Bystander Paterno: Why Penn State Should Not Mourn the Loss of Their Head Coach

Illustration by Sam Mauck

While watching the opening of the first post-Paterno game, audience swaying gloomily, sporting their “Joe Knows Football” T-shirts, I couldn’t help but deplore the fans’ actions. Here were fans in mourning, lamenting the too-soon departure of their hero, as if some malignant power had destructed him. As we know, however, Paterno predicted his own demise the day he incorrectly dealt with a very grave claim.

As a member of the Think S.A.F.E. Project group, SafetyNet, I help to educate the campus on sexual assault and dating violence issues. Darcie Folsom, the program’s leader, shares with the campus tried and true intervention methods to protect the safety of a college campus or any other community. In Green Dot training, students learn the ways in which we can help others through bystander intervention.

Whether the situation is breaking up an argument between an inebriated couple in your dorm, or lending an ear to a classmate about an unwanted sexual experience, the training equips students to be acutely aware of situations in which one can protect and prevent.

Joe Paterno was absolutely a bystander to at least one of Jerry Sandusky’s deplorable victimizations. Although it is possible he never laid eyes on Sandusky roughhousing in a shower, it is sure that he incorrectly dealt with the information that was given to him by someone who did. Paterno must have thought, selfishly, that the best way to protect himself was to bury the knowledge deep in his head, try to forget what he knew, even as more and more of Sandusky’s subjects pranced onto his field, ostensibly living out their childhood dreams. By not reporting, Paterno, just as actively as Sandusky ruined those victims’ childhoods, he paved the way for the violence to continue.

Every day, we are complicit in this “shoving under the rug”. We keep trivial things from people that we love so as not to upset them, we act in certain ways so as to keep the status quo. If this situation teaches us anything, though, it should inform people of the need to speak, the need to indict others for their wrongs, no matter how powerful they are and how much it would spoil the natural order of things. As a member of SafetyNet I am an advocate for potential victims, constantly reminding myself to keep an eye out for our community here, and encouraging others to act similarly. Surely, if someone had worked up the courage to say something, particularly back in 2002 when so many were privy to Sandusky’s crime, the abuse could have ended.

The Penn State student body has been particularly vocal in their support of the former coach: rioting in the streets in protest of the removal of an icon. I can understand their sadness upon losing someone who instills students with so much pride, who encourages them to bleed blue, to know that by donning their navy sweatshirts they are supporting something worth cheering for. What I cannot understand is their evident dismissal of what Paterno did wrong, the way in which he actively chose to allow his colleague to abuse his position of power. As the crowds sway, pouring their sentiment over the field they cherish, I can only hope that one of them is swaying not for Paterno, but for one of Sandusky’s victims, a child like them, who shared their love of football. •