By now the story of the fall of Joe Paterno is one familiar to both college football fans and casual observers of the sport. Paterno was the popular and successful head coach of Penn State’s football team, renowned both for his on-field success and his unusually high graduation rates for players. He also is in no small part responsible for God-knows how many instances of child abuse, if not directly than through a crime of omission.
New court documents were unsealed yesterday that showed, among other things, that Joe Paterno may have known about Jerry Sandusky’s sexual abuse of children as early as 1976, when a boy attending a football camp at Penn State told Paterno that Sandusky had assaulted him in the shower. Paterno allegedly brushed him off, telling him he “had a football season to worry about.”
That was the first in what appears to have been a long string of instances where Joe Paterno prioritized winning football games over the safety and security of children on the Penn State campus, attending football camps to try and better themselves and instead having their lives forever shattered by a predator who could have, and should have been stopped. Continue reading
Nathan Is Write 