Academia, Criminal law, Justice, Media, Society

Down In the Valley I: Penn State – What Did They Know and When Did They Know it

Submitted By Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger

Who Are Penn State?

That ultimate question uttered by Senator Howard Baker encapsulated the Watergate Era as Congress grappled with assessing culpability of President Richard Nixon, who was then at the zenith of his presidency. Now almost forty years later, the nation is again captured by a fall from grace as steep and as fast as Nixon’s. And again that question has to be asked of “America’s Football Coach.”

While I’m certainly no Woodward or Bernstein, it seems my blog post about the expanding scandal has reached  some folks in Pennsylvania with  knowledge about the inner workings of  the institution of Penn State Football and about the characters involved. One reached out to me with disturbing questions and a “theory” that has the distinct ring of truth. Here’s the version:

It’s 1999, and you’ve just been handed the American Football Coaches Association’s Assistant Football Coach of the Year award. The son of hard-working second generation Polish immigrants from Western Pennsylvania’s coal region, you graduated first in your class at Penn State after starting on the football team for three years. You’re coaching at your alma mater in a profession known as much for long hours, low pay, and eating its young as for being carried off the field in victory. Oh, you’ve had your share of shoulder pad rides, too. First, when you held everybody’s All-American (and arguably the finest player to ever play college football), Georgia’s Hershel Walker to 3.2 yeards per carry in the 1982 national title game. Then again in 1987 when your protegés intercepted Heisman Trophy winner, Vinny Testaverde, five times, in one of the sports most improbable victories over the heavily favored bad boy of American athletics, the infamous fatigue-wearing Miami Hurricanes, and in so doing vindicated the Nittany Lions’  hoary motto of  “Victory with Honor.”

It’s your dream job and you’re coaching with one of the true legends of the profession. Your mentor is in his mid-70’s and you’ve been proclaimed his heir apparent by everyone who would listen. You’ve been approached by several schools to coach their floundering teams, including the University of Maryland, and even made the perfunctory rounds of interviews at places like the University of Virginia. You’ve produced 10 consensus All-Americans including NFL Hall of Famer, Jack Ham. You’ve been at your job for 20 years, and you’ve gained the respect of colleagues, peers, and the public alike for your charitable work and well-publicized interest in helping disadvantaged kids through a charity you founded. At age 55, you’re making good money — for an assistant coach — but a head coaching job would earn you ten times as much and give your family of six adopted kids and a devoted wife financial security. You’ve even written the definitive book on your area of expertise which you generously entitle, “Developing Linebackers the Penn State Way.” In short, you’re hot in your profession and uniquely poised to either succeed the legend or take one of the plum coaching  jobs in America’s football pantheon. You know, the Notre Dames, Michigans, or Southern Cal’s of the world.

With all this professional and financial potential, what do you do? Well you retire, of course. You set yourself on a path of summer football camps, and chicken-dinner speeches with appearance fees earning roughly two-thirds of what you’ve made and orders of magnitude less that what you could make. You throw yourself into charity work from whence you derive some income and you rely on the largesse of a town where you preside as a demigod. But there are rumors.

In 1998, you’ve been investigated for “inappropriate” conduct with a minor. The mother of the child sets you up in sting operation where a detective hiding in a closet overhears you say, ” “I understand. I was wrong. I wish I could get forgiveness. I know I won’t get it from you. I wish I were dead.”  Luckily, the DA in charge of the case rules the matter “unfounded,” declines to prosecute, and thankfully later winds up missing after a 60 mile pleasure ride. You’ve dodged a bullet. Yet, you resign just under a year later.

Joe Paterno has claimed ignorance of the 1998 episode, but according to a person who contacted me, that’s highly questionable. State College, Pa is a 40,000 person enclave devoted to Joe Paterno and Penn State — in that order. Hell, there’s a bronze statue of the man in the middle of campus replete with those thick, black glasses; William Penn just gets some pages on the Paterno Library book shelves. Located in the largely unpopulated heart of Pennsylvania, the town was little more than an encampment when Joe Paterno arrived in 1950 with another icon of Pennsylvania’s venerable football coaching priesthood, Rip Engle. Engle, who was paranoid of losing even against vastly inferior teams, inculcated his charge with the notion that a coach must exercise iron-fisted rule over his program, and to borrow a modern bromide, “what happens inside the program, stays inside the program.” Brown University graduate, Joe Paterno was a good student to his football teacher, and when he took over for Engle in 1966 he inherited a strong football program and a town enamored of it.

