Content Section

Sandusky Regrets Showers With Boys

Jerry Sandusky says he’s guilty of horsing around, but not the charges he’s accused of in the Penn State scandal. ‘I enjoy young people,’ he tells Bob Costas in his first interview since his arrest. Plus, read Mansfield Frazier on what Sandusky can expect to face if he goes to prison.

He may be innocent until proven guilty, but three things stuck out about alleged pedophile Jerry Sandusky’s interview with Bob Costas on Monday night, the first he’s granted since his arrest nearly two weeks ago.

1. Sandusky said he often “horsed around.”

2. He regrets showering with those boys, though he continued to do so over and over again.

SPORT NCAA FOOTBALL

Jerry Sandusky in 1999 (Landov)

3. He took a very long pause when Costas asked him if he’s sexually attracted to young boys. (“Am I sexually attracted?” he finally said. “Mmmm. I enjoy young people, I like to be around them.”)

Costas scored the first interview with the former Penn State assistant football coach—a 16-minute segment in which Sandusky called in, and his lawyer sat down.

It was excruciating.

“Are you denying that you had any inappropriate sexual contact with any of these underage boys?” Costas asked.

“Yes I am, yes I am,” Sandusky said.

“Never touched their genitals, never engaged in oral sex?”

“Right.”

Costas asked about Mike McQueary, the grad assistant who told a grand jury that in 2002 he walked into the shower area of a Penn State locker room and witnessed Sandusky anally raping a boy who appeared to be 10 or 11 years old. “What would you say to that?” Costas said.

“I would say that that’s false,” Sandusky replied.

“What would be his motive to lie?”

”You’d have to ask him that,” Sandusky said.

Then came the most incredible part of the interview, in which Costas asked what actually happened and Sandusky gave a far-fetched explanation.

“We were showering and horsing around, and he actually turned all the showers on and was actually sliding across the floor and, um, we were as I recall possibly slapping the towel in horseplay.”

The questioning continued like this for another five minutes or so, with Costas asking about another incident involving a boy Sandusky showered with, whose mother later called Sandusky to confront him about it.

“We were showering and horsing around, and he actually turned all the showers on and was actually sliding across the floor and, um, we were as I recall possibly slapping the towel in horseplay.”

Again, Sandusky denied anything inappropriate had occurred.

Same thing for the time a janitor allegedly walked in on him performing oral sex on a different young boy.

“It seems that if all these accusations are false, you are the unluckiest and most persecuted man any of us has ever heard of,” Costas said.

To which Sandusky replied, “I don’t know what you want me to say. I don’t think these have been the best days of my life.”

This last part, at least, was indisputable.

You Might Also Like

Private

Penn State's Secretive Culture

We Are All Penn State

We Are All Penn State

It wasn't just university leadership that enabled Jerry Sandusky. It was a system that discourages rocking the boat at all costs.

Shrouded

Penn State's Veil of Secrecy

Shellshocked

Penn State Begins Soul-Searching

Ousted

Penn State’s New Whistleblower

Entitled

Why Penn State Is So Powerful

Sandusky: The Lawyers Speak

After Jerry Sandusky was convicted on 45 counts of sexual abuse, both his lawyer and the prosecutor who put him away spoke about the case.

Full Coverage

Dispatches from the Sandusky Trial

Sandusky Guilty

Sandusky Guilty

It took 21 hours for a jury to find the ex-Penn State coach guilty on 45 of 48 charges.

Day Eight

Sandusky Son's Bombshell

Day Seven

Sandusky’s Last Mile

Day Six

Dottie Defends Her Man

Day Five

Sandusky Defense Flails

Day Four

‘Was Mrs. Sandusky Home?’

Day Three

Sandusky Gets Steamrolled

Jerry Sandusky Speaks Out

Jerry Sandusky spoke to the New York Times at length this weekend and he proved once again that his lawyer is delusional for letting his client anywhere near a video camera.

Tainted

A Coach's Legacy

Paterno’s Lying Ways

Paterno’s Lying Ways

Emails from the Penn State probe show JoePa helped decide not to report Jerry Sandusky to authorities—and why ‘liar’ should be added to his legacy, says Buzz Bissinger.

Dottie Sandusky

What Did She Know?

My Husband the Pedophile

My Husband the Pedophile

Darlene Ellison, the ex-wife of a convicted sex offender, reveals how Dorothy Sandusky may have been kept in the dark.

Marriage

The Wives of Sex Offenders: Was Dottie Sandusky Complicit?

Shocking Accusation

Did He Molest His Son?

Science

Current Research

What Makes a Pedophile?

What Makes a Pedophile?

As pedophilia cases rivet the nation, psychiatrists uncover new details about the mental illness, Casey Schwartz reports.