It has been reported that former Penn State head football coach Joe Paterno has died from complications due to lung cancer. God bless Joe Pa.
Joe Pa did many wonderful things. He was the King of State College, Pennsylvania. He led the Penn State Nittany Lions football team to many wins and championships. He funded significant advances not to the athletic department that paid him so well but to the Penn State libraries which support all academic endeavors. Joe Pa's world was Penn State and ultimately this was his undoing.
He was undone by age and status. It's hard to tell an icon that a trusted aide is forcing himself sexually on underage boys. It's even harder to say it in a way that makes everything clear to someone old enough to be you great-grandfather while trying to parse words so no one feels uncomfortable. If you think it's easy, say "your trusted aid rapes children" to your grandmother. This is how he was undone.
Ultimately, Penn State decided that while Joe Pa fulfilled his legal requirements to report what happened, he was morally obligated to do more. In a society that tries to follow laws only to the letter and not the spirit--and moral obligations seem to matter less--Joe Pa's vilification is a shame. Maybe this is why no man should be an icon.
We do need to do a better job of protecting those who are in danger, but we need to do a better job of defining "those who need protection" too. Children are obvious. But when we forget the poor and the elderly many get lost in a dream that values the rugged individualism of boot-straps over community efforts to truly lift every boat in the bay.
Yes, Joe Pa did what he was supposed to do. No, he did not do enough--but he trusted that those who he told would do what they were supposed to do. That is why several of those folks are under criminal indictment.
But before anyone says what Paterno did was bad or evil, remember that none of us are truly good enough to cast the first stone, especially at someone whose position, God willing, we will never share.
Adios, Go with God Joe Pa.
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