Football coaches call their profession a “brotherhood.” Almost exclusively male and established as a true hierarchy, the work is exhausting as every aspect of the opponent must be broken down, scrutinized, and prepared for as if for a sea-borne military invasion. It’s overkill sure, but the adherents love the challenge and, most of all, the camaraderie in pursuit of the challenge.  It harkens back to a time of face-painted men pledging their lives around a camp fire to the hunt of some sabre-tooth tiger for the glory of the tribe. It’s machismo pure and simple and most coaches will tell you it’s their life. Oh, they pay dutiful homage to “family and faith” of course, but it’s football that keeps the brotherhood together in almost an exercise of devotion. As I mentioned in the earlier post, it’s a religion in most every sense — ritual, zealotry, ornamental dress, and rigid tenets. Probably the most important tenet is that coaches live out every win and loss together. Like most closed circles of the faithful, they talk, they argue, and they critique their fellows — all the time.

With that background is it really plausible, that in a town as ga-ga over football as State College is, Paterno really didn’t know about Sandusky’s run-in with law enforcement? Is State College immune from the marriage that all authority figures have for one another in most every other small town. You know like when the police chief and the high school football coach meet over coffee to discuss who’s handling security for Friday’s game and whether that trouble-making Jones kid will be there. Or when the mayor runs into the school superintendent and they talk about the kid who bullied the mayor’s little precious. These conversations go on every day in every small town in America — and most big ones, too.

Put those little facts together with the fact that Paterno did not attend Sandusky’s retirement party, and was rarely seen outside of the football facility with Sandusky, and you might wonder what happened to the relationship after 1998. You might wonder why Sandusky quit applying for head coaching jobs. You might even conclude that Coach Paterno nudged his former right-hand man out of his position at age 55, and refused to recommend him for any job at the head of  another football program.  No, not even at Virginia or Maryland who were desperate for a big name, sure winner and who rarely ever played Penn State. Nobody ever explained why Sandusky didn’t get those jobs despite their stated interest and his brightly burning star. Just the usual, “we have a number of good candidates … blah, blah, blah.” You might conclude that Penn State knew about the transgression with the child and, in exchange for his leaving the Program, cut  a deal to grant him and his charity unfettered access to the program and satellite campuses, but no direct role in its operation with young men. That way, you see, there’s no taint. No questions on the  propriety of a program that made $51 million for the school last year and funded 26 academic departments — all on the efforts of 18-22 year old-young men. Nope, no questions indeed, except the big one whose answer may be locked away in some ancient personnel files that seem to have the nasty habit of getting lost amid all that moving that goes on within campus departments.

What does a person do who’s banished from the  priesthood? How do you react, after a life of high achievement in every sphere, and then are abruptly denied your goal when it is within your grasp? What do you feel, and how do you act on those feelings?  Those are the questions that can only be answered by answering the first one I asked.

~Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger

190 thoughts on “Down In the Valley I: Penn State – What Did They Know and When Did They Know it”

  3. ‘Victim 1’ triggered investigation of Jerry Sandusky
    By Kevin Johnson, USA TODAY
    http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/football/bigten/story/2011-11-10/jerry-sandusky-investigation-victim-1-cover/51160950/1

    Excerpt:
    HARRISBURG, Pa – For this boy, it started — as it allegedly did with most victims before him — with a barrage of gifts from Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky.

    According to a state grand jury’s report outlining alleged sexual abuses by Sandusky, there were trips to professional and college football games, a computer, clothes and cash. And then, the report says, Sandusky went from mentor to sexual predator, often attacking the boy in the basement bedroom of the coach’s home or a school workout room long after coaches and other officials had gone.

    In the cloaked parlance of the grand jury’s report, the boy — who was at least 11 at the beginning of the attacks that would span nearly four years ending in 2009 — is known only as “Victim 1.”

    But Victim 1 was not actually Sandusky’s first alleged victim. In the report, the boy is Victim 1 for a different reason: He spoke up, went to the police, and triggered the sex abuse investigation of Sandusky that has resulted in the removal of top Penn State officials and legendary football coach Joe Paterno.

    The boy showed “courage” that others — including adults in positions of power at the university — did not in dealing with Sandusky, a revered former coach who still had access to campus facilities, said Michael Gillum, the victim’s psychologist.

