{"id":2813,"date":"2011-11-10T01:00:28","date_gmt":"2011-11-10T08:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/?p=2813"},"modified":"2011-11-10T12:14:36","modified_gmt":"2011-11-10T19:14:36","slug":"why-joe-paterno-had-to-go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/?p=2813","title":{"rendered":"Why Joe Paterno Had to Go!"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the father of three young boys — 12, 10, and 6 — I have followed with disgust, sadness, and anger the sordid events surrounding the Penn State child sexual abuse scandal that has cost Joe Paterno\u00a0his job.\u00a0 Before the news broke on Wednesday night, I was prepared to write a post on why Paterno\u00a0must go now.\u00a0 The swift and decisive actions taken by the Penn State Board of Trustees have obviously changed the facts on the ground.<\/p>\n

In what had to be one of the most difficult decisions that the Trustee Board will ever make, the men and women who serve as Trustees at Penn State took the only morally justifiable action that they could have taken\u00a0given the facts that were laid at their doorstep, facts which are both reprehensible and incomprehensible at the same time.\u00a0 For Joe Paterno, a man who has been the head coach at Penn State for as long as I have been alive, the details that continue to emerge in the child sex abuse case involving\u00a0his\u00a0former Defensive Coordinator Jerry Sandusky have tarnished an otherwise spotless record.\u00a0 However, the tarnishing and shame that is rightfully falling at Joe Paterno’s\u00a0doorsteps is, in large measure, attributable to no one other that JoPa himself.<\/p>\n

Largely tone-deaf\u00a0since the scandal broke over the weekend, Paterno\u00a0has at times exhibited little understanding of the gravity of what “allegedly”\u00a0took place in 2002 involving\u00a0Sandusky and a 10 year-old boy in the showers at the Penn State Football facility.\u00a0 While perhaps legally in the clear, it is apparent that Coach Paterno\u00a0took the minimally required step of informing a “higher up” of the alleged sexual activity that had been witnessed by then graduate assistant and now assistant coach Mike McQueary.<\/p>\n

But, given the status of Joe Paterno\u00a0at Penn State, who was really “higher” than him in terms of authority?\u00a0 The Athletic Director?\u00a0 The President of the University?\u00a0 When Paterno\u00a0was asked to step down in 2004 (only two years\u00a0removed from the alleged incident)\u00a0by these same individuals, he said no.\u00a0 So much for anyone having more authority than JoPa at Penn State.<\/p>\n

And, it was to that authority — clearly lacking any moral component — that Joe Paterno turned to on Wednesday when he announced that he would be resigning at the end of this season<\/a>.\u00a0 Said Paterno:<\/p>\n

That’s why I have decided to announce my retirement effective at the end of this season. At this moment the Board of Trustees should not spend a single minute discussing my status. They have far more important matters to address. I want to make this as easy for them as I possibly can.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Did Paterno\u00a0really think that the Board of Trustees should not “spend one single minute discussing” his status?\u00a0 Was he that above it all that he thought that he could brush off the Trustees with a preemptive\u00a0resignation?\u00a0 Apparently for Paterno, no one — not even the Board of Trustees — was going to tell him what to do.\u00a0 Like in 2004, Paterno — an employee of Penn State — thought he would dictate to everyone else the terms of his departure.\u00a0 But, unlike the earlier confrontation with the President and A.D. over a losing football season, this time was different.\u00a0 This time, the stakes were much higher.\u00a0 This time, the loss of games was not at stake, but rather the loss of childhood innocence.<\/p>\n

Since 1966, Joe Paterno\u00a0has ruled the roost at Penn State.\u00a0 Behind the glasses and the grandfatherly demeanor, there beat the heart of a football coach that taught integrity, honesty, character, and winning.\u00a0 For whatever inexplicable reason in 2002 (and in the years following that horrific incident), Joe Paterno appears to have fallen woefully short on the first three, even as he continued to amass the most wins of any college football coach.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday night, a unanimous Trustee Board summarily dismissed Joe Paterno\u00a0as the Head Football Coach of the Penn State Nittany\u00a0Lions.\u00a0 They did what was required to restore integrity, honesty, and character to a football program and university in shambles.\u00a0 In life, there are more important things than winning football games.\u00a0 Only time will tell whether or not Joe Paterno ever comes to grips with his moral failure to act in 2002.<\/p>\n

It has been said that evil triumphs when good men do nothing.\u00a0 There are many who are shedding tears for a good man, one Joe Paterno.\u00a0 Not me.\u00a0 My tears\u00a0are for the boys (nine and counting) who were brutally assaulted while good men — including Joe\u00a0Paterno\u00a0—\u00a0did\u00a0next to nothing.\u00a0 That’s why Coach Paterno had to go.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As the father of three young boys — 12, 10, and 6 — I have followed with disgust, sadness, and anger the sordid events surrounding the Penn State child sexual abuse scandal that has cost Joe Paterno\u00a0his job.\u00a0 Before the news broke on Wednesday night, I was prepared to write a post on why Paterno\u00a0must…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[38],"tags":[1459,3397,1457,1454,1455,1458,1456,1453],"class_list":["post-2813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports","tag-child-sexual-abuse","tag-football","tag-jerry-sandusky","tag-joe-paterno","tag-jopa","tag-mike-mcqueary","tag-nittany-lions","tag-penn-state"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1LP7G-Jn","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2813"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2813\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3720,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2813\/revisions\/3720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}