that McQueary’s account of what happened in the shower is 100% accurate and relayed this story to Paterno.  That means that Paterno did not relay the story to his boss accurately.  No one, and I mean no one would equate “anal intercourse” with something of a sexual nature” as meaning the same thing.  If this is the case, then Paterno has intentionally down played the incident, protecting Sandusky.

No one knows for sure what happened, because we were not there.  So, let’s pretend for argument’s sake that McQueary did not tell Paterno the whole truth.  Let’s for a moment assume that Paterno is telling the truth when he stated that “[McQueary] at no time related to [him] the very specific actions contained in the Grand Jury report” and therefore, it was McQueary downplaying the incident and attempting to protect Sandusky.  Paterno is still at fault.  Why? Because he knew that something had happened between an adult and a young boy.  The fact that the adult was a long time friend should have made the determining of facts an even higher priority.  If you were to tell me that you saw one of my good friends in the shower with a young boy, I am going to need to know the facts.  Either you need to be punished for spreading lies on my friend, or I need to get help for a friend who clearly needs it.  More importantly, I need to make sure that future children are out of harms way.  Either way, it would be my responsibility to discover the facts.  It certainly was Paterno’s responsibility.

This is a sad sad story.  It breaks my heart.  But it also sickens me that there are groups of people more concerned about Paterno than the kids.  I can’t imagine a scenario in which Paterno is clean in this situation.  He either knew what happened and did nothing, or was given a story that demanded further investigation.  We should all look at this story and ask ourselves; are we able to do what is right when no one is looking?  And will we have the courage to protect those in need of protecting?  You should wish Paterno well.  You should feel sorry for him in this horrible situation.  But don’t protest his firing and believe he did nothing wrong.  He did the worse thing imaginable:  He did nothing.

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I have decide to not end this blog with something funny.  I do want to apologize for such a long wait for another blog.  Unfortunately, I have been extremely busy lately, and believe it or not, these blogs take time.  For example, I have been writing this blog for the last two hours.  Crazy huh?  Nonetheless, I hope you will keep reading, and I will do my best to not let weeks (or months) go by in between blogs.  My next blog will be much lighter.  I promise.  I will leave you with the following quote from the movie, A Few Good Men:

Downey: What did we do wrong? We did nothing wrong.
Dawson: Yeah, we did. We were supposed to fight for the people who couldn’t fight for themselves. We were supposed to fight for Willie.

Just about says it all.  I’m just sayin’ …