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Penn State's tone-deaf celebration of Joe Paterno deserves scorn
No one made the Penn State honor former coach Joe Paterno Saturday.
They did it anyway.
They knew it could be construed as tone deaf to victims of sexual assault — they were told as much.
They did it anyway.
They did it because Paterno won a bunch of football games, and in Happy Valley, that’s apparently the only thing that matters when it comes to legacy.
Paterno died in 2012, so he cannot defend himself from numerous allegations that he not only knew about his longtime defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky’s serial rape of children, but that he consciously obstructed justice for as long as 35 years.
At least some Penn State fans feel comfortable defending him, though.
The Penn State athletic department played a video tribute to Paterno during the first half of Saturday’s game against Temple. They can say it was about "Paterno's commitment to graduating student-athletes," but that's the bedrock argument of Paterno's defenders — it's a deliberate misdirection. It was a celebration of Paterno's whitewashed legacy.
Sure enough, it received a standing ovation from more than a few fans, Saturday.
There was a private event on the Penn State campus Saturday night that celebrated Paterno’s legacy and featured alumni from 50 years of Paterno’s teams. Curtains were drawn to keep the press out, but that didn’t stop former players from saying that the university owed an apology to Paterno, and the scrutiny around the event didn’t stop Penn State president Eric Barron from attending.
It’s been five years since Penn State fired Paterno and coming up on four years since the coach’s death. Apparently, that’s enough time for the Penn State administration to forget what happened. That’s astounding — the university has paid out nearly $100 million in settlements to 32 of Sandusky’s victims. At age 72, he sits in the jail cell, serving 30 to 60 years for his crimes.
The case isn’t closed because Sandusky is behind bars — far from it, in fact. Former Penn State administrators Graham Spanier, Tim Curley and Gary Schultz are about to go to trial on charges that they failed to alert authorities of Sandusky’s predatory actions. Another lawsuit, with the Pennsylvania Manufacturers’ Association Insurance company, has brought about new allegations to the public.
Paterno said in a deposition before his death that he first learned of allegations towards Sandusky in 2011. A university report said that Paterno knew in 1998. But recently released depositions from the case with Pennsylvania Manufacturers’ Association Insurance allege that Paterno was told of such allegations in 1976.
Perhaps Paterno could tell his side of the story if he were alive. He’s entitled to a defense.
But today, the best refutation of the allegations is that Paterno is not around to tell his side of the story. We’ll never truly know if he did or didn’t know, no matter how many allegations come out in the coming months and years.
The Penn State athletic department and administration clearly feels comfortable in living in that gray area.
Saturday, they celebrated it and did so without an outward sign of remorse.
No one made them do it.
They did it because they wanted to.
And until Paterno’s name is fully cleared, that’s reprehensible.
The tribute at the former site of Joe's statue starts to build pic.twitter.com/TLRMs9elhQ
— Jan Murphy (@JanMurphy) September 17, 2016
Many in the crowd gave a standing O to the video tribute to JoePa and his commitment to graduating scholar athletes pic.twitter.com/E11ouamNC9
— Jan Murphy (@JanMurphy) September 17, 2016
