November 11th, 2011
So that nothing which follows gets misunderstood, let’s start with first things. (1) Joe Paterno failed a slew of innocent children, his institution, and his calling by not doing more about Jerry Sandusky. (2) The minute the Sandusky case broke, Paterno should have resigned. (3) Because he did not step down, Penn State was absolutely right to fire him.
With that out of the way, though, I’d suggest that there’s something troubling about the righteous indignation we’re seeing about Paterno. I’m not sure where it comes from. Maybe it’s just the inchoate rage which follows when a monster like Sandusky is discovered. But it strikes me as wrong-headed because it misses something important. The lesson of Paterno’s fall isn’t that Joe Paterno is a bad man and a hypocrite. It’s that this world is so fallen that even good men–and Paterno is, by nearly every measure, a very good man–can fail the tests Providence puts before them.
Tom Boswell gets at this question nicely in his column from earlier this week:
Everybody has weak spots in their character, fault lines in their personality where the right earthquake at the wrong time can lead to personal catastrophe. Most of us are fortunate that our worst experience doesn’t hit us with its biggest jolt in exactly the area where our flaws or poor judgment or vanity is most dangerously in play. It’s part good luck if we don’t disgrace ourselves.
But when it does happen, as appears to be the case with Joe Paterno, that’s when we witness personal disasters that seem so painful and, in the context of a well-lived life, so unfair that we feel deep sadness even as we simultaneously recognize that the person at the center of the storm can never avoid full accountability.
I’m not trying to excuse Paterno when I suggest that had he gone to the authorities when he was told about Sandusky–and not just to the AD–then I suspect the ensuing firestorm would have cost him his job then, too. He was in his early 70s. He would have been a liability for the university even if he was blameless. My guess is that it would have meant the end for him and that he knew it. So an old man already facing mortality was given the choice of doing the right thing and sacrificing his life’s work, or turning a semi-blind eye to preserve his career.
He made the wrong choice. It was, in the very Greek sense of the work, tragedy.
What’s worth reflecting on is that these kinds of choices are more common than you think. And it isn’t just the wicked who fail them.
For me, Paterno’s fall calls to mind two people, with two choices. The first is Cardinal Bernard Law, a holy man who failed both God and his flock in ways reminiscent of Paterno. The other is Cassie Bernall, the junior at Columbine High School who was was asked, at the pain of death, “Do you believe in God.” She answered, “Yes.”
When good men like Paterno fail their test, I’d argue that they deserve not scorn, but pity.
Their example should make us pray that such a cup is never put before us. And that if it is, we are given the strength to be better than ourselves.
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I think there’s a lot of people who dislike college football culture who are piling on and schadenfreuding.
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This is beautifully written, and in many ways it matches my feelings. But I can’t muster even this much empathy for Paterno. Paterno had to know about the 1998 investigation, which almost certainly was the reason for Sandusky’s surprising retirement. He knew that Sandusky was still working with children. For years and years, he knew about all this. And just looked away. Little children raped and he looked away.
He was put to a terrible test – a test of who he was – and he failed. But his failure cost a score of boys their souls. I cannot get past that. I am not reveling in his downfall because it is a tragedy. But I can’t be sorry that he is paying a terrible price for his choice.
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“Their example should make us pray that such a cup is never put before us.”
We should pray that we never have put before us the cup that Cassie Bernall did. But Cardinal Law’s was not such a cup. And neither was Joe Paterno’s.
I dislike pointing at his 16 grandchildren as evidence that he should’ve made the right call, because I that even a childless man is obliged to know better. But it’s not even arguable that if it had been Paterno’s own grandchild sodomized like that, he’d have made the call…right after blowing Sandusky’s head off.
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Let me flesh out your point, before I take issue with it.
I don’t think Paterno was motivated by careerist concerns, which in any event I doubt would have been imperiled if he turned in Sandusky. (For crying out loud, the fans are cheering for him, even now.) Also, the better analogy, I think, is that of a Catholic bishop, confronted with a parish priest, accused of a similar crime.
In both cases, I think a good man was motivated by something more elemental than career or institution, and more tragic. In Paterno’s case, for certain, I think he was motivated by friendship.
