commentaries

Paterno was a Pedophiler Enabler. I hope for his sake that the atheists are correct, otherwise, well, I doubt that anyone really cares much about football when its time for him to answer questions to a Higher Authority.

Amen. This is an important column, coming from the last journalist to interview Paterno. In his own way, Paterno, too, was a monster.

Very nicely said.

Putting a halo over the football coaches head on a mural, I assume with other Penn State people? That really explains everything!!

The big money business of college sports corrupts officials and participants while doing nothing to advance education in the fields that might actually help the USA to be competitive. Meanwhile, students are fatter and more out of shape than ever. This ridiculous system so raises the stakes for winning and cultivating donors that covering up criminal activity is not only tempting, but expected. We would be better off putting college sports on the back burner and emphasizing health and fitness among the student body and solid math, science, medicine, and engineering programs.

This whole scandal makes me think about all the thousands upon thousands of potential scandals of various sorts that we've never heard about throughout the history of the Roman Catholic Church. I would bet an investigatory read through the Vatican's secret archives would be most illuminating and completely damning of the institution.

I don't care about Joe Paterno! I care that those Penn State officials and anyone else involved in the coverup or failing to report it is identified and that they are held liable under the laws of the state. The university is free to embrace or memorialize paterno's legacy as they see fit, that is unimportant to me. What is important is that justice is carried out.

@wa0tda - Wow, you received 3 negative votes for actually telling like it is and like it should be.

The problem develops from having these institutions, with hierarchical authority structures, that take on a life of their own. People give them meaning and importance that they do not deserve. Paterno and the rest of the Penn State authority hierarchy decided that Penn State was more important than human beings' lives were. Even what they perceived as a threat to the reputation of an inanimate object (Penn State) was more important than peoples' lives to these men.

I'm not going to point at any particular hierarchical authority system. It happens in every single one of them. Do we have examples of people tolerating, hiding, and enabling bad behavior in religious institutions, supposedly out of loyalty? Do we have examples of people tolerating, hiding and enabling bad behavior in government institutions, educational institutions, military institutions, corporations, hospitals, etc.? I can think of numerous such examples, just from the past couple of weeks. In all cases people used the excuse that they were trying to protect the institution itself, when what they were really doing was protecting the predatory evil behavior.

People need to be held accountable for their own actions. Period. People must never be excused from the consequences of their actions just because they claim they were acting on behalf of an organization. The Coach, the CEO, the Priest, the Officer, the Doctor; evil actions are evil actions and people must answer to them. Using the hierarchical structure as an excuse for evil actions should be an aggravating factor, not a mitigating factor.

If the reputation of Penn State football required the Penn State authorities to connive with Jerry Sandusky to victimize kids, then maybe we'd all be better off without Penn State football. Same goes for all the other organizations that are used to rationalize evil behavior.

The one thing you can't question is Paterno... he is dead. No one will ever know what he knew or didn't know.