Our American based authors will be familiar with the Pennsylvania State University child sex abuse scandal of last year. A former assistant coach of the Penn State football team, Jerry Sandusky aged 68, was found guilty of sexual crimes against children. He is expected to receive a sentence of sixty years in jail.
Joe Paterno was the legendary head coach of the team from 1966-2011. He was fired amid accusations that he knew about Sandusky’s crimes and concealed them. This biographical book was in the process of being written by Joe Posnanski before the scandal erupted. Inevitably, the author has to include details of the heinous crimes of Sandusky though the book is not primarily about that. Tragically, three months after receiving the sack Paterno died of lung cancer. Posnanski completed the book a few months later.
American sports and American football has never interested me yet I found that I could not put this book down. At 400 odd pages it is a lengthy read. I tend to take my time with books that I like and stretch them out so as to enjoy them longer. This one was read in two days.
For a non Grid Iron fan like me it was a delight to read of such exotic awards, tournaments and authorities: The Heisman Trophy, The Fiesta Bowl, The Big Ten Network and The NCAA. The author has took it for granted that everyone knows what a cornerback is. This lost me and I imagine this strange position is the equivalent of Long Off or Long On. I could, of course, be wrong.
The many eye witness accounts by former players at the college mostly praise the coach for the influence he had in their career. Any player that was failing in his grades was kicked off the team. Charges were laid by sources that Paterno’s ever-present sanctimonious stance was false. A rejoinder to this is the fact that he refused a million bucks to coach the New England Patriots and stayed with Penn State and the $35,000 a year salary. As ever, opinions vary on the righteousness of the coach.
It was riveting journeying with Paterno and Penn State through the years with its successes, its failures and the many unique footballers that played for the team. There’s so many memorable vignettes. Choosing one to illustrate the tone of the book is difficult-
Paterno is on a recruiting mission for a highly rated high school player. While he is chatting with the player’s parents the ten year old brother asks Paterno for fifteen autographs. Paterno, by this time a legend, knows the boy will sell his signature to schoolmates. Paterno signs then says to the boy someday he might want his signature. Eight years later the boy is 6ft 7 and close to 300 pounds. “I’m here for your autograph.” he tells the boy.
The ugly crimes of Sandusky’s are dealt with near the end of the book. Paterno’s crime was that he knew of the abuses and failed to inform the police. In his seventies at the time and with his powers fading an incident happened in 2002 that was reported to Paterno. Paterno told his superior at the University about it and left it at that. Ten years later when the full extent of the predator’s sins were exposed Paterno could only utter “I wish I’d done more.”
Too late, too late, the Legacy is in ruins.
Boadicea's Chariot 
For those who are not as familiar with septic athletic traditions I will try to explain.
In many areas with strong labour traditions sports, especially American-rules “football”,
is almost a religion. To be an athlete is to be a demigod. This is not a culture that values
education above brawn. This is much the same, be it in Rust Belt (the former industrial heartland in the USA. Roughly western Pennsylvania, western New York, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, etc), the Midwest, or the Deep South. (The most notable exception to this is Minnesota where, with the strong Nordic influence, education receives a very high place) For Paterno to turn his glance away is similar to a beloved bishop ignoring child abuse accounts. He does not want to believe it, he does not want to undermine the respect people have for the church. Thus, more victims will have to suffer to save face.
The same attitude, but of course far less serious in human terms, was witnessed during the English ‘bloodgate’ incident a few years ago, when the iconic Dean Richards faked a rugby player’s injury so that a specialist goal-kicher could be substituted and the game could be won in the closing minutes. Officials wanted to avoid ‘damaging’ the reputation of the game by coming clean with their evidence – a stance which, when revealed, did far more harm than the original offence.
It strikes me, if you will excuse the pun, that there are far too many people in this world who are willing yet unqualified to cast the first stone. I am more inclined to trust Paterno’s judgement than motives and veracity of his critics.
Sipu, Paterno obviously regretted his silence. “I wish I’d done more.”
When I was teaching, the standard procedure, if one learned of any sort of abuse, was to report it to one’s superior.
” In his seventies at the time and with his powers fading an incident happened in 2002 that was reported to Paterno. Paterno told his superior at the University about it and left it at that. Ten years later when the full extent of the predator’s sins were exposed Paterno could only utter “I wish I’d done more.”
Mr Paterno did what he was supposed to do and his superior failed in his duty. How sad that it was Mr Paterno was the one made a scapegoat of.
TR and Christopher: Nothing much “Rust Belt” about college football, top teams are from all over. Currently the top ten are:
Alabama
LSU
Oregon
Florida State
Georgia
Oklahoma
South Carolina
West Virginia (rust belt?)
Stanford
Clemson
Supporters are predominantly students, alumni, faculty and relatives. Very different from NFL/AFL support and rivalry.
Yes, the top schools do have “Sport focused” scholarships and will overlook academic shortcomings in star players but college football is primarily a training ground for the major leagues.
