Joe Paterno is not Jerry Sandusky

Let me be clear here. Joe Paterno was disastrously wrong for his lack of action in dealing with Jerry Sandusky. It's funny to hear all these talking heads who make a living out of talking about sports all day, suddenly make grandiose statements about really serious matters to the extent that Paterno is as "morally culpable" as Sandusky. On one hand, Sandusky has been found guilty of sexually abusing multiple young boys through such actions as physical touching, oral sex, and anal sex. Joe Paterno did none of that, in fact, he seemed to do very little of anything. But there's a big divide between Paterno and Sandusky.

Paterno isn't around to answer the hard questions.

If Paterno was the kind of man I think he was, I don't think he would do nothing if he had been sat down and told by someone, "Look Joe, Sandusky is raping kids in our locker room, in our showers. He's using our university as his personal stomping ground to molest young boys. We've seen it, we've heard it from other people. He's using his non-profit to groom his next victims. There are kids right this second in danger of being molested by Sandusky. I think this has been going on longer than anyone can even imagine." I could be wrong, but I'd like to think that if the message had been that clear to him, that he'd see the whole thing through.
Even after the Freeh Report came out yesterday, I'm still as unclear about a lot of things as I was at the beginning, and I can't be the only person. There are a lot of questions in that report that have been left unanswered.
For one, Mike McQueary, then a Penn State graduate assistant, was not interviewed in the Freeh Report despite making repeated offers to be interviewed by investigators. This is huge because it is McQueary who first reported to Paterno that he had seen Sandusky molest a boy in the showers. What exactly, and in what terms, did McQueary tell Paterno? Then, from Paterno's discussion with McQueary, what did he tell AD Tim Curley and VP Gary Schultz? Let's stop here. This is the point in which Paterno should have been screaming like a banshee to get Sandusky investigated and prohibited from ever setting foot on the Penn State campus.
Instead, he went up to his "superiors," and let them handle it. In that instance, Paterno was no longer an effective leader. Sure, he could probably still run a football program, but he couldn't properly respond to a situation outside of his narrow scope. It should come as no wonder, but the man was nearly 75 years old at that point. Paterno should have been laying on a beach somewhere in Florida, or playing bingo, or tending to a garden, but not coaching college football.
The most damning piece of evidence is in an e-mail exchange between Schultz and Curley in which Curley says he had spoken to Paterno, and decided against going to the authorities for what McQueary had reported. What was that conversation, and what did Paterno say? Again, the Freeh Report does not make that clear and falls short in answering key questions. It leaves us assuming about many things.
What happened here? I may very well be an idiot, I may very well be a complete and utter fool, but you mean to tell me that four highly educated men all knew that Sandusky had been having sex with a 10-year-old boy in the same locker room where Penn State football players prepare to give their blood, sweat, and tears for their university and they decided to do nothing? It just doesn't make sense.
Listen, if you've read this entire thing it's my hope that you don't think I'm defending these guys. That's not the case, they turned a blind eye to a really horrible situation. My point is, did they know exactly what they were turning a blind eye to? Something happened here, something very tangible happened that resulted in the failure to report Sandusky, and the Freeh Report didn't find those answers. If everyone knew exactly what was happening, then I can't think of anything we can hold as sacred anymore. It just doesn't make sense.