Now, if it turns out he knew a lot sooner or had received other accusations, then I'd be more inclined to agree with you.
But Head Coaches are usually deaf and dumb to the misdeeds of players and coaches - by design. There is normally a point man in most of these structures who's unofficial job is to take care of all the player indiscretions that happen when you are dealing with 18-21 year olds who are away from mommy and daddy for the first time (and a lot of them don't have "daddy" around to begin with).
If the Head Coach doesn't know about it, he's held less accountable and the program goes on - by design.
So I can fully believe that Paterno didn't know or didn't get all the details. Or he may have confronted Sandusky at some point and had to decide which guy was telling the truth - his longtime coach or a kid who might have misunderstood, etc.
That's what is so insidious about pedophilia. The perps often are well-respected people who know that if they are accused, they'll place their reputation against the accuser and ask "who would you believe?" I wouldn't doubt in the least that Paterno would "believe" Sandusky's denials. In retrospect, it's a huge mistake but, at the time, totally believable.
As Head Coach, you take public responsibility for a lot of things but you also have trusted lieutenants to make nasty problems go away and - in many football structures - the Head Coach isn't even told about it.
Then you toss in the fact that you're talking about a 70-year-old football coach who probably is more CEO than coach at that point and the whole scenario seems completely believable to me.
Again, the lynch mob shouldn't be aimed at Paterno. That's like blaming 9-11 on the guy who runs Logan Airport.
I don’t think anybody is suggesting that Paterno is legally in the wrong. But there are still a lot of questions, and the bottom line is, if Paterno wanted the molestations to stop, it would have been stopped. Even if he had to go to Sandusky directly and confront him about it.
“Again, the lynch mob shouldn’t be aimed at Paterno. That’s like blaming 9-11 on the guy who runs Logan Airport.”
Really? This is ridiculous! Unless the guy at Logan Airport knew and did nothing!
Paterno had a MORAL obligation he ignored in favor of the reputation of a program. How else can you interpret this.
As for me, though it’s not enough, I’m thrilled that Paterno’s legacy will be that of a man who allowed a “little boy butt-raper” to continue his work. He is pitiful.
Follow this. Paterno believes that McQueary has brought these horrendous charges against your old friend of fourty years and has caused an internal scandal all the way up to the president. What do you do? Reward him with a position as your WR coach!
The police had Sandusky on tape in 1998 admitting to molesting a boy in Joe's shower room. It was common knowledge to the staff in the locker room that Sandusky was banging little boys in the locker room. The PSU president knew. The PSU attorneys knew. It doesn't wash that Paterno would believe Sandusky's denials.
What you are saying is that Joe told his assistants to make sure that problems would go away rather than ensuring an atmosphere where problems were reported and taken care of. That would totally explain why the janitors were afraid of reporting Sandusky raping little kids.
Why not. You just said that he probably ran an outfit that was designed so he had no responsibilty for any problems with his staff or players and that he probably gave his 'lieutenants' authority to make problems go away with reporting them to Paterno. As you suggest, Paterno was not interesting in running a clean organization.
That is a very harsh indictment of Joe.
He was blamed. The courts found that Logan Airport procedures/processes were partially at fault for 9/11. Courts found that if adequate screening had been performed they would not have gotten on the planes.