Penn State has announced that it will commemorate the 50th anniversary of Joe Paterno’s first game as head football coach.
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This decision has been met with plenty of backlash, considering the debate over Paterno’s knowledge (or willing lack thereof) of the Jerry Sandusky scandal.
“Coach Paterno wanted academic success not only for his players but also for every student who came through Penn State”, Barbour said in the statement.
In a statement, Joe’s wife, Sue, said the family is “pleased” the university has made a decision to “acknowledge Joe’s contributions”.
Odds are that the use of Paterno’s name will be kept to a minimum in any official capacity during the Nittany Lions’ game against Temple on Saturday.
“It’s important that we all come together and have a nice celebratory event for Joe, considering how everything ended abruptly for us in 2011”, Zerbe said. The university’s president, Eric Barron, has said the allegation was not substantiated in court or tested by any other process.
Paterno’s legacy has been a matter of public debate since his firing November 9, 2011, just days after news that his former longtime defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky was charged with 40 counts of sexually abusing young boys he met through his The Second Mile foundation on campus, in Penn State football locker rooms and at other locales.
Penn State University’s plan to honor on Saturday its late football coach Joe Paterno, five years after the school fired him during a child sex abuse case involving an assistant coach, is drawing criticism from victims’ advocates.
“I guess outside of our fathers, Joe was the most influential person in our lives”, the former Penn State receiver, now the “Voice of the Dolphins” play-by-play announcer, said on Friday night outside of Medlar Field at Lubrano Park. “The greatness of Penn State, of Penn State football, our program”. “A lot of it was just bashing the Collegian, bashing me, bashing the generation of Penn State students that are here now”.
Hoatson stood across the street from the stadium’s entrance with two large signs – one reading “You already forgot” the other “sexual abuse of little boys and girls is soul murder”.
My friend Andrew, another Penn State alum, believes it’s a mistake to recognize Paterno now because many will interpret the ceremony as tolerance toward Sandusky’s crimes. Penn State football’s graduation rates were consistently among the best in the country and Paterno and his wife Sue also donated millions of dollars toward various academic ventures at Penn State.
Harris said he’s happy with Penn State’s “first step” to do right by the Paterno family with the gesture.
“I do appreciate that they’re doing something”, said Harris.
In May, unsealed court documents said an alleged Sandusky victim said he complained to Paterno about Sandusky in 1976 and was rebuffed. We know the truth so people can think whatever they want.
Paterno finished his career with a 409-136-3 record at Penn State, the most wins in FBS history.
A Penn State spokesperson declined to comment further.
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They would say that they finally get it, that they understand how terrible their myopia about this issue has been, that it’s time to move on, that it’s both painful and pathetic to allow old wounds to resurface.