What happens the first time Joe sees Jerry? The man breaks down in sobs. “Please, Joe,” he begs, “don’t do this to me. I made a mistake. I have a problem. I’ll do anything. It won’t happen again, never, I swear. On my mother’s grave, I swear. Please Joe. They’ll throw me in prison. Oh God Joe. Please.”
You have a man you’ve known, worked with, and loved. He’s begging forgiveness. You’ve known him to be a man of character, a good man. He’s crying. He’s actually on his knees. Oh Christ, you think, enough is enough. He’s going to kill himself. I can’t let that happen.
So you don’t make the call. You give him hell–you just rip him a new asshole. You scream, you throw things, you tell him this can never, Never, NEVER fucking happen again. He cries. You cry. And you don’t call the cops.
And, somewhere, who knows where–and really, who cares?–an orphan boy nurses his still-bleeding rectum.
I’m sorry. I don’t do this often. But fuck Joe. Fuck the bishop. They chose wrong. Yes, it was tragedy. And yes, there but for the grace of God go I. But no. It was a sin, a mortal sin, an acquiescence to evil in the name of friendship.
I will not try to sympathize, because in sympathizing I help remove stigma, and the stigma is indispensable, and guys like Joe and the bishop need to be treated as monsters, so that in the future, guys like them don’t get it wrong.
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Mr. Last, it is the combination of an “everything is Watergate” press and the (evidently innate) emotional need to be outraged all the time, which the press superserves. PSU’s appalling child-rape saga is not a conspiratorial case study, it’s more proof that *absolutely large institutions corrupt absolutely*
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So we should pity Joe Pa because he was a craven, power coveting, dictator and that made his choice so much harder? Dude: anal rape of ten-year-olds. In a just world,Joe Pa would be in prison. My rage is derived from the love for my four children. It’s not inchoate, and it wasn’t caused by the media.
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Douthat has a similar take in his column today.
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I don’t percieve a lot of rage against JoePa, the real rage is mostly being directed against McQueary. Locally, anyway, Penn State fans seem to be scapegoating McQueary for what can only be described as systemic, comprehensive failures across the board at the university.
And remember that this thing isn’t over yet. There’s still a lot we don’t know about PSU’s handling of Sandusky. In particular, I would like to know what really prompted Sandusky’s retirement in 1999 and whether the university made some kind of deal to brush his “issues” under the rug in exchange for his retirement.
Regarding JoePa, just remember that he was the guy who called the shots at PSU. Not the President and certainly not the Athletic Director. JoePa trying to duck responsibility on this by passing the buck on this matter to Tim Curley, of all people, is an absolute joke. At PSU, JoePa is much bigger than a mere Cardinal. This is more like the Pope sweeping child molestation under the rug.
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Tubbylover69 covers it for me.
I simply do not understand the “pity, not scorn” sentiment. Does he deserve pity for being so narcissistic that he identified the program with himself, so blinded by the program not to realize that this event was larger than the program – larger than himself? Maybe he does deserve some pity, but mostly he deserves scorn – deep, profound universal scorn. He made a tragically poor decision, and despite everything you set forth above – there is simply no way that I would make the same decision (and, as you know, I’m not guided by the Christian morals that you reference, I’m just guided by my own sense of humanity). I would turn him in immediately, the consequences to me, “my program” and my reputation be damned. But, I seriously doubt that the investigation in 1999 or the incident in 2002(?) were the first times that Joe was confronted with this issue. Maybe it started with an inkling that something was not right, and maybe Joe regrets not taking action in the 80s? And by the time the 1999 event, or the 2002 event, came around, so much water was under the bridge that he couldn’t see that the water was now flowing over the bridge.
Either way – a modicum of pity, more for his family than for him, but more scorn than I can possibly muster.
I see no comparision between Joe’s situation and that of Cassie Bernall. She lost her life to a madman – he turned a blind eye to child rape. To link them together is an insult to Cassie’s faith. Cassie to Joan of Arc – I could see that one.
And there is no “there but for the grace of God go I” sentiment, because there is no way that I make the same decision. And I sure hope you wouldn’t either.
