{"id":3721,"date":"2012-07-24T00:29:50","date_gmt":"2012-07-24T06:29:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/?p=3721"},"modified":"2012-10-11T14:38:17","modified_gmt":"2012-10-11T20:38:17","slug":"penn-state-joe-paterno-the-illusion-of-greatness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/?p=3721","title":{"rendered":"Penn State, Joe Paterno & the Illusion of Greatness"},"content":{"rendered":"

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. (“Why Joe Paterno Had to Go!”)\u00a0<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

When I published the above post last November, who knew that I would be wrong on at least three counts? It happens to the best of us, but only with the advantage of 20-20 hindsight can I now see how off I truly was. At the time, I thought that inside Joe Paterno “beat the heart of a football coach who taught integrity, honesty, character, and winning.”<\/em> Following the release of the Freeh Report<\/a>, I realized that whatever heart was in “Joe Pa,”<\/em> it was one that not just fell short in the integrity, honesty, and character department, but one which evinced a complete and utter disregard for the innocent victims of a sexual predator that Paterno allegedly knew about and ignored (his family’s self-serving protestations to the contrary notwithstanding).<\/p>\n

What at the time seemed to be an “inexplicable reason”<\/em> for Joe Paterno’s failure to act can now be explained — he wanted to keep winning football games, no matter the cost. Behind his grandfatherly demeanor laid the heart of a man who not only turned a blind eye to the horrific sexual crimes being committed by one of his coaches, but who actively participated in the coverup and whitewash of the whole, sordid affair. And, for what? To become the all-time winningest football coach in NCAA football history, which is how I described him back in November. \u00a0Count me wrong on that, as well. After yesterday’s unprecedented punishment that the NCAA meted out to Penn State<\/a>, Joe Paterno (posthumously) and the Nittany Lions have seen 111 of their wins between 1998 (the date when the first victim became known to Paterno and other University officials who could have \u00a0put a stop to Jerry Sandusky’s heinous acts) and 2011 erased from the record books. While there is no joy in the Bowden household over this sad turn of events, it is perhaps fitting that Bobby Bowden now becomes the FBS coach with the most wins while Paterno dropped to 5th. Were all those wins during those 13 years really worth the untold agony and lifelong scars that were inflicted upon those boys by a suspected (now convicted) sexual predator that continued to have unfettered access to the University facilities?<\/p>\n

Lastly, I was wrong to think that evil triumphed when a good man — Joe Paterno — did next to nothing. As it turns out, Joe Paterno did NOTHING! For 13 years. In my book, that does not come close to being good. How could a “good”<\/em> man — particularly following the 2002 allegations by Mike McQueary — keep Sandusky as a football coach, much less allow him to use the Penn State football facilities to lure boys into criminally sexual situations? It is completely unfathomable to me as the father of three boys.<\/p>\n

If I was wrong about Joe Paterno, I am not alone. So were many others who looked to this legendary coach as the epitome of great moral character and integrity. That charade has been exposed. We now know that the coach had to go. The statue had to go. The wins had to go. The legend had to go. Jerry Sandusky committed the crimes for which he has now been convicted. He will get what he deserves. Apparently, so will Joe Paterno!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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…<\/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":[1191,396,30,38],"tags":[2077,1552,1459,2081,2079,2078,1457,1454,2076,1458,2080,2082,1456,1453,2075],"class_list":["post-3721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured","category-football","category-law","category-sports","tag-bobby-bowden","tag-character","tag-child-sexual-abuse","tag-fbs-all-time-wins","tag-honesty","tag-integrity","tag-jerry-sandusky","tag-joe-paterno","tag-michael-mc","tag-mike-mcqueary","tag-ncaa-football","tag-ncaa-penn-state-sanctions","tag-nittany-lions","tag-penn-state","tag-the-freeh"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1LP7G-Y1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3721","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=3721"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3721\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3943,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3721\/revisions\/3943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}