[Vision2020] Football is more important than sexual abuse

[Art Deco]

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July 12, 2012
Abuse Inquiry Faults Paterno and Others at Penn State By KEN
BELSON<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/ken_belson/index.html>

The most senior officials at Penn State University failed for more than a
decade to take any steps to protect the children victimized by Jerry
Sandusky<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/jerry_sandusky/index.html?8qa>,
the longtime lieutenant to head football coach Joe
Paterno<http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/people/p/joe_paterno/index.html>,
according to an independent investigation of the sexual abuse scandal that
rocked the university last fall.

“Our most saddening and sobering finding is the total disregard for the
safety and welfare of Sandusky’s child victims,” said Louis J. Freeh, the
former federal judge and director of the F.B.I. who oversaw the
investigation. “The most powerful men at Penn State failed to take any
steps for 14 years to protect the children who Sandusky victimized.”

Freeh’s investigation <http://www.TheFreehReportonPSU.com> — which took
seven months and involved more than 400 interviews and the review of more
than 3.5 million documents — accuses Paterno, the university’s former
president and others of deliberately hiding facts about Sandusky's sexually
predatory behavior over the years.

"The facts are the facts," Freeh said of Paterno. "He was an integral part
of the act to conceal."

One new and central finding of the Freeh investigation is that Paterno, who
died in January<http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/23/sports/ncaafootball/joe-paterno-longtime-penn-state-coach-dies-at-85.html?pagewanted=all>,
knew as far back as 1998 that there were concerns Sandusky might be
behaving inappropriately with children. It was then that the campus police
investigated a claim by a mother that her son had been molested by Sandusky
in a shower at Penn State.

Paterno, through his family, insisted after Sandusky’s arrest that he never
knew anything about the 1998 case. But Freeh’s report asserts that Paterno
not only knew of the investigation, but followed it closely. Local
prosecutors ultimately decided not to charge Sandusky, and Paterno did
nothing.

Paterno failed to take any action, the investigation found, “even though
Sandusky had been a key member of his coaching staff for almost 30 years
and had an office just steps away from Mr. Paterno’s.”

The investigation also presented evidence that in the wake of the 1998
case, top university officials contemplated the possibility that Sandusky
could be a serial pedophile. A second boy, according to notes taken by a
university vice president, Gary Schultz, described actions similar to what
had happened to the first boy, including Sandusky hugging him from behind
in the shower. Schultz wrote in his notes: “Is this opening of Pandora’s
box? Other children?”

“In order to avoid the consequences of bad publicity,” the most powerful
leaders of Penn State University, Freeh’s group said, “repeatedly concealed
critical facts relating to Sandusky’s child abuse from the authorities, the
board of trustees, the Penn State community and the public at large.”

The investigation’s findings doubtless will have significant ramifications
— for Paterno’s legacy, for the university’s legal liability as it seeks to
compensate Sandusky’s victims, and perhaps for the wider world of major
college athletics.

Already, though, the fallout from the Sandusky scandal has been
extraordinary, its effects felt in everything from the shake-up in the most
senior ranks of the university to the football program’s ability to recruit
the country’s most talented high school prospects to a growing wariness
among parents about the relationships their children have with their sports
coaches.

Sandusky last month was convicted of 45 counts of sexual
abuse<http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/23/sports/ncaafootball/jerry-sandusky-convicted-of-sexually-abusing-boys.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all>,
including rape and sodomy, by a jury in Bellefonte, Pa. The jury found he
had assaulted young boys at his home, on the Penn State campus and at other
locations over many years.

“I can’t say that anything astonishes us anymore, but it’s pretty
astonishing,” Michael J. Boni, a lawyer for one of Sandusky’s victims, said
of the investigation’s findings. “I wouldn’t be surprised if these leaders
face new criminal charges for failure to report what they knew to the
authorities.”

For Paterno, one of the most damning implications of the Freeh
investigation involves the university’s handling of a 2001 report of
Sandusky sexually attacking a 10-year-old boy in the football building’s
shower.

A graduate assistant had witnessed the assault, and reported in person to
Paterno the next day. Paterno said he would figure out how to handle the
alarming report, and inform his superiors. The Freeh investigation suggests
that the university’s senior administrators were prepared to formally
report Sandusky to state authorities, but that Paterno persuaded them to do
otherwise.

After the university’s president, Graham B. Spanier, and athletic director,
Tim Curley, decided to report Sandusky, the investigation asserted, “the
only “known, intervening factor” was a conversation between Curley and
Paterno.

It was then decided the “humane” thing to do would be to speak to Sandusky
and warn him not to bring children on campus any longer.

“No such sentiments,” the investigation said of Paterno, Spanier, Schultz
and Curley, “were ever expressed by them for Sandusky’s victims.”

Freeh, appearing at a news conference in Philadelphia, singled out the
reaction in 2000 of a group of janitors after one of them said he witnessed
Sandusky abusing a boy in the locker room showers at the football building
as indicative of the culture of the university. The janitors discussed what
to do and the witness ultimately decided not to go to university officials,
later saying he was afraid he would lose his job if he did so.

"They were afraid to take on the football program," Freeh said. "They said
the university would circle around it. It was like going against the
president of the United States. If that's the culture on the bottom, then
God help the culture at the top."

Paterno's family released a statement Thursday saying that it accepted
criticism that Paterno should have done more, but argued that he was being
judged with the benefit of hindsight.

"If Joe Paterno had understood what Sandusky was, a fear of bad publicity
would not have factored into his actions," the statement said.

The family added: "The idea that any sane, responsible adult would
knowingly cover up for a child predator is impossible to accept. The far
more realistic conclusion is that many people didn't fully understand what
was happening and underestimated or misinterpreted events."

On the Penn State campus in State College, Freeh's news conference was
watched by some on televisions at the student union. The investigation's
conclusions, especially about Paterno's involvement, were jarring for some.

"The conclusions could not be any more harsh," said Russell Frank, a
journalism professor. "It's a very powerful indictment of the people in
charge."

Freeh was named to head the investigation by the university’s board of
trustees shortly after Sandusky was arrested and Schultz and Curley were
criminally charged for perjury in November 2011.

“No one is above scrutiny,” Kenneth Frazier, a trustee, said at the time
Freeh’s probe was announced. “He has complete rein to follow any lead, to
look into every corner of the university to get to the bottom of what
happened.”

The Paterno family, in an attempt to blunt the force of any critical
findings by Freeh, issued a statement Tuesday that sought to undermine the
fairness of the investigation. The statement said Paterno, before his
death, had been eager to tell all he knew about the university’s dealings
with Sandusky and had admitted to having failed to do more to stop
Sandusky. But it lamented what it called the improper and misleading
disclosure in recent weeks of aspects of Freeh’s findings.

On Thursday morning, before Freeh's findings were released, Paterno's son
Jay appeared on the "Today" show. "This investigation is still one opinion,
one piece of the puzzle," he said. "We’ve never been afraid of the truth."

Joe Paterno, in a letter that he had prepared but that was not published
before his death, asserted that whatever the failings in the Sandusky
affair — his or the university’s — it did not constitute a “football
scandal.”

“Regardless of anyone’s opinion of my actions or the actions of the handful
of administration officials in this matter, the fact is nothing alleged is
an indictment of football or evidence that the spectacular collections of
accomplishments by dedicated student athletes should be in anyway
tarnished,” Paterno said in the letter.

Tim Rohan, from State College, Pa.; Zach Berman, from Philadelphia; and
Richard Pérez-Peña contributed reporting.


-- 
Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)
art.deco.studios at gmail.com
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