Thoughts on the firing of Joe Paterno

            Late Wednesday night, it was announced that the Penn State University Board of Trustees had voted to fire Joe Paterno. Paterno has been a part of the Penn State Football Team for 61 years, and has coached teams to three Big Ten championships and two national championships. After the announcement was made, the Penn State campus erupted in rallies in support of Paterno. There are about 40,000 students that attend the university, and I would guarantee that at least 20,000 were out in full force. They assembled outside Joe Paterno’s house, around Joe Paterno’s statue outside Beaver Stadium, and on one of the main streets on campus.

Students around the Joe Paterno statue

            
            
            As evidenced by the Penn State students nearly rioting last night is how the sides of “against Paterno” and “support Paterno” are divided by age. It seems like nearly everybody over the age of 30 (or people with children) support the firing of Paterno. Everybody under the age of 30 (with no children) support Paterno. I saw several friends (who are under 30 years old) of mine post such things “Joe Paterno gets fire?? Seriously??” and “Penn State messed up big time. When I went to the Indianapolis Star Sports’ page I saw at least 20 people (whose profile pictures indicated they were older than age 30) who all agreed that Penn State did the right thing. I also saw similar “against Paterno” responses on local media’s Facebook pages as well.

            
            I realize that Paterno probably made a mistake, and he even acknowledged that last night. But come on, we all make mistakes. This is a guy that has a sparkling clean record and had never done anything wrong. He messes up once and people treat him like he’s a monster. He has had no criminal charges pressed against him and he probably never will because he followed all legal obligations. His critics are arguing that that is where Paterno failed. Even though he followed all legal obligations, he didn’t follow moral ones.

            
            Here’s how I think the whole situation went down. In 2002, one of the Penn State coaches sees defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky in the shower with one of the boys. That coach then tells Paterno. Paterno tries to shake it off, because he’s friends with Sandusky and he doesn’t believe something like that could ever happen. Paterno tells his superiors anyway and they tell him they’ll look into. Paterno then leaves and goes on with his life and his job as football coach.

            While we’re placing blame on people, why didn’t that coach that initially saw the incident in the Penn State locker-room showers call the police? He should be blamed just as much as Paterno. He reported the incident to his superior, but never contacted the authorities.

           

            Whatever your opinion, Paterno is one of the best college football coaches ever, and probably one of the Top 10 coaches in all American sports. It will be interesting to see how Paterno is remembered in 20 years. Will people remember Paterno for what he did on the field or for what he didn’t do off of it?