I have never been a fan of the Nittany Lions even though they are the closest major college team to me, but it’s hard to deny that Joe Pat. did a great job of coaching during his tenure at Penn State.
Sandusky was a serial predator and for years abused his position at the school to “groom” troubled young kids recruited to his foundation, which had little formal support from the college. His abuse was extensive and repeated, he should have been stopped more than ten years sooner. There is plenty of blame to be shared.
The school was fined $60 million, all wins from 1998 to 2011 were vacated and the football program gutted for the next four years. The President of Penn State lost his job but no other charges have yet been laid. The biggest losers (excepting always the troubled kids) are the present and future participants in the football program at Penn State who had nothing to do with the abuse or the cover up.
$35.000/year? What drivel, the slime ball was pulling in roughly half a million!
I think you have been reading straight whitewash.
Rather noticeable that the Ivy League (akin to our Russell Group) has no truck with ‘Football’ at that level!
More likely to be found rowing at Henley.
The legacy is in ruins and a good job too.
LW: Please re-read what I wrote.
More should have been done. It bewilders me that after being flagged on two separate occasions Sandusky still had the run of campus. A definite failure of the leadership at the college and Paterno must take his share of the blame. Although Sandusky gave up the coaching in 1999 he continued to use the grounds and changing facilities at Penn State. This gave him plenty of opportunity to commit his abuses.
On another note I find it startling the attendances at these College football games. The recent Penn State v Navy Midshipmen match pulled in a staggering 98,792 spectators.
http://scores.espn.go.com/ncf/boxscore?gameId=322590213
Now you know why $35,000/annum was a whitewash!
No doubt the $35,000 was bull dust, though it may depend on when the offer was made. 1966, was a long time ago and $35k was a big salary then and for several years after. But I suspect the $1 million was also bull dust. In other words, if that was the salary, he was probably likely to earn much more than that managing a pro team. Let’s not forget, Paterno was not around to authorise the final edition of the book so he should not be judged on its content.
I readily admit that I do not know a great deal about the case other than what I have read in UK papers, but when all is said and done and it comes to examining Paterno’s life, I suspect the balance will come down well in his favour.
In general, I do not trust people who make salacious accusations against others. Grooming, molestation, abuse etc are all weasel words. They lack specificity.Those who utter them ignore complicity, assume damage, manipulate or at least provide worst-case interpretation of the statistics. They usually have ulterior motives, ignoble intentions and are almost always lacking in purity themselves.
Sandusky may well be every bit as evil as he is portrayed, but I am still inclined to avoid those who are most anxious to accuse.
I speak as one who spent 8 years at a Jesuit-run boarding school. Read into that what you will but those with squalid minds will no doubt find squalid answers.
Sipu: I don’t usually comment on people who are accused of crimes before they are tried. Sandusky’s trial is over, he was found guilty on 45 (out of 48) counts, only the sentencing remains. I did not follow it closely but it seems the evidence was pretty compelling.
Coaching salaries in college football were and are still pretty modest compared with Pro ball, some professional team coaches are earning in the tens of millions.
The two games are very different in other respects, different team funding, different supporter demographics. They are mostly known by the school name, the team names are almost never reported. Only the supporters know the Nittany Lions, or the Seminoles but everyone can read about Penn State and Florida State in the Monday paper.
Hi LW. Some time ago, I became interested in the case of Admiral Byng who was court martialed and found guilty of cowardice for failing to engage the enemy at the Battle of Minorca in 1756. He was shot by a firing squad on the deck of his ship. There are many who to this day believe that he was a largely innocent, honourable and certainly courageous victim of the media which incited public outrage at the loss of so strategic a possession. The mob bayed for his blood. Politicians scrambling for a politically expedient solution pressured the Navy into making him the scapegoat. It was of Byng that Voltaire famously wrote in Candide “Dans ce pays-ci, il est bon de tuer de temps en temps un amiral pour encourager les autres”.
I do not like public lynchings and I find the greater the desire to hang a suspect the greater my antipathy towards the mob that demands it and the stronger my desire to defend the accused. There is a vicious cowardice in mob justice though of course justice is the last thing on any of their minds. The ridiculous over-reaction to child abuse that has befallen Western society in recent decades has created more victims than it has protected, and I would refer you to a recent edition, 8th September, of the Spectator (‘When CRB checks go wrong’, by Nick Booth.) to gain a glimpse of the consequences of the mass hysteria.
Of course I am not condoning child abuse in any form, I abhor it and am frankly quite baffled that anybody with the slightest semblance of privilege and respectability should choose to practise it. But a sense of balance needs to be applied in trying to reduce its occurrence. Likewise I do not condone drug-dealing, rape, murder, theft and other violent crimes. But when I see, as happens frequently in this country, nay in this city, a mob grab hold of a suspect, thrust a tyre around his neck and shoulders, fill it with petrol and set light to it, I cannot help but feel utter contempt for the perpetrators. Such behaviour leads me to conclude that they are more deserving of the punishment they have administered than is the victim even if he is guilty. The only difference between the rabbles of this country and the rabbles of Britain and America, is the lawless environment here that enables South Africans to actually put into practice that which others would be quite happy to do elsewhere.
