Paterno to Retire

He is going to announce that he is going to retire at the end of this season. That is just not good enough. He should step down right now. What he allowed to happen is so horrifying that he should not be allowed to continue.

It is clear that Paterno knew something was up with Sandusky. He said in his statement, "If this is true we were all fooled, along with scores of professionals trained in such things, and we grieve for the victims and their families." I'm sorry but he was not fooled. We know that he was aware of at least 2 issues with Sandusky in 1998 (which led to Sandusky's forced retirement) and in 2002 when a graduate assistant witnessed Sandusky attacking a 10 year old boy in the Penn State shower and told Paterno about it. (I'm not at all clear why the GA didn't intervene and/or call police himself.)

When asked about why he didn't do more after the GA came to his home and told him what he saw in 2002, Paterno admitted that the GA was "distraught," but then claimed that the GA did not tell him about the "very specific actions" that are now in the grand jury report. This is truly unbelievable. What more did Paterno need? If one of my students came to me "distraught" and told me that they saw a colleague touching a 10 year old boy in a shower that is enough for me to call police. I don't need details, especially when I know there was at least one other allegation of child sexual abuse for this colleague.

Joe needs to go right now. I don't know how he lives with himself knowing that he allowed this to take place. But he should not be allowed to walk out on his own terms and have a celebratory sendoff. He should meet any of the victims who want to face him and answer any questions they have. Then he should take his millions in pension and retirement money and give it to them. They paid a far heavier price than he could ever pay for his mistakes.