If you don’t watch the news or read the newspaper, all you have to do is look on any social media site.
Even if you are not a sports person, I am pretty sure you have heard about Joe Paterno in the news feeds.
If you had no idea who he was, it will not take very long for you to figure out. Paterno was the head coach of Penn State’s football team who was fired on Wednesday.
Paterno has been in the news ever since one of his coaches was arrested. Jerry Sandusky was arrested on Saturday, Nov. 5, on charges that accuse him of being a sexual predator of young boys, according to a CBS news article.
Sandusky worked beside Paterno as the defensive coordinator for the Penn State team.
Charges against Sandusky lead back as far as 1994 and include the most recent case in 2009.
The reason for Paterno being fired is because “he didn’t do enough to stop a child sex-abuse scandal,” according to the Huffington Post.
There were posts all over social media sites stating opinions about how people felt about this particular case. The case is ongoing and probably will be for quite some time.
Every day there is one more piece, or pieces of information that come out regarding this case. People comment on all these revelations daily.
Some peoples’ opinions are that they think Paterno’s termination was too drastic. Others feel that because he was aware of what was happening that he is just as guilty.
Paterno was scheduled to retire this year after his forty-sixth season as the head coach. He only had three games left.
In my opinion, he was on his way out anyway, and it is a shame he had to be forced out.
I feel as though the people who thought the firing of Paterno was too drastic would agree with me. On the other hand, though, I can see the reasoning behind the dismissal.
With only a few games left, if Paterno remained the head coach the spectators would probably be paying less attention to the games and their focus would be on Paterno and the rest of the Penn State coaching staff.
One of the iffy things about this case is that Paterno did in some aspect try to stop the “child sex-abuse scandal.” In 2002, Paterno told higher-up officials that he was aware of what was going on. Paterno left the rest up to them.
What was he to do after he told the higher officials of what was happening? People who are against Paterno now are saying there was so much more he could have done.
I think with a piece of information like that, drastic changes should have occurred right there with Sandusky; however, here we are nine years later bringing about the same issue.
Another interesting piece of information has to deal with Sandusky’s life outside of football. He and his wife had a charity for children who were sexually abused.
He and his wife also had children of their own that they had adopted and children that they had taken in for foster care.
It is extremely awful and “sick” to think that a man with a charity such as this and a man so involved with a career such as a college football coach, could even think about sexually abusing children.
I still think, after all that’s been said, that Paterno did what he should have done.
He did the right thing by telling the higher officials.
Yes, he could have gone to the police and solved everything right there, but why couldn’t the higher officials have done that?
Now Paterno is frowned upon even though he is the coach with the most victories in Division I football history. All because people don’t believe he spoke up.
We’ll have to see how Penn State reacts with a game on Saturday against Nebraska.
Without a defensive coordinator and a head coach – and with a scandal that probably won’t end for quite some time.
Ellissa Coburn can be contacted at
ecoburn1@ksc.mailcruiser.com