JoePa-Tern-No

Hey Dino,

It seems our thinking on this matter is not very far apart. We both think Paterno was a good human being, and yet we both recognize his failure to report what he knew to the police authorities was wrong. Neither of us was part of the rah-rah football mania that is Penn State and countless other schools, but we both recognize that Joe Paterno truly was an honorable man.

I am not a bad guy, but I wish I had more of the fine attributes Joe Paterno had - those special qualities for which I do not quite measure up to him. Recognizing my own personal shortcomings, however, I do not think I would have made the same bad decision Paterno made. Like Paterno, I probably would have first reported what I knew to Spanier and company with the expectation that they would have taken appropriate action. I would be enough of a "team player" to do what Paterno did. At some point, when it was obvious they were not going to report it to police authorities, however, I am pretty sure I would have reported it to police authority, and I would no longer worry about the consequences.

That may be the difference between Paterno's and my own personality. I may never have given to my community the way Paterno did to his, but I do respect my community, and I would be more inclined to reject the Penn State community pressure in favor or my larger community and what I feel is a moral issue. To me, Sandusky's actions were heinous, and I would have been compelled to see that he was stopped.

That does not make me better than Joe Paterno. It just means we are different. Joe Paterno is a better man than I in many ways. The Sandusky thing may be the only incident where I might have made a better decision than Paterno.

I wish life would allow Paterno a "do-over" with that decision. He may have been wrong once, but somehow I think he would have done the right thing given a second chance. But we do not always get "do-overs," and Joe Paterno will always be measured by all his fine deeds as well as his one less than shining decision.

Paterno was never an evil monster, and he was never the "Saint Joe-Pa" that so many of the football groupies make him out to be. I was never one of the football nuts, so I never had a problem looking at Paterno with what I think is a more reasoned eye. I always thought of him as a good man. I think I would like playing football for him, I think I would probably like being his neighbor, and I think I might have been a better man if I had been his neighbor.

At my age, I am willing to keep my vision of the good man he was. But I will also keep the knowledge that he made a mistake, and I will hope others can learn by this example and neither put him on a pedestal nor run him into the ground. Neither extreme is correct, and neither is beneficial to our commonweal.


"...but no matter what good he accomplished in his life, that one mistake was quite a big one."

--- Absolutely, no reasonable person can argue with your statement.


"The emails between Curley, Shultz, and Spanier (as highlighted in the Freeh Report and then shown in the documentary, as well) mention things like, "Coach wants to know if the situation has been resolved" and "Could their be ramifications if we never report this?". These facts tell me that Paterno, along with the other 3 men (and who knows who else), was involved in keeping this under wraps. Sandusky should have been fired immediately and turned over to the police."

--- These guys are despicable and should also be in prison. On a side note, was the word "there" really misspelled as "their" in the E-Mail noted above? If so, it makes me wonder about their selection to the position the had in the university.


"Imagine that back in '98, Paterno, against the wishes of his superiors, went to the police with this information and Sandusky was found guilty before he could do more damage. Paterno would not only be remembered as a great man, but as a hero who was fighting to protect the community by telling the truth. I would have had a deeper respect for him than I do now."

--- Again, I agree completely. If only he had done exactly that.


"I agree that the way PSU's football program and Paterno's history of wins were treated by the NCAA was extremely unwarranted and harsh,"

--- This was a criminal matter that had nothing to do with the Penn State football team. The NCAA should never have been involved.


"If Martin Luther King, Jr. had been implicated in covering up a case like this, I would think lesser of him, as well, no matter what good he did for humanity. I have no beef with Joe's character; I just don't want his history as an otherwise great man to be an excuse for his inaction on a very, very serious matter."

--- I know what you mean. King was a hero of mine, and I was crushed by his assassination. Later, when I learned he cheated on his wife, my hero became tarnished and I no longer thought of him as being on a pedestal. I still valued his noble acts as great examples for mankind to follow, but I also recognized King was not perfect. I suppose I was more disappointed by King's infidelity than Paterno's poor decision.

Thank you, Dino, for your thoughtful discourse. Here we are, both Penn State grads, yet neither of us were caught up in the rah-rah sports scene. I was actually married a few months before I began my first of two years at Shippensburg State College, and my first daughter was born a few months before I graduated. I went to work right after graduation and was sent to Clearfield, PA to work. When we passed through State College on our way to Clearfield, it was the first time I had ever seen the "real" Penn State. I actually received my bachelor's degree from Penn State University in the mail about two weeks prior to my first trip through State College to Clearfield. We live in Mechanicsburg, PA; any chance you are nearby?

Best wishes,
Dave Wile

Spot on! Paterno's actions - or lack of - can not be defended. Children were abused because of him. No matter what he achieved - he will be remembered for this, and rightly so. I honestly don't know how he lived with himself.