This whole thing has been the very literal and figurative definition of a clusterf**k, and the vast bulk of the facts will take months to surface. And though there's been no doubt in my mind from day one as to the world-class creepiness of that Spanier slug (on several levels), the PSU football program has always seemed to be about as good as it gets in big-time college athletics.
It does, in retrospect, strain credulity to imagine that all this went on for so long without Joe's having had at least some inkling of trouble. But having said that, and with the exception of the degenerate Sandusky himself, I'm not rushing to judgement re all the peripheral actors until all the facts come to light.
Sue Paterno must be devastated about this criminal tragedy. And the poor kids/players, most/all of whom surely knew nothing about the perversions going on around them, will undeservedly carry the stigma of it all for a very long time, if not for the rest of their lives.
It all still seems somehow unreal to me. I watched or listened to most of their games when I had the chance, but never went to one even while a student there (got that craziness out of my system many years ago at the U of Colorado ;-)
With the downward plunge of your country since the communists conned their way into power in '08, this is a straw that seems almost too much for the ol' camel to bear.
I'll also admit to having entertained the question, while driving to the airport in Scranton yesterday afternoon, whether the huge donations to the school, specifically those funding the new wing of Pattee (the library, for those unfamiliar), were motivated by true philanthropy or residual guilt ?
And that's the poison of this that will live on long after the guilty have been dealt with by the courts and/or the NCAA.
Maybe my vision is being misted by the rose-colored perspective of near twenty years' absence, but I can only hope that the good people at PSU - and there tens of thousands of them ! - can eventually erase this hideous, shameful stain and earn back it's place as one of the leading institutions of higher learning in our nation.
I saw him in 2010 at our 45th reunion. Fairly up close and at a distance. I, too, thought there was something off about the man. It was his mannerisms that attracted my attention. Especially after he removed the lion head—he was disguised the Nittany Lion costume. He was still in the suit which he was trying to adjust to cover up his undershirt. Reminded of a woman fussing with her blouse. Then I remembered when he was circulating around the luncheon hall in the full costume he would skip now and then. His skips were feminine. I thought a female student was in the costume. Turns out it was Spanier.