Sad Times In Happy Valley

For those of you who are unaware of what has been taking place at Penn State University this past week, please allow me to quickly bring you up to speed. Former Nittany Lions defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky was arrested and charged with 40 counts of what all amount to the raping of young boys over the past fifteen years. What makes this story so unique, captivating and heartbreaking is the fact that so many people knew that this was going on and by not coming forward to the authorities, allowed it continue for over a decade.

Sandusky was first targeted by police for child abuse in 1998, when he came (no pun intended) under investigation for engaging in inappropriate and possible sexual conduct with a young boy in the Penn State locker room showers. This timeline just happens to coincide a little too coincidentally with the fact that Sandusky “retired” from the coaching staff only a year later at the young (for a coach) age of 55. Mark Madden, the reporter who broke this story in April for the Beaver County Times, thinks that Sandusky was “told he had to retire in exchange for a cover up.”

But just because Sandusky “walked away” from the football field in 1999, his relationship with the school remained the same. He was allowed to keep his office on campus, run a sleep away football camp in the summertime and have full reign of the workout facilities. You know, like that shower that he was allegedly seen raping a young boy in back in 2002. That story that was brought to coach Joe Paterno’s attention the next day by eye witness grad assistant, and former Nittany Lions QB, Mike McQueary. Then the day after that, Joe Pa told a toned down version of the story to then AD Tim Curley, saying that a witness saw “Jerry Sandusky in the Lasch Building showers fondling or doing something of a sexual nature to a young boy”.

A week and a half after that conversation, McQueary was summoned for a meeting with Curley and Gary Schultz (the school’s Senior VP for finance and business) where he told them the same story he had told Paterno the week before. Schultz and Curley never reported any of this to the authorities, but instead contacted the director of “Second Miles”, a children’s program that Sandusky was heavily involved with, and most likely used as a feeding ground for his victims. Once again the story was toned down and the sodomy was never mentioned to anyone.

The end result of this “investigation” was a conversation between Curley and Sandusky, where he was informed that he was no longer allowed to bring children on to the Penn State campus. So there you have it, an eye witness account to child rape, and this monster receives a free pass and is told to take care of his business off school grounds? That my friends, is a cover up. And that is why the institution for higher learning that is Penn State University is crumbling right before our eyes.

Which leads us to what took place last night in Happy Valley, where thousands of protesters (students) rioted across the town and campus over the firing of a child rapists protector. Due to Penn State students painfully obvious lack of objectivity (i.e. brainwashed to breath football football football from the day they stepped on campus) they are in essence protesting the fact that a child’s safety and innocence should take a back seat to collegiate athletics. This whole week has been an eye opening experience, and the underlining message throughout is that good people don’t always do good things. By sweeping this mess under the rug, Penn State coaches and facility members thought they were saving face. But why weren’t they trying to save the children?

Everyone who knew what Sandusky was up too has blood on their hands. Cleaning house and firing Joe “Jr. Soprano” Paterno had to be done. After a decade of corruption, abuse and silence, it was finally time to make things right, and the only way for that to happen was to get rid of everyone involved for chance at starting over fresh. History has taught us time and again that all empires eventually fall, and right now it's Penn State’s turn to burn.

It is my only hope that this horrific ordeal can teach people the importance of speaking up against things that are wrong in the world.

So that a blind eye is never turned towards a man this evil ever again.

-fresh (@danye33)

dan is the co-founder and editor in chief for the 2 Man Weave