The child-abuse band wagon, like that of race, sexual orientation, the Holocaust etc, is a large and lucrative one and there are many journalists, politicians, bureaucrats and lawyers, not to mention opportunists posing as victims who have clambered upon it while millions of mindless imbeciles follow shouting and screaming in its wake.
People need to understand the phenomenon of the madness of crowds. May I suggest ‘Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds’ by Charles Mackay. When an individual willingly joins a crowd, he should understand that he is jointly responsible for the actions of that crowd, whatever they may be.
I have spoken!
Morning Sipu: We, of course, are in the midst of the mass hysteria that is an integral part of the Presidential election process. A recent survey has reported that the electorate is as badly informed as ever. More people could provide the name of the white house dog than could provide a reason for the US sanctions against Iran. Truly it is election by the least informed.
Quite so, LW. Such ignorance by the electorate demonstrates more than ever the justification for a qualified franchise. There should be a current affairs test, for people who have already past a basic aptitude test, every election year. Increase the minimum age to 25 and require a certain level of income tax to have been paid for at least 4 of the 5 preceding years. No representation without taxation, to paraphrase somebody or other.
Of course I would fail the current affairs test. I do not know the name of the White House dog nor can I offer a reason for the US to impose sanctions against Iran any more than I can justify them against Israel. Or rather, I can, in both cases. But that is a whole different kettle of fish.
Sipu, good evening on this happy and alleged 30th anniversary of the formal invention of the blight of the emoticon, known to me as the smiley thing.
About this ‘basic aptitude test’ which you propose? Do you believe that people should fail it if they are unable to distinguish between ‘past’ and ‘passed’?
One of Scott Elliott Fahlman’s thingies.
Good evening JM and a happy smiley thing to you. In response to your question, indubitably. But in this particular case it was a deliberate ploy designed to flush out the pedants, a sure way to discover whether or not my contributions are actually read.
And the name of the white house dog is?
JW, good evening, A fine post which has had your fellow cherished authors, including my good self, buzzing off to pursue their own flights of fancy. This is a good thing.
I particularly enjoyed your:-
‘The author has took it for granted that everyone knows what a cornerback is. This lost me and I imagine this strange position is the equivalent of Long Off or Long On. I could, of course, be wrong.’
You are, of course, wrong.
Note, for the information of non-Caledonians, about the ‘has took’ which is purest Jock grammar and gave me no grief.
Closest cricket fielding position analogy to a cornerback, were the two sports even remotely comparable, would surely have to be deep cover and deep square leg?
Whatever and moving on, thanks again for the blog. It sent me off in so many different directions. Said blog and the responses thereto have taken me off on a wander through Wikiworld in sundry pleasant ways tonight. I was, for example, not surprised to learn that very few members of the mighty Green Bay Pack have ever won the Heisman. Not surprising really, We have always been consistently too good to get early draft picks!
Sipu and his reference to the boy Byng reminded me of the Porteous riots of my own dear Embra and I have high hopes of a post of my own from that material in due course,
In sum, thanks again. The book sounds really interesting. I’m almost tempted to buy it,
Mind, if you’re finished with it yourself, I’d be just as happy to send you the postage if you wanted to give me a lend of it?
JM, good evening.
My knowledge of American football is just above zero. Slightly dazed about the reception and Hydra-like diversions that have taken place. In future, I’m going back to my normal, non-threatening, mundane, observational stuff.
The book inspired a rookie like me to watch a game of American Football. Unlike strawberries, the Grid Iron game seems to be in season. On Monday I watched the full game, four hours or so, of Denver Broncos @ Atlanta Falcons.(away team named first; these Americans are crazy). Lots of stops and starts but I quite enjoyed it. I’m swithering on watching this morning’s Kent State v Buffalo Bulls college game on ESPN. Will I run with this? Is it a passing phase? What does a shotgun mean?
Now it’s time to confess the “poetic license” of the blog. I have a one-legged, one-armed friend with a predilection for perching a parrot on his shoulder. This buccaneer of mine has ways of “finding” new books for me in digital form. The Paterno book was one such find and it was transferred onto my Kindle. (I’m now used to the device and find it much quicker reading books in e-format than paper, you may beg to differ)
It would be no problem sending you a memory stick with the book on it. I’ve about 20,000 books captured on an external hard drive so any other books (fiction and non-fiction) that you have on a wish list, if I have them I’ll add them to the stick.
Thanks for not mentioning the football.
JW, I know Jock law is different but ain’t that called piracy everywhere?
LW, as I said, I would fail the test on that account. So are you going to enlighten us?
Piracy, huh. Given that JW has given the book so much publicity, the author should be paying him.