If you haven't heard the story yet, let me give you a brief overview. Coach Joe Paterno was fired last Wednesday, November 9, for covering up the child sexual abuse performed by his former assistant coach, Jerry Sandusky. In 2002, a graduate assistant named Mike McQueary saw Sandusky sodomizing a 10-year-old child in the showers where the Penn State football players clean off after practice. McQueary told Paterno, and he said "I’ll report this to the president. I’ll report this to the head of finance and campus police," which legally was all he was required to do. Although Paterno notified his boss, he did not call the police. Therefore, he is now blamed for covering up the abuse.
According to the article Penn State Cover-Up, others at Penn State University knew about other sexual assaults allegedly committed by Sandusky. Although some others, such as Graham Spanier, were fired for taking part in the child sexual abusec, Paterno suffers most of the negative publicity. The riot formed by the college students formed Others probably did not even report it to their boss as Paterno did. I agree that someone should've notified the police, but the point is, anyone could've notified the police including Mike McQueary, but no one did. For those that got away from the scandal- hope you're doing well.
Although I agree that JoePa is not the only one who should be punished, it's important to point out that he not the only one who got fired. The President of the school was actually the first person to be removed, and JoePa was going to just retire on his own at the end of the season. It was the outrage of the people that caused the school to end up getting rid of him themselves. They didn't want to cast a negative image on the school by letting him stay.
ReplyDelete