The lesson to be learned here has more to do with life than football. It speaks to the fact that no matter how many good things you have done and how you have lived, there is always the chance that you can wipe it all out in an instant with one bad decision.

In this case there are so many people involved that its also easy to see how the institution becomes the prevailing entity. The litany of people both at Penn State and in the government that dropped the ball here is very long. How many kids were sodomized and otherwise molested even after the first time Sandusky was found out and how many more after Penn State knew the truth?   The first problems were known in 1998 and the Penn State shower room rape was in 2002.

Joe Paterno did what was legally correct by notifying his superiors at PSU in 2002. Could he and should he have done more? Most of us would like to think we would but Joe has been at Penn State for 61 years and perhaps he trusted too much for the university to do the right thing. Personally, I'd want to believe that most of us would have intervened in the shower room but that isn't what the grad assistant did. Instead he told his Dad.....who said the tell Joe Paterno. That alone shows just how much power Paterno had. That Paterno did not call the cops directly was the mistake of his life........and that's very sad.

See, JoePa graduated his kids. Penn State players got real educations. The fact they have been so clean for so long makes all this much worse. Penn State has always stayed above the fray and represented what could be so great in college athletics. And while I detest what he did in this case and feel deeply for the children AND the parents of those so gruesomely assaulted, I also have to mourn a bit for fallen heroes.   I never went there but everyone who follows college football knows about Joe Paterno and the great program and legacy he built. That's all gone now as it should be but for many years we all looked there for what could be....................

One mistake...................

Spaw