For the first time in my media career, I honestly don’t know where to begin.
Never in my personal history covering sports, which goes back a lot longer than I’d like to admit, (but just shy of the discovery of fire), have I watched and read about such a heinous criminal action being linked to a franchise or person of any athletic stripe.
Coming to grips with what is transpiring and changing with almost every passing minute at Penn State will take a very long time, and we are only now beginning to uncover layers that may take years to unravel. As we digest the depravity and depth of criminal misconduct involved, we can hope for some sort of resolution before we are too bludgeoned with details to continue.
Don’t count on it.
There are far too many guilty parties here to cover in multiple renditions, let alone this one. Those we know about are mere exit ramps on this highway to Hades. The felony food chain above and below them is much deeper than we will ever know. It stretches from impoverished students and minimum wage locker room attendants to those who from today and beyond reside in Ivory towers built with lucre obtained by either engineering or being part of this massive coverup.
The one who has taken the greatest fall from grace is the one who, out of every name and position revealed, is the least we would ever expect to become mute.
Even if he manages to concoct some manner of futile excuse, what Joe Paterno allowed to happen under his watch can never be fully understood. Certainly never forgiven, and will always be a dirty addendum to any discussion of his career.
I have already heard from those seeking to make excuses for Paterno out of compassion, loyalty, blind allegiance, whatever. The pleas of forgiveness range from “he was never given the proper instruction by the University on how to deal with such matters” to “he followed the proper chain of command when he found out about Sandusky”, to what has rapidly become my favorite, “he’s an old man and comes from a different era”.
Correct me if I’ve strayed too far here, but I can only imagine that knowing a boy is being forced to take a shower with a man old enough to be his Grandfather is the same in any era. Save, of course, for ancient Rome.
Paterno was a man of unlimited power at Penn State. Able to do what he wanted to do, when he wanted to do it, and on his timetable. Thus, he could have taken the proper moral road, plowed right over that precious chain of command, and stopped this madness before it rolled another lurid inch. And he would have easily survived, thrived even greater, and become a legend for more than just winning football games.
Instead he did nothing, and thus has earned every rebuke he receives.
Paterno is not an evil man and should not be painted as such. He has raised and donated millions of dollars to the University and other needy causes. Former players have always spoken glowingly of the guidance and compassion he gave them. Almost 80% of those players have graduated with degrees. He has long championed providing a stipend to athletes, many of whom are from disadvantaged families. Joe Pa has a lifetime of kindness, respect and honesty to his resume.
All of which is now mere dust in the Pennsylvania wind.
It’s because of the righteous figure we always knew him to be, the one who cared and campaigned for the proper education of young men, and who publicly never strayed from his mantra of respect that we are virtually numb with damning facts.
Paterno knew. For much more than a few weeks or months about the vile demons held tight within Jerry Sandusky.
The former assistant coach and confidant who spent a good part of his miserable existence planning how to place his hands on the genitals of young boys. How to keep them silent while using them as sex toys. Planning where and how to stroke them in order to fulfill his vile carnal desires.
From the Centre County, PA Grand Jury report:
“Victim 1 testified that ultimately Sandusky performed oral sex on him more than 20 times through 2007 and early 2008”.
“Another youth...testified...that Sandusky would reach over, while driving, and lift his shirt and tickle his bare stomach”.
“(A Penn State graduate assistant) entered the locker room at the Lasch Football Building on the University Park Campus...about 9:30 pm. As the graduate assistant entered the locker room doors, he was surprised to find the lights and showers on. He then heard rhythmic, slapping sounds. He believed the sounds to be those of sexual activity. (...he looked into the shower). He saw a naked boy, Victim 2, whose age he estimated to be ten years old, with his hands up against the wall, being subjected to anal intercourse by a naked Sandusky”.
"When asked if the graduate assistant had reported “anal sex” between Jerry Sandusky and this child, (then Athletic Director Tim) Curley testified, “Absolutely not”.
There are detailed reports of 6 other victims using words such as “erection”, “genitals”, “kiss”, “penis”, “touched from behind”, “pinned up against a wall”, and “hands down the waistband”, all surrounded by much more graphic testimony.
Not one person involved in this demented nightmare must be allowed to escape. Just like Sandusky never allowed his human playthings to escape his clutches until he was good and ready to allow it.
And then we have the roving band of thugs, miscreants, drunken louts and criminals who roamed the streets of College Station the night of Paterno’s firing.
Notice I did not refer to them as “students”. I prefer to believe these pathetic excuses for rational human beings will, thanks to some higher power or well spent time behind bars, never become a next generation of decision makers.
Or parents, for that matter.
These are the same louts who destroyed public property, overturned a TV station van, and bellowed into any television camera within radar range about how the firing of Paterno was “without any compassion”, and how he “deserved better than this from the University”.
Just a few more roundhouse rights to the heads of those men and their families who to this day live with the memories cheerily given them by Jerry Sandusky. The man former AD Tim Curley, former University VP Gary Schultz, former University President Graham Spanier, Joe Paterno and likely many others allowed to continue his frolicking among susceptible young men.
Finally, we have this coincidental transcript.
The morning after Paterno and University President Spanier were sacked, rioters gave their tacit approval to the base depravity that has destroyed the once-stellar reputation of Penn State forever, and stories began to circulate that Sandusky was pimping out young boys to wealthy University donors, came this news report.
A high school teacher in Douglas County, GA went before a judge on charges of custodial sexual assault, 52 years of age, Dennis Brown is accused of having sex with a 17 year old female student in September. Brown stunned the judge and those gathered in court by not only admitting what he did, but pleading with the judge to bond him out so he could get treatment for sex addiction.
The judge, thankfully not born under the Georgia red clay, saw through Brown’s feeble gamble at freedom and denied him bond. Officials are looming into his past, focusing on other schools he worked at to investigate whether this is just the latest in a string of undiscovered felonies.
The kicker?
Brown is an assistant football coach.
Leaving us to wonder who else knew about his proclivity for sex with someone under the age of consent.
How many more like Brown and Sandusky, in any walk of life, are either plotting or conducting their next rape and assault.
And who might be helping to cover it all up for greed and “the greater good”.
Ed Berliner is heard as guest sports commentator on radio stations and networks across the country, and is also Executive Producer for "Entourage Media. (http://themultimediamasters.com)
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