Why Joe Paterno Needed To Go

As most are aware, Joe Paterno, head coach of Penn State for 46 years and coach for 61, has been fired due to the connection to the Sandusky scandal.  Some people are upset by this, as evinced by the riots in streets of State College last night.

Joe Paterno had to go though.  Maybe for most coaches, not following up on a report that a GA gives you on one of your longest serving and most trusted coaches doing something heinous could be something to be ignored.  The fact of the matter is Joe Paterno isn't that kind of coach, and he doesn't run that kind of program.  To expect a coach who would suspend and dismiss players who aren't getting good grades, a coach who would suspend key players for difficult games, a coach who would suspend his star wide receiver for an entire season, not to be held accountable for something like this is an embarrassing double standard.  Coach Paterno always seemed to run a tight ship, and his program occupied the moral high ground of college football because of it.  To even have knowledge of a circumstance like this existing should have warranted more action than reporting it to the AD by a coach like Paterno.

Mike McQueary, the then GA who saw the actions in 2002, should be judged, but not in as strong a light.  Should he keep his job at Penn State after the season is over?  Probably not.  But he was just a GA at the time, with aspirations of becoming a head football coach.  Ratting on JoPa and Sandusky would pretty much kill that goal from ever happening.  With a coach like JoePa, it shouldn't have even come to that point, it should have been trusted to have been taken care of.  If McQueary had seen the incident recently, where he holds the much much more esteemed positions of wide receivers coach/offensive coordinator/recruiting director/assistant head coach, then yeah, by all means it would be a huge obligation on his part to make sure the observation did not go ignored.

The only reason I can think of for keeping him, is the fact that Joe Paterno is Penn State.  He occupies a unique position within college football where his cult of personality identifies him not as a supporter or member of the university, but rather the university itself.  To think of Penn State is to immediately think of JoPa.  The only circumstance which can even come close to that is Bear Bryant's association with the University of Alabama -- but he hasn't coached in 3 decades, has coached at many other schools (Kentucky and Texas A&M to name a few), and the black and white houndstooth he made iconic is a far more identifiable and imitable image than rolled up pant legs and thick glasses

So many students and alumni just can't imagine Penn State football without Joe Paterno; so many students and alumni just can't imagine Penn State without Joe Paterno.

That he is brought down with what amounts to strong hearsay is really a tragedy, but his inaction frankly lost him the right to call his own departure.  The board had asked him in 2004, in the midst of some very painful seasons, to retire.  He said no.  There are no other coaches who are able to do something like that.  Earning the right to say when you leave is virtually impossible for a football coach to do, maintaining that amidst many powerful people who want you to leave is even more impossible.  I'm not saying the board was looking for a reason for him to leave, but there was simply no reason for him to stay.

Yes, the main screw ups in this affair are all administrative, but any involvement in a case that is growing to this magnitude simply has to be recognized and dealt with.  No, JoPa didn't touch any young boys, but he had the power to stop it and he didn't.

On a personal note, I'm pretty pissed with Schulz.  Curley may have done more to cover this up, but Schulz was head of the the University Park police (for those who don't know, University Park is the entire campus of Penn State, and State College makes up the town around it) and instead of stopping a known child molester, he waged an excessive war against underage drinking and the like.  Maybe Penn State does have a reputation as a party school that the administration doesn't necessarily want, but where are your fucking priorities?

I don't think the program deserves the death penalty.  Many of the issues were administrative and only tenuously connected to football.  Not to mention, I don't think the team itself committed any NCAA violations or infractions, I don't think any of the issues dealt with players themselves involved in the cover up, and the cover up doesn't directly give the players any sort of competitive advantage.  Giving Penn State football the death penalty might be cathartic, but it won't solve any problems and it only hurts fans and players of Penn State Football.  House does need to be cleaned though.

Allegations against Sandusky are about to get stronger, and this situation will only get messier.  Paterno needed to be thrown out of the mud because he's too senile right now to understand he should've walked out when these first came to light.

The one fact nagging at me about this whole situation is Sandusky's retirement in 1999 -- which followed a 1998 University investigation into the matter (findings were "inconclusive").  I can't help but think Paterno knew what was happening and offered a clean slate if he retired.  This makes the 2002 report all the more troubling.  That Paterno wouldn't know that his number 2, his heir apparent, was getting investigated by the University itself is a fact that I simply can't grasp -- it doesn't make any logical sense.

It's really a shame something like this has come to engulf my alma mater.

"May no act of ours bring shame/to one heart that loves thy name/may our lives but swell thy fame/dear old state, dear old state" - the Penn State Alma Mater, Fred Lewis Patee

-- Knuttel