The World of Sports, According to Vince

Joe Paterno was an American sports legend. He is a man known for his dedication to Penn State University and its football program. A man who holds the record for most wins in division one football and a man who helped turn a small agricultural school in central Pennsylvania into a well-respected university and football powerhouse. But now, that is gone.

Earlier today, Paterno announced that in wake of the recent developments that sexual abuse took place inside of Penn State’s football program, he would be stepping down from his head-coaching job once this season is over.

One of Paterno’s former assistant coaches, defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky, has been accused of sexually abusing at least eight underage children. To make matters worse, it appears both Paterno and the university knew and did nothing about it.

Some of the alleged abuses took place on Penn State’s campus with children from Sandusky’s charity for foster children, The Second Mile. The abuses started in 1998 when a young boy’s mother reported sexual abuse to University Police. The claim was investigated; Sandusky acknowledged wrongdoing and no criminal charges were filed. Sandusky then unexpectedly retired in the summer of 1999 but was allowed to retain emeritus status at the school.

In 2000, a Penn State janitor, James Calhoun, witnessed Sandusky abusing a boy in the showers at the Lasch Football Building on campus. Calhoun told his fellow employees what he had witnessed, but never filed an official report on the matter. Calhoun was a temporary employee at Penn State at the time.

Then in 2002, a Penn State grad assistant reported that he had witnessed Sandusky abusing a young boy directly to Paterno. Paterno then reportedly passed the information along to Penn State’s athletic director Tim Curley. Curley and senior vice president of finance and business, Gary Shultz, later met with the grad assistant who witnessed the abuse and told him “they would look into it.”

Unfortunately it appears that is where Penn State’s investigation ended. No university officials or staff members ever took the matter to the police, and Sandusky was allowed to continue working with his charity on campus grounds and use Penn State facilities as late 2010.

Paterno did report the 2002 issue (the only one he was reportedly aware of) to his higher-ups, but that was it. At this point it is complete speculation as to what Paterno was actually told, what he actually knew and what he actually reported, but that doesn’t matter.

Even if Paterno only knew the tiniest of details, reporting the matter to Curley wasn’t even close to enough. While Paterno is in no way the biggest problem in this story (that title is reserved for the scum-bag Sandusky himself) it appears that he isn’t innocent either.

As of today Paterno will finish this season (a season in which Penn State has a chance of winning the Big Ten and going to the Rose Bowl), then retire. Things may change as more information is revealed however, and Paterno could be fired at any point really.

After an extremely turbulent college football offseason where we saw handfuls of schools go under NCAA investigations for major violations, we learned that Fiesta Bowl CEO, John Junker, had been using the bowl’s non-profit organization as a personal piggy-bank and we saw teams turn their back on tradition and chase the money as conferences realigned across the country; Paterno and his tenure at Penn State seemed like one of the few good stories in college football.

Paterno’s status at Penn State was once something others could idolize and admire, he was a man other schools wish they had on their campus. In just under 55 seasons as the head coach of Penn State; Paterno has won 409 games, gone to 37 bowl games, won two national championships, won a countless number of awards and has helped turn hundreds of young student-athletes into men.

Now, what was once one of the only bright-spots in a sport that is riddled with corruption is a complete and utter disgrace to not only college football, but to all American sports. Recruiting violations or football wrongdoings would have been one thing, but this, this is just egregious.

A man who would have been celebrated right up there with great coaches like John Wooden and Bear Bryant, will now be know for nothing more than the disgusting sex scandal that took place at Penn State under his watch.