    “We simply did what you are supposed to do,” Gillum said in an interview with USA TODAY. “Had this individual not come forward, this investigation may not have happened. Who knows how many people he saved from abuse.

    “He’s a hero. That is the truth.”

  4. Mark,

    Excellent article; written in the rarely used second person no less. It would be no doubt persuasive as an opening or closing for a jury.

    But speaking of those hurdles between making a case and getting it to a jury, what do you think of this?

    “Doriane Coleman, a professor at the Duke University School of Law, said that unlike the Catholic Church, which was the target of previous child abuse lawsuits, Penn State is a state institution and thereby should be protected by a doctrine known as sovereign immunity, which in essence protects state entities — and possibly state employees acting in the normal course of their jobs — from tort claims.

    “I see this as very difficult to overcome,” Coleman said.”

    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/12/sports/ncaafootball/penn-state-officials-including-paterno-could-face-civil-lawsuits.html

  6. Elaine, I would personally like to see the investigation spread to other schools. It is time for a national housecleaning of the professional athletics that are disguised as amateur. As I have said before, if college athletic departments were honest, their uniforms would look much different. Perhaps more like the uniforms NASCAR drivers wear.

    http://www.google.com/imgres?q=nascar+uniforms&um=1&hl=en&safe=off&biw=960&bih=427&tbm=isch&tbnid=cjkQGL1s-Z0n0M:&imgrefurl=http://thewizwit.blogspot.com/2011/01/bimbo-controversy.html&docid=W70KQgofjcXXJM&imgurl=http://a.espncdn.com/photo/2008/0910/rpm_a_chase_nascar_580.jpg&w=580&h=326&ei=6Yy-To6RLsfAtgfH1_nYBg&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=582&sig=111942213405018669452&page=2&tbnh=66&tbnw=118&start=14&ndsp=14&ved=1t:429,r:8,s:14&tx=70&ty=34

  7. Bron,

    Why get into Global Warming on this thread? You could have ignored Bdaman’s comment. Your calling my comment to you BS is BS!

  8. Otteray,

    We’re just beginning to tear open the hornets’ nest. One has to wonder how many people were involved in this cover-up. It’s a truly sad story that men like Paterno and others at Penn State showed such little concern for the emotional and physical welfare of young children.

  10. Yesterday, I talked with a good friend of mine who is a doctor and a Penn State graduate. He knew Sandusky and Paterno, although he did not play football and did not know them well. He said that on campus, and with the athletic supporter alumni, Paterno was regarded right up there with Jesus, and not necessarily in that order. My friend is also trained as a forensic scientist, and says the disappearance of DA Gricar should not pass anyone’s smell test. My friend observed that there were gigantic sums of money available that could be used to either ‘disappear’ someone or convince them they ought to retire on some South Pacific island paradise.

    There is way more to this story than has come out, but as it unravels, look for the rats to start eating each other in order to avoid liability and/or prison.

  11. Bdaman & Bron,

    It seems you don’t take the sexual abuse of children as a serious topic of discussion for the Turley Blawg. Shame on you for attempting to steer the discussion off topic to Global Warming!

  15. Paterno comes out of the culture of denial and delusion just like the priests.

  17. Mespo:

    Joe knew along time ago. the 2002 incident should have included the cops and the assistant coach did not call the cops because he was afraid if he did it would end his career.

    He isnt fit to coach either, a person who would put their career above stopping a rape is a despicable human being and should be nowhere near children and young adults.

    His moral compass isnt pointing true north, more like south with the compass in the vertical plane.

    Although I do have some sympathy for Paterno, he did not see the act committed and he did tell the AD. The question is whether he counseled the young asst. coach to call the police or keep his mouth shut. If he told him to keep his mouth shut, then I think Paterno has a lot to answer for. If he told the asst coach to call the police and the asst coach did not, I am not so sure you can make Paterno out to be a bad guy in light of the fact that he shunned Sandusky and kept him from coaching.

    I guess he could have resigned if Penn State kept Sandusky around or threatened to.

    I think this leads to a broader issue about what types of people are coaching our children in various sports. When I was in high school the coach was around 25 and was banging one of the cheerleaders, in jr. high school the 2 coaches were dumb as night sticks. The coaches my son has had were mostly decent but some led less than exemplary lives and did not do too well with the raising of their own children.

