Joe Paterno...Fired!

Joe Paterno - fired. The president of Penn State - fired.
Other PSU officials arrested for covering-up a sex crime, a scandal.

"Paterno - fired" says all that needs to be said. Firing the Penn State University (PSU) president is huge news in its own right, and taken together both of these actions drive home one thing: nobody is too big to fall. Nobody.

They were rioting on the PSU campus, overturning vehicles and going nuts over this early that morning. Don't be surprised if the PSU 2011 football schedule is cut short if the rioting and anarchy erupt again at Saturday's game.

My wife and I turned this discussion over and over for the past couple of days. We had lived in State College and were familiar with the culture, especially the Joe Paterno football culture that pervaded this huge university campus.

What I think the Trustees' decision came down to, and we agree completely with their decision to fire Paterno and the President, is that the abuser was a direct report to Paterno, and Paterno failed to call the guy in to his office, confront him with the allegation, call the campus police, and then fire him on the spot. Then, what Paterno should have reported to his superiors, the two guys now under arrest for the cover-up, was that he, Joe Paterno, had fired his defensive coach and had that guy arrested for what he had done.

But that did not happen. Paterno did escalate the matter, but then continued to work with the offender for years and years afterward, all the while no action had been taken by PSU on the report Paterno had made. Paterno condoned the cover up and tolerated his defensive coach all this time, all in the name of...what?

The winning-est college football coach ever fired for covering-up a sex scandal.

What is WHAT? We have what, right here in Wantagh and Seaford; sports fever.

Those people who are ultimately responsible for major universities with 40,000 students, and those people ultimately responsible for small town public school districts with 3,500 students are called trustees. That is a title of honor, dignity, and high responsibility.

What do school board members--trustees of the Board of Education--do? They uphold the public trust in our schools. A serious "thank you" is in order for all the Wantagh trustees and the Seaford trustees for doing that job so well. We all know that upholding the public trust is not always easy.