Penn State: Hopefully there’s a heaven there to catch you

Opinion by WILLIAM WILCZEWSKI

Somewhere in Centre County, Pennsylvania, is a gravestone with an inscription that reads: “Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?” -Robert Browning

If there is a heaven, and if there is a God, Joseph Vincent Paterno certainly needs them both.

But I will not use much of this space to further debate whether or not the former Penn State head football coach has or had any culpability in the sexual abuse of countless children in connection with the arrest and conviction of his former defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky for those crimes.

I will also not use much of this space to debate whether or not the university celebrating the 50^th anniversary of Paterno’s first football victory at a home game today in Happy Valley is a wise choice or not.

I think that speaks for itself.

Those children, on the other hand, couldn’t.

So, I will use this space to give my voice—and my name—to those children … now young, or not so young men, that testified anonymously throughout this whole ordeal.

Those same children’s parents trusted an institution of higher-learning with their boys’ safety and well-being.

That institution failed them.

This much is clear in the form of Penn State shelling out $92 million in total payouts to settle 32 civil claims in the Sandusky sex molestation scandal.

This much is clear in the form of Sandusky being convicted on 45 of 48 charges in June 2012, which resulted in him serving a 30- to 60-year sentence.

Sadly, another thing that’s clear, according to ESPN’s Josh Moyer, is this testimony:

John Doe 150 said in a 2014 deposition that he informed Paterno the day after a 1976 incident that Sandusky stuck his finger in the then-14-year-old boy's rectum while he showered.

He said he told several adults about it, then sought out Paterno.

"Is it accurate that coach Paterno quickly said to you, 'I don't want to hear about any of that kind of stuff, I have a football season to worry about?'" a lawyer for Penn State's insurance carrier asked the man.

"Specifically, yes," the man replied.

"I was shocked, disappointed, offended, I was insulted," John Doe 150 testified. "I said, is that all you're going to do? You're not going to do anything else?"

He said Paterno then "just walked away."

If this is true, some say the almighty gridiron was more important than taking a morale stance.

If this is true, it won’t be the first hero whose heavenly wings of glory caught fire only to bring them crashing down to hell.

If this is true, it truly is sad.

I imagine, though, that much like the O.J. murder trial and the Tonya Harding-Nancy Kerrigan knee-bashing assault, the points of this case, too, will be bantered about back and forth, with everyone slanting evidence to fit their argument for guilt or innocence.

Sadly, however, situations like these never truly end with a court case.

Or a verdict.

Or a sentencing.

Most of that is just paper justice.

The rest—the prison-time—is not true justice, either, because even the worst four walls, 23-hours-a-day, cannot hold a candle to the horrific wake left behind for the victims to slowly drown in for the rest of their days.

The only silver lining in all this, though, is that we should never forget these crashing waves, because the evils of child abuse of any kind should never be an afterthought.

Which makes what Pennsylvania State University is doing today a good thing.

They may see it as celebrating a football legacy.

Like it or not, intentional or not, though, I see it—regardless of Paterno’s guilt or innocence—as the Nittany Lions waking ugly ghosts, parading them around for the nation to see and reminding us to be better versions of ourselves.

In this sense, I guess you could say the old coach’s epitaph is a perfect fit.

His former university, like him, is striving for more than they can possibly attain, in hopes that there’s a heaven there to catch them.