November 9, 2011

• Poor Joe

  Joe Paterno, the winningest college football coach ever, is likely going to lose his job at Penn State after the final game of the season.  Paterno has been widely criticized for failing to involve the police when he learned of an allegation that one of his assistant coaches may have assaulted a young boy in 2002.  Other allegations have now come to light involving the same assistant coach.

  Apparently, Coach Paterno was told of the assault by a student, but did not see it himself.  False accusations are made all the time by students who have some kind of grudge against teachers and coaches.  So rather than calling the police with a then unsubstantiated, heresay allegation and bringing bad press upon the school without proof of wrongdoing, he instead reported it to his superiors.  An internal investigation was done, and the campus police decided that there wasn't enough evidence to proceed any further.

  I think he did the right thing.  You can't bring bad press upon the school based on unsubstantiated accusations without being more certain than Paterno could have been at the time.  Bringing the situation to his superiors was the right way to handle it, yet the school is now going to push him out.  Ironically, that same school would likely have pushed him out if he had gone directly to the police without first involving them.

  Too bad.  Penn State should be taking the heat, not Joe Paterno.  What's happening to him isn't right, but that's the way the system works.  From the moment he first learned of a possible problem, he was damned if he did, and damned if he didn't.

  Update:  Penn State didn't wait for the end of the season.  Apparently hoping that the school will lose some of the media heat, it let Joe Paterno go now. 

  • 9:12 am
  • 1 Comment