[BSpringsteen]

The point: Don't have heroes because they are humans, and humans are imperfect and they will always find a way to let you down.

What happened doesn't erase JoePa's successes or contributions to the world over the past fifty years. He made a tremendous error in judgement and now he has to live with that. Now he has to live with a perfect record having a really bad stain, and yes... he now has to live with no longer being a hero.

________________________________________________________


Even for someone like me who said this is just what he wanted, this is heartbreaking. I do not know who the bald Trustee with glasses is, but he is correct that this is in the best long term interest of our University.

We do not see it here, and the students surely do not see it, but over the last few days our University has taken a tremendous hit to its reputation nationally. That reputation was in part driven by and supported by and augmented by the reputation of Joe Paterno, and it fell as his reputation fell. I held out hope until the very end that Joe would tell us why he failed to act in 2002. I got the distinct impression from his retirement statement of regret that he had not done more that he had no new facts to give us, nothing that would change the essential picture of a man who did not or could not move more decisively against his former colleague, even when he must have known he had an urgent moral duty to do so.

This episode reveals a flaw in the way PSU has been run for a long time--had Joe passed away at practice one hot day this summer the University would have seemed without leadership, just as it did over the past few days when the revelation that MM was the GA made all the tumblers fall in place and Joe lost all his moral authority. Now we go forward in search of new leaders who will soon return this great University to the heights it has known before.

This man has been a hero of mine for a long, long time, and he still is. We put faith in heroes and tend to think they are infallible, and we are therefore disappointed when they fail. I have not felt this bereft and disillusioned by one of my heroes since I was a little kid. A friend of mine tonight said, "I haven't felt this bad since the Easter Bunny died." I actually never knew the Bunny was dead, but I knew what he meant. He was calling from a bar, so I knew why he said it that way too.

One of the bad things about having heroes is that they can let us let down our own guard at times. Joe has the whole "success with honor" thing covered, so I can focus on making money/winning elections/raising and educating my kids, whatever. We all looked to Joe for that, and he damned well carried it for a long,long time. The University leadership turned out to be nonexistent without Joe's moral authority as well.

I do not know about those University leaders, but what I intend to do from here on out is pay a little closer attention to my own committment to success with honor. Joe gets the credit for that as well. By stumbling he showed the rest of us that it is time to carry the burden ourselves. Live long, Joe. We will never see your like again.

[Billso]

Well written. Source?

Oddly, this whole thing makes me appreciate having a coach of KF's integrity all the more. And sadly - really sadly - makes me say a little prayer that there aren't any skeletons in his closet also. If we can't even trust JoePa, who can we trust?

[BSpringsteen]

It was on the Scout site for PSU...

[hawkinaclownhouse]

The thing that shocked me this morning was in an interview I saw on ESPN. In that interview the reporter indicated that the President and AD ask JoePa retire after the 2004 season and he refused. JoePa was then shown saying that he would leave Penn State when he thought it was the right time and only when he made that decision.

The question that immediately popped into my mind was -- Do you think JoePa said "You try to fire me and I will let everyone know that you covered up the 2002 Sandusky incident that I reported to you. I will leave when I want to and not a moment before."?

[FalseMirage]

Originally Posted by Billso

Well written. Source?

Oddly, this whole thing makes me appreciate having a coach of KF's integrity all the more. And sadly - really sadly - makes me say a little prayer that there aren't any skeletons in his closet also. If we can't even trust JoePa, who can we trust?

The fact that it happened at Penn State definitely opens the eyes a little wider. I think most of us believed that PSU held itself to a higher standard, that they did it the right way, and that JoePa was a man of deep moral conviction. I know that I did and the hypocrisy adds to the sense of outrage felt towards the sordid business.