I know many will consider it punishment enough that Paterno is resigning in disgrace. The outpouring of support by misguided students for whom football is a religion and Paterno is god is testament to this fact. But, here again, just as decades of pastoring is not sufficient mitigation to grant leniency to a Catholic bishop who stood by and allowed a pedophile priest to continue raping little boys, decades of coaching (46 years — racking up a record number of wins) is not sufficient mitigation to grant leniency to Paterno who stood by and allowed his assistant coach to do the same.
Accordingly, not only should the university force him to resign immediately, but prosecutors should have him arrested too.
(“Penn State’s Catholic Church problem,” The iPINIONS Journal, November 10, 2011)
If ever there were a case where a lifetime of good could (indeed should) be fatally undermined by one act, this is it.
Ironically, I suspect Paterno wished he were dead when the details of this child-sex abuse became public last November. After all, it exposed him as showing more concern about protecting his football program from scandal than protecting little boys from the pedophile clutches of his assistant coach. Well, he was finally put out of his misery yesterday when he died of lung cancer. He was 85.
No doubt many people will shed tears for Paterno, and do all they can to salvage his reputation and legacy. But I prefer to save my tears for those little boys, and will do all I can to remind people of how he betrayed them so unconscionably.
In fact, I say forget the 350 players Paterno helped make it into the NFL. Think instead of how many boys he stood by and allowed Sandusky to molest and rape … for decades. Hell, that he knew of just one boy and did nothing to quarantine this monster is damning enough for me.
As for his legacy, there’s something almost feudal about Paterno, on the one hand, amassing so much wealth that he could donate millions to Penn State while, on the other hand, taking so much pride in not allowing the players who made his legacy to accept even a dime from boosters and sponsors to help make ends meet….
May God have mercy on his soul.
Related commentaries:
Penn State’s Catholic Church problem