Advocate: Paterno Should Be Fired, by Bob Smizik, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette/community Voices, November 6, 2011

Advocate: Paterno Should Be Fired

By Bob Smizik
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette/community Voices
November 6, 2011

http://communityvoices.sites.post-gazette.com/index.php/sports/bob-smiziks-blog/30670-avocate-paterno-should-be-fired

Veteran sports commentator Bob Smizik offers his strong views on the major sports topics of the day.

This is the first of what will be many national reaction stories to the Jerry Sandusky/Penn State sexual abuse saga. This is a story of mammouth proportions involving a heinous crime, a possible coverup, a major university and one of the most famous and venerable athletic personalities in the country.

This is the Sandusky indictment. Not for the faint of heart. This is the story leading the NBC Nightly News.

By Micheal O'Keeffe, New York Daily News

Advocates of sexual abuse victims are taking a hard stand against the Penn State athletic department, including venerable football coach Joe Paterno, saying he should face criminal charges for failing to tell police that one of one of his assistants allegedly sexually assaulted a boy in a Nittany Lions locker room.

"At the very least, he should be fired," said Robert Hoatson, a Catholic priest who founded an organization called Road to Recovery that counsels abuse survivors.

"Any adult who learns about a child being abused should immediately go to the police," Hoatson said.

Pennsylvania Attorney General Linda Kelly said Saturday that Paterno’s former defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky, who worked with at-risk kids through his Second Mile organization, abused or made sexual advances on eight boys between 1994 and 2009. Sandusky, 67, once considered a potential successor to the 84-year-old Paterno, was charged with 40 counts of sexual abuse-related charges.

Penn State athletic director Tim Curley and Gary Schultz, the school’s vice president for finance and business, were charged with perjury and failure to report the allegations.

In 2002, Kelly said, a graduate assistant saw Sandusky sexually assault a naked boy in the locker room of the Lasch Football Building on the Penn State campus. The grad student and his father reported the incident to Paterno, who immediately told Curley about the allegation, prosecutors said. Curley and Schultz met with the grad assistant about a week and a half later.

Hoatson said Paterno had a responsibility to tell authorities about the report, especially when it became clear that university officials would not take action.

“Every adult knows you tell the police, preferably first, but especially if your supervisors in the workplace are not taking action,” said David Clohessy, director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

“We are grateful that criminal prosecution is happening but school officials clearly have some explaining to do,” Clohessy added. “We hope that Joe Paterno will be investigated for possible criminal activity.”

Hoatson said the Penn State case has a lot of similarities to the sex abuse scandal that has cast a dark shadow on the Catholic Church for years.

“Joe Paterno is the most respected coach in America and Penn State has a winning football tradition. Protecting that image is more important than what may have happened to that boy. Like the church, it appears they were more interested in protecting their image than protecting children.

“Joe Paterno should be in jail if it is true he didn’t go to the police immediately after learning about this,” Hoatson said. “At the very least, he should be forced to resign.”