The famous Penn State coach Joe Paterno’s alleged role in the sex-abuse cover-up is perhaps one of its most shocking elements. Known through the State College community simply as “JoePa," Paterno has led the Nittany Lions to 409 victories in nearly 62 years on the coaching staff, 45 of which he spent as head coach—the only college football coach to ever top 400 wins. But Paterno’s legacy was not enough to save him in the mushrooming scandal. According to a grand-jury report, he was notified in 2002 by graduate assistant coach Mike McQueary that McQueary had seen a former assistant coach, Jerry Sandusky, molest a young boy in the shower. On Wednesday, the Board of Trustees decided not to allow Paterno to finish the season, and then announced that the legendary coach had been fired, effective immediately. The news was not well received on campus: Penn State students rioted Wednesday night in support of Paterno, flipping over cars and yelling, “F--k the trustees. We want Joe.”
The sex-abuse scandal begins and ends with one man: Jerry Sandusky. On the coaching staff at Penn State for more than 30 years until he retired in 1999, Sandusky, now 67, has been charged with more than 40 counts of sexual abuse of eight boys. From 1977 until 2010, he ran a foster home out of State College, Pa., for troubled children called the Second Mile, which the grand-jury report alleged “gave [Sandusky] access to hundreds of boys, many of whom were vulnerable due to their social situations.” Among the complaints levied against him include charges of oral and anal sex with minors, groping, showering with the boys, taking at least one boy with him to the Alamo Bowl game, and offering one boy who rebuffed his advances cigarettes and marijuana to stay quiet. Sandusky, who is married and has six adopted children, was investigated in 1998 by university police after a mother alleged that he had molested her son.The 2002 incident was never reported to the Department of Public Welfare, Children and Youth Services or university police—a violation of state law.
The president of Penn State University, Graham Spanier, resigned on Wednesday in the midst of the scandal. Spanier has been credited with expanding the school during his six years at the helm—including the football program—but it has not been enough to save him in the growing scandal. According to the grand-jury indictment, Penn State athletic director Timothy Curley and the university’s vice president of finance and business, Gary Schultz, said they told Spanier about the 2002 shower incident, which Spanier later said they had described as “horsing around in the shower.” Schultz testified that Spanier approved the decision to ban Sandusky from bringing children on campus. Schultz and Curley were charged on Nov. 5 with perjury and for not reporting the 2002 incident to police; in a press conference Sunday night, Spanier said the two had his “unconditional support” and that they operate at the “highest level of honesty.” Despite students’ support of Paterno, they had no such loyalty to Spanier, starting a Facebook page called “Fire Graham Spanier” and marching outside his office calling for his resignation. At Wednesday’s Board of Trustees meeting, Spanier was fired along with Paterno.
The former athletic director at Penn State, Tim Curley was charged with perjury and failing to report Sandusky’s 2002 incident to police. According to the grand jury, Curley testified under oath that he was not told Sandusky had done anything sexual—while acknowledging he had been told of “inappropriate” contact. He is now on administrative leave from Penn State. The National Football Foundation announced Wednesday it would no longer be awarding Curley with its top honor for a college administrator.
Penn State’s vice president of finance and business, Gary Schultz has also been charged with perjury and failing to report Sandusky’s 2002 incident to authorities. Unlike Curley, Schultz admitted under oath that Mike McQueary told him the shower incident was “sexual” in nature, but Schultz also testified that the allegations against Sandusky “were not serious in nature” and said he and Curley were unaware that a crime took place. Schultz testified that he was aware of the 1998 investigation, and admitted there was never any discussion between himself and Curley to tell police about the 2002 incident. The grand-jury indictment charges that he “never sought or reviewed a police report on the 1998 incident and never attempted to learn the identity of the child in the shower in 2002,” although Schultz said he believed he and Curley had notified “a child-protection agency” of the decision. In perhaps the most damaging information for university president Graham Spanier, Schultz testified that Spanier approved the decision not to allow Sandusky to bring children on campus.
Sandusky’s first brush with the law came in 1998, when the mother of an 11-year-old boy told university police that the coach had showered with her son. Sandusky told an investigator that he had indeed showered with the boy, known as Victim 6, but the case was closed when then–Centre County District Attorney Ray Gricar decided not to press charges. We’ll never know why Gricar dropped the case, because the district attorney mysteriously vanished in 2005. On April 15 of that year, Gricar took the day off. The next day his car was found in a parking lot 50 miles from his home. His phone was in the car, but not his laptop, wallet, or keys. The laptop was lately found in the Susquehanna River with its hard drive missing.
Mike McQueary’s testimony has been some of the most disturbing in the case against Sandusky. McQueary, a receivers coach at Penn State, says he walked in on Sandusky having sex with a boy he believed to be 10 years old in the Penn State showers. But when he saw the incident, McQueary, a graduate assistant at the time, didn’t go straight to authorities. Instead he went to Joe Paterno, the head football coach, the next day. McQueary has been yanked from the football program and put on administrative leave.
