What happens when you look away

By Ian Roderick

On Penn State, morality, and institutional failure.

Joe Paterno, head coach of the Penn State football team for the past 46 years and the all-time Division I wins leader, with 409 victories, was fired this week. His ouster is the denouement of a spiraling crisis involving allegations of child abuse by one of Paterno’s longtime former assistant coaches, Jerry Sandusky, and the failure of Penn State officials to report Sandusky’s crimes when they were made aware of them nearly a decade ago.

Sandusky is alleged by prosecutors to have molested at least eight young boys over the past fifteen years. The details of this case are difficult to read, and document the failure of several Penn State officials, including Paterno himself, to take action in the face of evidence that Sandusky was preying on young boys. In the spring of 2002, Mike McQueary, then a 28-year-old graduate assistant on Joe Paterno’s coaching staff, witnessed Sandusky, then 59 years old, having anal sex with a young boy in the locker room showers. The next day, McQueary told Paterno about the locker room encounter. Paterno then organized a meeting between McQueary, Athletic Director Tim Curley and university official Gary Schultz. Schultz and Curley promised to look into the matter.

At that point Paterno’s involvement with, and apparent concern for, the allegations ended. It is unclear whether he followed up with Curley or Schultz, and he did not independently contact police officials or take action to bar Sandusky from the football complex. Curley and Schultz, though compelled by Pennsylvania state to report allegations of sexual abuse to authorities within 48 hours, never did.

It is beyond doubt that all four of those men failed that little boy. The question that everyone is asking this week is, Why?

The answer for each individual is surely different and ultimately unknowable in specifics. But are any of us truly surprised that in the opaque, authoritarian culture of college football, members of the establishment would be willing to look away when faced with deviant behavior by one of their own?

In such a culture, when there is a career on the line, as for McQueary, is it not easier to walk out of the locker room than to stay and fight? When an institution and millions of dollars in revenue are threatened, as for Curley and Schultz, is it not best to mislead and cover up? When a legend is threatened to be exposed as myth, as for Paterno, is it not best to pretend to forget, to explain away, to fantasize that everything is as you have always imagined it to be?

The scandal at Penn State is wrenching not only because of the monstrous behavior of the accused molester, but because instead of distracting us from this tragedy, sports played an active role in creating the tragedy. Would such a cover up have happened if tens of millions of dollars weren’t at stake, or if a legendary coach was not concerned with his legacy?

In the spring of 2002, Mike McQueary left a little boy alone in the shower with a monster. By their inaction, Joe Paterno, Tim Curley, and Gary Schultz gave that monster eight more years of freedom. If nothing else, in the wake of this tragedy and as we come to understand the relationship between authoritative institutions and the condoning of misbehavior, we should remind ourselves of the value of moral courage, of protecting the weak and questioning the strong, and of the danger of trusting that everyone everywhere will always do the right thing.

Ian Roderick is a guest contributor for Began in '96. He has previously written for Cold Hard Football Facts.com.