    I think this speaks to serious issue in our culture concerning ethics and morality. I am beginning to think that we, as a nation, have none. Oh individuals do but collectively we dont seem to. There is something deeply wrong with our national philosophy/ethics/morals.

  19. Ray Gricar, Missing Pennsylvania DA, Opted Not To Prosecute Jerry Sandusky
    First Posted: 11/11/11
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/11/ray-gricar-missing-jerry-sandusky-pennsylvania-da_n_1088950.html?ref=sports&ir=Sports

    The criminal case against former Penn State coach Jerry Sandusky has put the media spotlight back on the missing persons case of Ray Gricar. An esteemed district attorney, Gricar failed to prosecute Sandusky for sex crimes in 1998, and later disappeared without a trace.

    “We’ve had a lot of twists and turns. This is another — obviously on a much greater scale than in the past,” Gricar’s nephew, Tony Gricar, told The Huffington Post.

    According to a Pennsylvania grand jury report, Ray Gricar investigated allegations that Sandusky had inappropriate contact with an 11-year-old boy in a school locker room in 1998.

    Earlier this week, Pennsylvania Attorney General Linda Kelly indicted Sandusky on 40 counts of sex crimes against young boys. According to the grand jury report, there are eight victims who were targeted between 1994 and 2009.

    Since Sandusky’s arrest, Penn State has been the subject of widespread criticism because of an alleged cover-up of the former coach’s alleged illegal activities. Recently, that criticism has also fallen on Ray Gricar, the man who opted not to prosecute Sandusky in 1998.

    The former DA, however, is not around to defend his actions. Ray Gricar has been missing since 2005, when he vanished under mysterious circumstances.

    Ray Gricar was 59 years old in April 2005. He had served as the district attorney of Centre County for nearly 20 years and was preparing to retire at the end of the year. His career was a success, he was involved in a happy relationship with a woman who worked in his office, and he was close to his 27-year-old daughter, Lara. By all accounts, Gricar had lived a pleasant life and was looking forward to an ideal retirement.

    On the morning of April 15, 2005, Gricar called his girlfriend, Patty Fornicola, and told her he was going for a drive on Route 192 toward nearby Lewisburg.

    The trip was not out of the ordinary. Gricar reportedly had gone to the town on several occasions in the past to shop at an antique store.

    But the DA failed to return home later that night, and calls to his cell phone went unanswered. Concerned, Fornicola contacted Bellefonte police and reported him missing.

    The following day, Gricar’s red and white 2004 Mini Cooper was found locked and abandoned in a Lewisburg parking lot, not far from the Susquehanna River, and he was nowhere to be found. A search of his vehicle did not indicate a struggle or any sign of foul play, but investigators did find cigarette ashes inside the car.

    “Now we’re not talking a lot. [It was] some minute cigarette ash on the passenger’s side,” Bellefonte police officer Darrell Zaccagni told the Cleveland Free Times in 2005. “When they opened the car … a cigarette smell came out of the car. Ray didn’t smoke. And he never let anybody smoke inside his Mini Cooper. Ray was very fastidious about his car.”

    Gricar’s cell phone was locked inside the vehicle, but his keys and other personal effects, including his wallet, were missing. Search dogs were brought in, but they were unable to pick up on Gricar’s scent.

    Investigators questioned nearby store owners about Gricar. At least one thought he had seen the district attorney inside his shop on the day he disappeared and another was certain he saw Gricar speaking with an unknown woman, but it remains unclear whether the man they saw was actually Gricar.

    A search of the Centre County home that Gricar and Fornicola shared also failed to produce any leads. None of his personal belongings were missing, but his work laptop was nowhere to be found.

    “It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever had to go through. In some ways, it’s worse than having a parent die, I think, because you have no closure. I just want to know where my dad is,” Lara Gricar said in a 2005 interview with the Centre Daily Times.

    In the days that followed, the FBI and Pennsylvania State Police investigators were called in to assist in the case. Speculation soon turned to suicide — a subject the Gricar family is all too familiar with.

  20. Is the assumption that any head coaching job was more important to Sandusky than known, unfettered access to children? I’m not sure we know enough to conclude that.

    We need to know how far this cover-up reached through state policing and state government, and if a corrupt executive branch was used to silence accusers… or even the original prosecutor.

Comments are closed.