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They say opinions are like bungholes in that everyone has
one, and for the most part, they stink. Well, sometimes they don’t, and you can
go ahead and consider me fresh out of the shower with this take on PSU’s former
vice prez and on-leave athletic director asking for their charges in the Jerry
Sandusky sickness circus to be dropped.
When I first read this, you could almost feel themselves
counting down the days after Joe Paterno’s death as to when it would be apropos
to jump out there and ask for a dismissal of charges in part because JoePa
wouldn’t be around to corroborate some of what happened. There’s much truth to
the idea that people are always looking at how every situation can effect
themselves first.
Some of the commentary though, which hasn’t made much
national publicity because we’re too busy wondering when West Virginia will get a buy out (who
cares?) or of the Conference Mountain West of the USA will be able to expand to
70 teams (who cares, even more?) shouldn't be glossed over.
Gary Schultz, the now retired VP said that the allegations
he received were “not that serious” in 2002 and that his lawyer made the
comment that “perjury prosecutions rarely rest on expressions of opinion or
belief.” That latter quote, a type of legalese, while a substantial argument, just looks
callous.
Mike McQueary’s testimony under oath said that he definitely
reported something “sexual in nature” and that alone should be deemed as
“serious,” which Schultz doesn’t seem to think in his statement.
There are things in life that when you hear them going on,
they’re serious, or automatically worth checking out. In news, they’re called
“buzzwords” I suppose, where you jack them in a headline to get attention
because when people read them, they know it’s serious enough to read more.
Car accidents, deaths, sex crimes, those all fall under the
list of “serious” in my opinion, of course.
Not to mention that Schultz apparently had the authority of oversight of
the university police department. I mean, I know 18 year olds sucking down
cubes of Natural Ice is of primo importance and all, but shouldn’t this little
nougat have been investigated when they aren’t busy harassing frat parties?
Now that Schultz and Curley want out, it’s not surprising.
After all, they found a loop hole in Paterno’s passing. Essentially, in this
three ringed circus, one of the rings is no longer around. Whatever they heard,
they heard secondhand through Paterno. Whatever that is, we’ll never know. Beforehand, that fact was assumed. Now, it's concrete.
The problem lies in the fact that McQueary knew a lot, and
Paterno said he should have done more. The problem lies in the reality that
very little is covert or truly secret. Someone always knows something, often 10
minutes after it happens. There is no information sanctuary anymore. The second
you start high school, you learn that. People knew something was wrong, and unlike rain water, B.S. actually flows uphill. People of serious consequence knew something was amiss. They knew Sandusky was involved in something horrendous, and they knew it was probably more financially responsible for them to make sure exactly who else knew and who did not. Any other suggestion is naive and idiotic. Not to go all Mean Girls movie reference on you all, but rumor spreads like wildfire. Rumor based on fact spreads even faster.
People knew. People still know. And
people want out. That part is understandable. They can take their morals with
them to their nightmares, because to them that beats the hell out of house arrest or a jail stint. But please, don’t insult the rest of us with what’s
really going on here: Curley and Schultz found a way out, albeit sort of morbid.
But that doesn’t change the fact that it is indeed “serious.” And it doesn’t
change the fact that in the wake of JoePa’s passing, something seems “seriously”
messed up about all of this face saving.