Vincent Ferrer/The Mirror
In a scandal as disturbing as what occurred at Penn State University, there is certainly no quick fix. Long time assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky has been charged with 40 counts of sexually abusing children, while two Penn State officials have been charged with failing to report the abuse and misleading investigators.
While college sports have recently suffered a series of scandals (mostly involving recruiting violations), nothing quite reaches the heinous level of what occurred at Penn State. Everyone can agree in this regard that it doesn’t get much worse than child molestation, and as a result the university has deservedly received a thrashing by the national media.
Joe Paterno, who was the head coach of the Penn State Nittany Lions and a guiding leader for 46 years, was fired as a result of the scandal. His failure to notify authorities concerning the allegations, which were brought forth against Sandusky by a Penn State graduate assistant back in 2002, left the university no choice but to dismiss the legendary figure.
Multiple questions are left unanswered in this unfortunate case. Who is to blame? Should Paterno have been fired? How did these charges not come into the public sphere sooner?
As Paterno reflected on his firing, he admitted, “This is a tragedy. It is one of the great sorrows of my life. With the benefit of hindsight, I wish I had done a lot more.”
We all wish you had done more, Joe. The fact that Paterno and other high-level members of the athletic administration failed to act decisively not only hurt the university, but more importantly the young men who have been scarred by the inhumane actions of Sandusky.
There is no question that Joe Paterno’s legacy will be tarnished by this scandal. However unfortunate this may be, the only people we should really be sorry for are the children involved.
Just ask former NHL player Theo Fleury, who was sexually molested by his youth hockey coach as a child. It led to him blowing much of the $50 million he made in the NHL on drugs and alcohol in an attempt to forget what had happened to him, as he admitted in an ESPN interview.
“I no longer had faith in myself or my judgement,” said Fleury.
There are too many similar cases in which molested children grow up to live with fear, hatred and unwarranted regret for being taken advantage of by abusers. The public should be focused on this reality as opposed to who is coaching their football team, regardless of how significant that person was to thier school.
Thankfully, an alumni-led effort has raised $370,000 for abuse victims in less than a week, according to a Twitter message. But these kids will need more than money to recover from being abused; moral and emotional support from everyone involved is crucial.
Not surprisingly, Sandusky and his lawyers have advocated for his innocence. There is sure to be a long legal process in deciding the ultimate punishment.
If all the allegations are as true as they seem to be, Sandusky will be heading to prison for quite some time. And as the case is in most prisons, sexual molesters of young children are not treated with a warm welcome.
Whatever ends up happening to Sandusky, the most important thing is taking care of the abuse victims that suffered these atrocities in the hope they can move forward to live normal lives.
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