Joe Paterno’s Last Day in Charge
Joe Paterno’s Last Day in Charge - In the muck of the Pennsylvania State University crisis, nothing can overshadow the accusations of Jerry Sandusky’s alleged abuses against children, which are said to have spanned 15 years and include allegations of felony child abuse against eight boys. (Sandusky, a former Penn State defensive coordinator, maintains his innocence on all charges.) But with a phone call last night, the Penn State Board of Trustees brought the major sub-narrative of this mess to a denouement: PSU football coach Joe Paterno has been fired, as has and school president Graham Spanier has resigned. Defensive coordinator Tom Bradley has been named interim coach.
Following accusations that Paterno did not respond thoroughly enough to an eyewitness report of an alleged abuse of a boy by Sandusky in 2002, passing the information along to Penn State’s athletic director but not the police, the clamor of voices calling for Paterno’s departure has been quite loud. And Paterno, whose 46-year tenure saw him become the winningest coach in major-college football history, did say Wednesday morning that he would retire at the end of the season, calling the scandal “one of the great sorrows” of his life.
To think such an ending could have played out any other way would have been foolish, writes the Journal’s Jason Gay. “Amid a scandal consuming the institution he helped build, [Paterno] requested the courtesy of a long goodbye. This request has been denied, and correctly so,” Gay writes. “Reality is landing hard on Penn State, a school that saw itself as resistant to the troubles found elsewhere in college sports, where one man offered a straight path celebrated as ‘The Grand Experiment.’ That image is shattered. The past week has shown how treacherous it is to elevate mortals into myths.”
Fallout from this mess, which also includes perjury charges against athletic director Tim Curley and vice president for finance and business Gary Schultz—both maintain their innocence—will not vanish with Paterno’s resignation. The U.S. Department of Education has launched an investigation into the school’s compliance with crime disclosure policies. Penn State students took to the streets of State College, Pa., Wednesday night, upending a news van and breaking windows. And all accusations must yet play out in the courts.
Still, Sports Illustrated’s Andy Staples is one of many national observers to say Penn State did the right thing by ending Paterno’s tenure now instead of at season’s end. CBS Sports’ Dennis Dodd says this incident should serve as a springboard for major American universities to take back athletic programs that they no longer control. And Longform.org has republished a 2007 GQ profile of Paterno by Jeanne Marie Laskas with the single-worded headline “Icon,” reminding everyone how surprising it is that the career of one of sports’ most accomplished figures has come to such a miserable close. Had Joe Paterno led the 8-1 Nittany Lions this weekend against Nebraska, he would’ve set another record, for most games coached in a career. Instead he will remain tied with Amos Alonzo Stagg at 548.
via: wsj
