Shortly after becoming Division 1's all time winning-est coach, Joe Paterno's program, and the entire administration of Pennsylvania State University appears shaped up for a drastic change.
Longtime former Defensive Coordinator Jerry Sandusky is being tried of about 40 counts of various child abuse -- sexual abuse, corruption of minors, etc -- I don't feel like getting into legalese. He was recently released on bail, and the charges are still going through the legal process, though it appears at least 10 of the charges have hard evidence and will stick.
That's all I'm really going to say about Sandusky's part. I don't like getting into that gossippy he did this, she did that kinda thing. If the person is guilty, then hopefully the courts will be able to prove that.
What bugs me is the timeline of this whole situation and how it affects the Penn State football program and athletic departments. Both the Athletic Director and University Park Chief of Police are being convicted of perjury on the matter -- for not willingly ignoring the situation, but enabling it to continue. The charges go back to 1994. Sandusky retired in 1999, and now it seems apparent he was forced out due to this situation -- despite being an awesome defensive coach and heir apparent to JoPa, he never coached again. JoPa, for his part, acknowledges one instance in 2002 (Sandusky was allowed to continue using the facilities and kept an office by JoPa's), and given how the AD and Chief of Police were both complicit on the matter, JoPa's reporting to the AD of the instance, and any (if at all) follow-up would have went nowhere. The thing is, though, if this is really the only instance that JoPa knew of, then why did Sandusky retire? It is possible Sandusky was just tired of waiting for JoPa to move on, and maybe he really was done with coaching, but it just seems bizarre.
The thing I want to know is, why, if people, including many higher-ups, knew about this, was it allowed to continue? Why, if he was no longer a coach for the team, or an employee of the university, was he allowed to use the facilities to do these things? Why was it covered up for so long? If it had been nipped in the bud early it simply would be "Longtime JoPa assistant diddles kids, JoPa and program move on". Now it's "Longtime JoPa assistant diddles kids, JoPa and program are done".
I guess the one thing to take away from this, that is very easy to forget, is that the one person in Penn State who even approaches the "untouchability" of JoPa is Sandusky, innovator of Penn State's vaunted Cover-3 defense.
While the roles of the AD and Chief of Police have been made clear in this, I kinda want to know the role of JoPa in this. I feel like he knows more than the '02 incident, but kinda wants to be left out of it. He hasn't really had much of a role, or power, in Penn State Football for most of the decade, so if he did know, his inability to do anything isn't much of a surprise. Anyone who's watched him coaching can tell you that -- He is one of 4 offensive playcallers, the only one of the 4 who doesn't wear a headset, and Bradley and the position coaches run the defense themselves. In 2004, LB Dan Connor told me Paterno's role on the team was pretty much just to bust balls.
Anyways, it looks like JoPa might be done because of this -- though if I had to bet, he'll wait until the end of the season. What is Paterno's legacy?
Joe Paterno has almost no coaching tree to speak of -- this article points out that the only one of them with a winning record was UVA's George Welsh, though Al Golden and Greg Schiano both spent time turning around really crappy teams (Temple and Rutgers, respectively), and Jim Caldwell has had success as coach of the Indianapolis Colts. Adding former players, the only one that comes to mind is former Quarterback John Hufnagel, who is now Head Coach of the Calgary Stampeders.
His professional player output is also not very impressive, especially considering how long he's been coaching. There's the running backs Franco Harris and Lydell Mitchell; but Curt Warner never amazed, and everyone afterwards seemed to either always be hurt or wash up. With the exception of Kerry Collins, most of the qbs spent their careers as backups. Really the only positions that could produce something of consistent NFL-quality players were Linebacker and Offensive Line.
So Paterno's Legacy is Happy Valley. It is Penn State. Nothing more, nothing less. Penn State was a semi-successful .667ish team before Paterno, and Paterno's all time winning percentage is around .750. That's not that huge of a change, but the scale of the wins is exponentially greater. Paterno took more advantage of the independent status, scheduling tough opponents, and playing big bowl games. Paterno is the only coach to win all 4 of the current bcs bowl games (though he's only won the Rose bowl, the berth for the Big Ten, once) and still has the record for both bowl wins and appearances (though given his overall wins record, that shouldn't be a huge surprise). Penn State was never really a terrible football school before Paterno, but it was never a big one.
The harder part will be figuring out how/if this Sandusky scandal changes his legacy.
No comments:
Post a Comment