PENN Without the Teller

THE PENN STATE TRAGEDY 

With only one loss and more than half of the season already over, the Penn State football team had every reason to celebrate.   Though they were faced with three consecutive upcoming games against conference rivals, all ranked at the time, they looked ahead with the kind of confidence that only the third-best defense in the country could exude.  ‘Happy’ Valley was just that.  But a 40 count indictment released on Nov. 4 alluding to sexual abuse and child molestation claims against one of Penn State’s own has devastated this proud and beautiful community.

Without a doubt, it will be nearly impossible for the defendants of former Penn State coach Jerry Sandusky to find jurors that haven’t already presumed his guilt.  Everyone is aware of what he is being accused of because of the extreme amount of national coverage this scandal has generated as well as the impact it is having in the community.  You would seriously have to be living under a rock…better make that under a mountain to not have heard this story. He hasn’t exactly helped his case, either, failing miserably to sound innocent in an interview with NBC news correspondent Bob Costas.

It’s crazy to think how similar this situation is with that of Michael Jackson.  Both guys admitted to doing things they shouldn’t have; one slept in beds with boys while the other showered with boys.  You could also say that this situation is similar to what happened to the Catholic Church.  Both the church and Penn State apparently kept their respective situations hush-hush, when an immediate phone call to the police to quell what was happening was the obvious thing to do.  You could even say that they didn’t do anything just to salvage their brand name.  A whole load of good that did them…

The purpose of this post is to basically just mirror what Jon Stewart and all the other reporters and analysts have said the past week or so, which is that it is not OK to just stand by and watch as lives are ruined.  I think of how all the children who have been raped, molested, etc. in places other than a university locker room must feel when hearing this.  They were attacked in places where hope of someone helping was non-existent.  Those kids literally had nobody to defend them from their attackers.  How awful must the Penn State victims feel to know that there was somebody that could have easily stopped this?  To know that there were people that could have possibly saved them.  How hard would it have been to pick up a phone and call the cops?  I’ve never met Jerry Sandusky, but I can tell you right now that it would not have been that hard to stop him from hurting those kids. 

            

Obviously nobody knows EVERYTHING that went on.  The whole story is marred by denial now, and will probably only get worse as the trial proceeds.  All I can say is that hindsight is 20/20.  And that at least if this kind of thing were to happen again, maybe those who would have stayed silent and done nothing now know that that is not an option.  Silence will not help those kids.