BY LINDA ROBERTSON
LROBERTSON@MIAMIHERALD.COM
Victim 1 testified that he was sexually assaulted by Jerry Sandusky during a disturbing ritual in the basement bedroom of Sandusky’s home. Sandusky would lie underneath the 12-year-old boy.
Then, Sandusky would rub the boy’s backside and blow on his stomach.
“Victim 1 was uncomfortable with the contact and would sometimes try to hide in the basement,” the Grand Jury report says. “Victim 1 testified that Sandusky performed oral sex on him more than 20 times through 2007 and early 2008.”
Victim 2, estimated to be age 10, was subjected to anal sex with his hands up against a shower wall.
Victim 4used to cower in closets when Sandusky showed up at his house.
Eight boys, during the course of 15 years, were allegedly abused by a football coach.
But Sandusky was no run-of-the-mill coach. For three decades, he was the right-hand man of Joe Paterno at Penn State, where football was not just a game but a morality play.
Now Paterno, revered not only for his record 409 victories but for his steadfast standards of high character, will have his legacy tainted by a sordid scandal. Paterno, 84, who had no plans to retire, might be forced into an ungraceful exit as early as this week.
Paterno is to Penn State what George Washington is to the one-dollar bill. Wearing tie, black shoes and thick glasses and speaking in his Brooklyn accent, the Ivy League English literature major is esteemed as a life coach who expects his players to wear throwback uniforms, graduate and become productive citizens.
But the arrest of Sandusky and charges of perjury against two university administrators have torn apart Happy Valley.
What did Paterno know and did he do enough to stop Sandusky? Paterno fulfilled his legal obligation by reporting an incident to his superiors in 2002. But did he fulfill his moral obligation? Did he, as the creator, commander and curator of Penn State’s most valuable asset, seize control of a problematic and potentially horrific situation and refuse to let go until it was resolved? Did he have the courage to put the safety of powerless strangers above the reputation of a lifelong friend?
Count the years that have passed and the answer appears to be no.
Count the number of documented victims — probably a small percentage of the number of actual victims — and the answer appears to be no.
There were multiple incidents, including documented ones in 1998, 2000 and 2002. Sandusky brought boys to Penn State games, practices, meals. Yet no one at the university took decisive action. The Sandusky scandal has scary similarities to the Catholic Church’s sexual abuse scandal.
Sandusky, 67, selected victims from his own trap, a charitable foundation called The Second Mile, which he started to “help children who need additional support and would benefit from positive human interaction.”
He used his position of authority and glamour as a coach. He bribed vulnerable boys with game tickets, tailgate parties, Nike shoes, golf clubs, ice hockey gear, computers, restaurant meals, cash. He even guaranteed one boy he would be a walk-on player at Penn State.
He molested them in his house, in the hotel where the Nittany Lions stayed on Friday nights, at a bowl game, in a sauna, in a high school wrestling room.
But his favorite place was in the Penn State football team’s locker room showers. Seven of the eight victims were abused in the shower.
He would take a boy to the campus gym. Then they would have to take a shower. Victim 5, after being cornered, was able to slide by Sandusky and get out. He was not invited to any more football games.
Sandusky maintains his innocence. But the testimony paints him as a sick man.
After he was confronted by the mother of Victim 6, he told her, “I understand. I was wrong. I wish I could get forgiveness. I know I won’t get it from you. I wish I were dead.”
Police were not contacted after the 2002 incident in which a graduate assistant coach said he walked in on Sandusky performing anal sex on a boy in the shower. Nor did anyone try to find the boy.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been associated with a case with that type of eyewitness identification of sex acts taking place where the police weren’t called,” Pennsylvania state police commissioner Frank Noonan said.
What at the least was a lack of will and the worst was a coverup means Paterno goes out in shame.
University of Miami coach Al Golden, a Paterno protégé, might be in line to succeed Paterno but might not want the heavy burden of healer.
“It’s heartbreaking,” Golden said. “After all he’s done for football. They’re in our prayers. I feel badly for the victims and for the people who have given so much to that university.”
For all his good works, Paterno deserves sympathy. But Victim 8 deserves more. He was assaulted one night in the shower. A janitor saw it and was so shaken he told a coworker it was worse than what he had seen in the Korean War. But, fearful that he would lose his job, he didn’t report it.
He “presently suffers from dementia, resides in a nursing home and is incompetent to testify,” the report said. “Victim 8’s identity is unknown.”