The Death of Joe Paterno

Joe Paterno died yesterday, and my immediate reaction was happiness.  As I’m usually not in the habit of wishing death on people, at first I thought this was simply a visceral reaction, like an immature teenager that gets angry.  So I thought a little more about it, and a little more, and my conclusion: I'm glad he's dead.

I don't give a damn that the man was a good football coach.  I don't give a damn that the man graduated most of his athletes.  To me that is far outweighed by the fact that due to his actions little boys were raped.  I won't rehash the whole story, since you probably know most of it.  Basically Paterno was told in 2002 that his former assistant, Jerry Sandusky, had raped a 10-year-old boy in a shower.  He did not go to the police.  The most powerful man at Penn State told his athletic director and washed his hands clean of it.  He didn't didn't even tell the director all the specifics of what had been reported to him.  The abuse of that boy, and at least 1 other, continued.

            After the Penn State story broke, the majority of articles portrayed this as an example of college football programs becoming too powerful, and creating an atmosphere of being above the law. This was not about that.  It was about the rape of little boys.  It was about pure evil.  The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 1 in 6 boys and 1 in 4 girls are sexually abused before the age of 18.  It can happen anywhere pedophiles can get young boys and girls alone.

Maybe I'm overly sensitive to this issue because I have a flock of boys myself at home.  Or maybe it's because I know that those kids will never be the same.  Ever.  To take children, who are taught to be well behaved and respect adults, and then to have one of those adults use that trust against them to abuse them...I can't think of any worse crime.  I really can’t.  Even writing this blog is making me angry.

I vaguely remember the Gamara saying that we should not wish for the death of another, but for the evil to depart from them.  Maybe I'm just not yet at that spiritual level.  All I know is that Joe Paterno could have stopped young boys from being raped, and he didn’t.  That's his legacy.  I'm happy he’s dead.

          JR