If I had witnessed something like that, I wouldn't have left the locker room without bringing that boy to police and Sandusky a heap on the shower floor.
No doubt that there are an enormous amount of people that not only feel the same way but also would have done exactly what you would have but there are even more that would have done exactly what Mcquery did.
I guess I'm one of the few that is giving mcquery the benefit of the doubt, at least for the time being. From everything I've heard/read, its really not hard for me to understand why he reacted the way he did.
He grew up int he Penn State Family with Jo Pa as a diety-like figure in total control of everything. The power structure of his world was Jo Pa #1 and Sandusky #2 from the time he set foot on the campus. Its easy to say i'd kick the crap out of some stranger in some anonymous setting had that happened, but it didnt go down that way.
To try to put myself in his shoes, I tried to imagine what I'd have done if I saw my uncle doing what Sandusky did in my parents home. How would I have handled it?
While my uncle certainly would have deserved a beating, I really don't think many of us would have reacted any differently than Mcquery did if it had happened in our "family". I think the vast majority of us would have gone straight to our fathers for guidance and let the head of the family do what needed to be done when it came to dealing with that evil uncle.
I don't know mcquery. I don't know if he's a good guy, or a bad guy. If he's a coward or not. Although cowards don't tend to break up knife fights in the school cafeteria unarmed.. I don't know if he saw this as his "opportunity" to get a head in life and used it to blackmail his way onto the coaching staff. But I don know that while its very easy to say from a distance that I'd have been Batman and saved the day, the reality is that very very few people would actually have reacted in that manner.
I think Jo Pa had to go. Its his fiefdom. He's the king. The buck stops there. If you look at the timeline it clearly paints a picture of a chain of events where Paterno acted as judge and jury and then swept the whole mess under the rug. He didn't have the right to do that.
It would be one thing if he had fired Sandusky, and dissociated himself from the man completely. But he didn't . He "punished" him by firing him. But then let him on campus, let him use team facilities and even was on the board of his charity which indicates he maintained a friendship/relationship with him. None of that is acceptable behavior from Paterno. That's why he needed to go.
There are rumors out there now that this will get even worse with allegations that Sandusky was "pimping" the kids from his charity out to high level "donors". And who knows how much more sordid it will get as it unfolds. Perhaps it will even be linked to the mysterious disappearance of that DA who chose not to prosecute Sandusky in 1997 when the first mother tried to file charges. But before all is said and done I only really want one thing answered:
After Mcquery went to Paterno and told him what he'd seen, did Paterno decide that the way they would handle it was in house. that Sandusky would retire and Mcquery would get promoted if he played ball.
That's the way it reads to me, and if that is what happened then Paterno and Mcquery should get the cell next to Sandusky's.
What a sad, sad state of affairs.
btw...great seeing you at the Lehigh game Marcus!
