Today is Joe Paterno's 85th birthday, an occasion that used to merit cheesy tributes and jokes about the lovable legend outliving us all. This year, it's another depressing reminder of a sick man who's lost his job, his team and his reputation, all at once.
I know already there are an awful lot of people reading who are deeply, viscerally upset by that statement — if not for its accuracy, then for the sheer injustice of it. Today, that number includes more than 400 of Paterno's former players at Penn State since the 1950s, who commemorated his birthday by signing their name to a letter pledging support for their old coach and their school and urge for "due process" in the ongoing sexual abuse scandal that's rocked the university to its core.
Paterno has not been and apparently will not be charged with a crime, but to the side of the aisle unable to reconcile its image of the patron saint of Doing Things the Right Way in college sports with the complacent boss who was fired as an accessory to college sports' vilest scandal, the suggestion that Paterno might deserve his fate is the mark of a lynch mob.
I know, because I've been accused of being in that number, along with the rest of the heathen media hordes that gather in the woods twice a week to summon the identity of our next target from the depths of a foul, steaming cauldron. Just as I've been accused by the other side of the aisle of being a shameless Paterno apologist who tacitly condones molesting children for, say, failing to use the specific term "rape," or expressing a degree of sympathy for a man who has just been diagnosed with lung cancer within days of losing the job that was his life for 46 years. For them, no fire is too hot.
Barely six weeks removed from Jerry Sandusky's arrest, that's probably to be expected. The shock is still fresh, the trials are still months away, the accused are still innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, and the headlines keep on coming. To an extent, the story is still being assembled. At some point, though, the last chapter will be written, and both sides will have to acknowledge the same conclusion: They're both right, and they're both wrong. All of it is true.
Where his role in the scandal is concerned, Paterno makes a pretty compelling case against himself. According to his grand jury testimony, he was informed in 2002 that "inappropriate action was taken by Jerry Sandusky with a youngster" in a Penn State shower. He knew that said action was "of a sexual nature." Sandusky had been investigated on virtually identical charges by university police once before, in 1998 (the department produced a 95-page report on the investigation), and was later investigated again by his charity, The Second Mile, in 2008.
Still, Sandusky maintained an office in the Lasch Football Building and had "unlimited access to all football facilities," including the locker room. He also kept a parking pass, a university Internet account and a listing in the faculty directory. As recently as 2009, he was still running an overnight football camp for children as young as 9 on a Penn State campus. He was still working out in football facilities as recently as October — after university officials (including Paterno) had been called to testify in the investigation that ultimately led to his arrest on more than 40 counts of sexual abuse against at least eight victims over more than a decade. Sandusky told the New York Times earlier this month that he still has his keys.
It's still up to a jury to determine whether there's enough evidence to convict Sandusky of committing the heinous acts he's accused of committing, and another jury to determine whether Paterno's former bosses, athletic director Tim Curley and vice president Gary Schultz, fulfilled their legal obligations when informed of the accusations. According to prosecutors, Paterno has fulfilled his.
But there is no way around the fact that Penn State officials — Paterno among them — continued to accommodate and to some extent shelter an alleged sex offender for years despite multiple, credible accusers. Presented with allegations of serious criminal behavior in his program, in his locker room, Paterno merely ran it up the chain. Then, when nothing happened, he looked the other way. He didn't inform the police. He didn't disassociate with Sandusky. He didn't move to keep Sandusky off campus. He didn't move to keep Sandusky from working with children on a regular basis.
He ran it up the chain, and he let it go. If officials at a high school where Sandusky volunteered hadn't taken action, he would still be there, enjoying "emeritus" status and the tacit acceptance of an institution that had consistently declined to see what it didn't want to see. The admonition is true: Joe Paterno is not a victim. He is not a scapegoat.
Lack of due diligence notwithstanding, he also is not a fraud: By any measure, it's equally true that Paterno belongs among the pantheon of the most accomplished coaches of the 20th Century. He's an original: Sincere about his commitment to education, ahead of the curve on race, unfailingly loyal (to a fault, as it turns out), and massively successful on top of it. The scandal that ended his career doesn't affect his status as the winningest coach in the history of the sport. The record win total is still there. Six undefeated seasons, two national championships, three Big Ten titles. The philanthropy is still there. The library that he helped build. The hundreds of players who are still willing to stand up for him based on "the immense quality of Joe's character."
The reverence for Paterno was never a matter of mere longevity. Nor was it based on a lie: He is the mentor, teacher and winner he has always been purported to be. Some measure of the debt that college sports owes to the man and the deep respect his career deserves will survive in hallowed, Wooden-esque tones, and it will all be true.
And so we're left with the contradiction of a fundamentally decent man whose career and values can never be completely separated from his most egregious lapse in judgment. To argue that Paterno had no responsibility beyond his legal obligation is to reduce him to some buck-passing middle manager in a program and university that he defined. To claim we don't have enough information about his response is to ignore the implications of Paterno's own testimony, along with everyone else's. To protest his exit as head coach is to deny all ethical, legal and political reality. And to deny the tragedy of a 60-year career crumbling all around a man who has meant so much to so many people is to deny that his life's work still has any meaning.
It does, and it will. How the legacy of the great man who embodied everything right about the sport will coexist alongside the legacy of the man who allowed a potential predator to remain a part of his program, it's still too soon to say. History isn't an assemblage of headlines, and hopefully we're not on the verge of any obituaries. When it comes to that point, I still don't know which legacy the first sentence is going to reflect. But if it wants to get it right, it will reflect both, with all that that implies.
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Matt Hinton is on Facebook and Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.