It’s everyone’s responsibility
Published 4:58 pm Friday, November 11, 2011
That there was any controversy at all surrounding the firing of longtime Penn State football coach Joe Paterno last week shows why it was so necessary.
It’s not news that many fans’ devotion to their favorite college football team can be described as religious. But when perspective is distorted to the point that protecting a sports program outweighs protecting children from sexual abuse, people have truly lost their minds.
Paterno, who rose to the status of sports icon in 46 years at the helm of one of the sport’s most successful and — so everyone thought — honorable programs, failed when it mattered most. So did others, including university President Graham Spanier, who also was fired Wednesday by the university’s board of trustees.
They failed in one of the most sacred trusts each and every adult holds: to protect children from harm.
According to a grand jury report (see attachment above), they failed to tell authorities about an incident relayed to Paterno in 2002 by a graduate assistant coach who said he saw former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky sodomizing a boy, about 10 years old, in the shower area of the football locker room. Paterno reported it to his boss, former athletic director Tim Curley, but not to police, as he should have — even after days, weeks, months and years passed without consequences.
Every adult who had any knowledge of what was alleged had a moral duty to follow through and make sure law enforcement was notified.
Sandusky now is charged with sexually abusing eight boys, and more charges reportedly could come. Curley and former Penn State vice president Gary Schultz, both of whom have resigned, face charges of lying to the grand jury.
The repeated moral failings evident in this case should outrage any clear-thinking person. Yet after Paterno’s dismissal, a crowd of students staged a violent protest, toppling a TV news van. Police in riot gear used pepper spray at times to disperse them. In quick sports media surveys, thousands said Paterno didn’t deserve to be fired.
Such reaction only fuels the mentality that leads to coverups like the one alleged at Penn State. The notion that any football program, university or church — any institution at all — can be excused from its obligation to come to the defense of innocent children is warped. No adult, no matter how revered, is absolved from that elemental human duty.
Children were the victims here, not a football coach or university president who failed in their responsibility to them.
Protecting children is an obligation that falls to each of us. They’re depending on us not to fail them.
