On this Father’s Day, Penn State should be ashamed
Posted on June 17, 2012
This is supposed to be a day when we
honor the men who take care of their children, the men who nurture and teach
their kids the difference between right and wrong and shelter and protect them
from the evil and ugliness of the outside world.
But on this Father’s Day, the most important story in sports is
about a man and a football program that are the antithesis of what this day
represents. Jerry Sandusky and Penn State University not only failed to protect
hopeless, helpless children, Sandusky stands accused of sexually abusing them
and Penn State of shamefully turning a blind eye to it.
One after another, the alleged victims took the witness stand in
recent days and tragically provided the sad, searing, grim, grotesque testimony
of how Sandusky raped them — anally, orally, spiritually and psychologically.
In all, Sandusky is on trial for 52 criminal counts of sexual abuse involving
10 alleged victims during a 15-year period.
If you haven’t already lost all respect for Penn State, its
administration and its iconic former coach Joe Paterno, I suggest you read the
gut-wrenching, stomach-turning accounts of what Sandusky allegedly did to these
young boys.
Essentially, according to prosecutors, Sandusky started his
Second Mile charity for troubled youths and set himself up as a father figure
for lost boys from broken homes who desperately needed a male role model in
their lives. Sandusky was the man who pretended to be their sworn protector but
instead turned out to be their sexual predator.
One skinny 18-year-old, identified as Victim 9, took the stand
and told his sad, sickening story. He grew up in a trailer park; his mother
worked in a pub, and his father was who knows where. He was typical of the type
of kid Sandusky’s charity was supposed to rescue.
He testified that when he was younger, his mother kept sending
him to Sandusky’s house because she thought he needed a father figure in his
life. Little did she know that while her son slept in the basement of
Sandusky’s home, the former Penn State assistant coach allegedly forced him
into oral and anal sex.
The kid was 12 years old and weighed just 67 pounds then. He
testified that he would sometimes scream, but nobody could hear him. He would
sometimes resist, but nobody could help him.
“There was no fighting against him,” Victim 9 told the jury.
“Look at him. He’s a big guy. He’s way bigger than me. What was I supposed to
do?”
The saddest part of all is that this could have been stopped
long ago if Paterno and Penn State had done something when they first learned
Sandusky might be abusing boys. Former Penn State assistant coach Mike McQueary
testified that he told Paterno and other Penn State officials about an incident
in 2001 when he walked into the Penn State locker room and saw Sandusky having
sex in the shower with a prepubescent boy. “In hindsight,” Paterno told The
Washington Post before he died a few months ago, “I wish I had done more.”
Paterno, of course, did nothing except tell his athletic
director, who then proceeded to also do nothing. Sandusky, even though he
mysteriously resigned as Paterno’s defensive coordinator years ago, was even
allowed to keep an office in the athletic complex until police started
investigating him last year.
And what we have now is the most disgusting, despicable scandal
in the history of college athletics, the college-football equivalent of the
Catholic Church for decades covering up for clergymen who were sexually abusing
children.
How could this ever happen?
How could this possibly be?
Aren’t college-football coaches such as Paterno and Sandusky
supposed to be the ultimate father figures?
But on this day, Sandusky stands accused of raping young boys,
while Paterno and his superiors are all accomplices.
.
