Quote:
Originally Posted by ASTalumna06
I think after reading this article, I've finally figured out what I'm looking for.. An apology. I want someone, anyone, to take some kind of responsibility. I want an explanation from the school, Spanier, Paterno, McQuerey.. Whoever! I want someone who, even if they fulfilled their legal responsibility but not their moral one, to stand up and say, "I'm sorry.. I f***ed up."
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SOPi_Jawbreaker
That being said, while JoePa may have done his legal duty, I feel that he failed in his moral duty. He is a man that has always been about Integrity, Honor, and doing the right thing even if it's not the popular thing. His life's work has been about teaching, guiding, and molding young men into outstanding, good men. For him to just report the incident to his higher ups and wash his hands of it and consider his duty done is deeply troubling to me.
I certainly don't know all the details, but I feel like a man of integrity and honor would have kept pursuing the matter if he saw Sandusky still roaming around free around campus all those years later. I know that people have said that abuse cases can be slow-moving and that the admiinstration may have told JoePa that they were taking care of it, but I feel a man of integrity and honor would not have just taken their word and would have been much more insistent and persistent in making sure that action was being taken and that Sandusky was being brought to justice. Yes, JoePa fulfilled his legal obligations as a coach. But I feel he failed in his moral obligations, especially as a leader and role model to young men and especially as he has built up such a stellar reputation and was always so on the up-and-up.
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ITA with you both (your whole post, SOPi). It just seems that on every level, the course of least resistance was taken. And all these articles I've read seem to act like Sandusky is some sort of cipher-that he can float about it all without anyone bothering to chin-check him on any level. It seems that if I suspected one of my former coworkers/friends of doing some morally/criminally reprehensible behavior, I would have least driven to their house, confronted them, demanded they turn themselves in (or I would) or something. No one ever seems like they actually even confronted him about it--just made minor decisions about him around him and let him keep "horsing around" with boys. There's a lot of culpability, and I don't think any of these are immune from blame: McQuerey, the temporary janitor, Joe Pa, Second Mile president, the missing DA, the VP and AD, the HS, etc., etc. and of course Sandusky himself. I do believe instead of doing the "right thing" everyone tried to do the "best thing" by taking away Sandusky's "tools"--access to kids, access to locations--that whatever damage was already done and that he wouldn't be able to do it again, and still be able to keep the whole situation under wraps.
But they should have known that nothing like this is going to stay in its box forever. That outside of coming forward from the beginning, and offering up Sandusky as the pedophile he is and burning him on the altar of the law, that it was going to make everyone associated complicit in his perversion when it finally broke free of the box.
And no, I don't know what I'd do in McQuerey's situation, but I know that I have spoken out to right a wrong at my own peril before, and I cannot imagine that I would simply walk away from a child (or an older person, or an animal) being brutalized. Maybe from two consenting adults, maybe. But not otherwise.