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Scott,
Have you been faced with a decision like this and chose the way you have said? No? Then your talk is cheap, if you have then you are golden.
I was going to originally respond to Tubbylover because I thought he misunderstood JVL’s point as I saw it. To pity someone is not to let them off the hook in terms of public justice. Based on what we know today Paterno should lose all that he has and should be brought up on criminal counts (PA law seems strange in this regard) – there is a price to be paid for what he did. I also think that the ultimate punishment, in Paterno’s eyes, might be necessary and death penalty the football program.
However that doesn’t mean I as a private person shouldn’t pity him. At the heart of the Christian faith is the notion that we are fallen people living in a fallen world; I see people make these types of choices all the time (though not to the extent of Paterno), people who trade who they are, the things most precious to them, for things of little worth.
As a citizen, Paterno must be punished and in a terrible way – if only to encourage the others and also to re-establish some sort of balance within the social community. It’s a dangerous fallacy of the modern age that equates pity with leniency.
We as individuals, as well as society, will decide what lessons to draw from all of this long after this story disappears from the headlines and the principals involved fade into oblivion and the grave.
Once again, if you have been faced with a similar situation to that of Paterno of doing the right thing even though doing so cost you what you hold most dear then you are truly (and I mean this most sincerely) heroic. If you haven’t yet been faced with that choice yet and are just saying what you will do, then like I said talk is cheap.
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Apart from JVL’s well written, difficult question: IMO the biggest story here is the DA who went missing and is now presumed dead: He had credible reports of Sandusky’s abuse for years…the question to me is who in the PSU hierarchy leaned on this guy not to prosecute. It’s like a reverse Mike Nifong.
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Anon Mike:
Talk may be cheap, but I’m positive that if I saw a superior raping a 10 year old boy in the shower stall that my reaction would be what I have said. If I didn’t physically remove the rapist, not just from the boy but possibly from the face of the earth, then I should not be counted among respectible humans. It’s just that simple.
If a subordinate came to me and said they just saw something even close to this – I ask precisely what he saw – I don’t settle for vague descriptions so I have plausible deniability. If he tells me this, then I call the cops, and not the Penn State cops but the State Police. If they don’t do anything, then I go to the state equilvalent of the FBI. If I still have nothing, then the FBI (I don’t even care if they have jurisdiction). I never, ever, ever stop until the matter is prosecuted.
And I am a bleeding heart liberal atheist. Of all the political stripes, I should be the one doing the most hand-wringing about prosecuting innocent people. But on this issue, you will not find a stronger voice. Why? Because I can look at the innocence of my own 7 year old’s eyes – end of story.
Have I made tough ethical decisions in the past? Yes. I’ve spoken up at moments that have cost me hard cold cash when I could not allow the moment to pass. I have confronted friends and colleagues when they utter statements that are racist. I have refused to laugh along with a joke when it would have been easier to do so, instead telling the person that the joke wasn’t all that funny but was instead destructive. Do these moments equal the decision about child-rape? Nope – child rape is an easy one for me, much easier than these other moments.
Anonymous Mike November 11, 2011 at 5:25 pm
This is very well said and echoes my thoughts. For all the people I hear and read that express the view, either implicitly or explicitly, that the choice Paterno should have made was straight-forward I wonder….
… take the thing you value most in life – family or say career or the business you have built from the ground up – and then give that up in order to report somebody like Sandusky. Paterno had a choice back then, to give up all he had built and valued outside of his family (because I agree he would not only have lost his job but he would see Penn State’s image forever tarnished) or sweep it under the rug.
How many of those opininng on Mr. Paterno would have chosen differently? From personal experience, very, very few.
Christ admonishes us to leave everything behind, pick up our cross, and follow him. rarely is it offered on such explicit terms like Miss Bernall at the point of gun. Usually we are offered the choice like Paterno was in the form of temptation, to rationalize and put it aside, that’s how Satan works. Paterno rationalized it, swept it under the rug, and did evil and paid for it.
Remember we are all from the same clay. This tale is tragic morality play that shows us the weakness in the human condition and for all of those who think otherwise, pray that you’ll never be put to the test.