Joe Paterno’s 45-year tenure as the head coach of the Penn State Nittany Lions is over. Late Wednesday night, the Penn State board of trustees elected to relieve both Paterno and University President Graham Spanier of their duties. Never could we have imagined such a legend would fall so hard, but 40 counts of child abuse and one damning Grand Jury report later, here we are.
Given all Joe Paterno provided Penn State University, it is understandably difficult for his fans to watch such a man — such a legend — go down in flames. For those who desperately wish to cling to the innocent times before Jerry Sandusky — or even the innocent times of last week, before the charges spread through the nation’s media like wildfire — it was a night to riot against the board’s decision to so swiftly remove the man who for so many defines Penn State University.
For these same people, it’s easy to cling to the simplest defense: in taking the case to AD Tim Curley and Gary Schultz, the man charged with the oversight of university police, Paterno did precisely what he was supposed to do. Nothing more, nothing less.
This is exactly why the board of trustees made the right decision in ending his career at Penn State on that fateful Wednesday night.
I addressed this in my post yesterday on the initial rallies — smaller rallies, but rallies nonetheless — which took place Tuesday night:
"Technically, Paterno did what he was supposed to do. But in a society where we all become satisfied with the bare minimum, we don’t thrive. Joe Paterno’s Penn State Nittany Lions certainly don’t thrive if the coach only gives the bare minimum in the film room or on the practice field, and they certainly don’t win multiple National Championships if the coach only asked for the bare minimum. So why start now?"
Joe Paterno didn’t sodomize a child in the locker room. He wasn’t the first one to see the vile acts of Jerry Sandusky and fail to notify proper authorities — that would be the graduate assistant, Mike McQueary. Schultz and Curley clearly failed in their parts of this nightmarish production as well. And for all the failure to flush out the child rapist in their midst, no act from any of these four men comes close the those contained in the charges against Sandusky.
But whether Joe Paterno is third or fourth or fifth on the list of those responsible for the continuance of Sandusky’s crimes against humanity is irrelevant. This firing isn’t about whether or not Paterno followed the letter of the law in his conduct. This is about leadership, and this is about doing what is right because we must, not some tiny print in some statute in a law library.
Paterno is not just a leader, he is supposed to be one of the greatest leaders of men in the world of sports. His leadership has produced victory after victory, multiple National Championships, and built the reputation of a once small and relatively insignificant Penn State University from scratch.
But this time, the opportunity for his leadership to make its greatest impact — to potentially save not just one child (for that would be enough) but multiple from the horrible acts of Jerry Sanduskey, Joe Paterno decided to follow. He decided to follow Tim Curley and Gary Schultz. Read the story of Victim 1 in the Grand Jury report and tell me this cowardly action amounts to anything remotely close to leadership.
It is a sad time for society when we ask for anything less of our leaders than the best. When we accept the bare minimum from those around us — particularly those we call leaders — we allow the Jerry Sanduskys of our society to thrive. The board of trustees at Penn State University had no choice but to fire Joe Paterno, as difficult as the decision may be for the institution, the city, and its people.
The Penn State board of trustees must have known the decision to fire a living legend, to allow him to fall so hard, would enrage the people of State College. They could have walked the path of least resistance and allowed Paterno to finish the season.
But they didn’t, and for seemingly the first time throughout this whole ordeal, the action taken was one of leadership.