Jerry Sandusky and His Family

It has to be an oversight that Penn State missed a pedophile among the hundreds, no thousands of people working for the school.  On the other hand, he had a supervisor.  Everyone has one in a sprawling state school, someone is responsible for the actions of someone else in that tier below.

Penn fired beloved coach Joe Paterno, and others, too, for failing to stop Jerry Sandusky.  Mr. Paterno passed away, a nation grieved (certainly a state and a university), and the rest of us are left wondering how the winning head coach could not have known, and if he did, why didn't he send his friend to the locker room for good. (Perhaps a bad choice of words).

We would have preferred that someone sent Jerry Sandusky for help, but help becomes a criminal investigation when it comes to pedophilia. This is the terrible double-bind that loved ones face.  Blow the whistle and the head of the family, sometimes the sole support, is sending a perpetrator to trial.

So no, of course Mrs. Sandusky kept it quiet, refused to expose Jerry as a rapist of children, assuming she knew about her husband's unpleasant, disturbing sexual habits, and how could she not?  She didn't talk because she knew that he will likely either kill himself in prison or be killed.  And yet, it caught up with him, her denial, his denial, the denial of a university.

He should have been evaluated so many years ago, even if he did spend time in prison, and it is possible he would have avoided that, working for a prestigious school under prestigious coaches.  He could have been  treated, watched by authorities, denied access to working with children. He had a charity called The Second Mile.  He could have started a Second Life.

Now we'll just wait for the next episode, some new scandal or new information about Sandusky.  Hopefully a movie, maybe one about the Sandusky family.  That's the kind of exposure that exposes this problem, encourages people to report early, as soon as there's suspicion.

Do schools need a better understanding of this problem?  As the kids like to say, "Do ya' think?"


Linda Freedman, PhD, LCSW, LMFT

Penn State and the Privilege of Being an Athlete

It's not at all a new story.  We've been talking about it for over over a decade, the privilege of being an athlete.  When an ordinary student on campus brawls anywhere-- on campus or off-- breaks a bar stool over a head, perhaps,  that student is suspended or disciplined, maybe expelled.  There might even be civil charges.

To meet the same disciplinary standards, an athlete on campus, a hero, has to kill someone. Think University of Virginia lacrosse star George Huguely,  who is accused of shaking his girlfriend Yeardley Love, bashing her head against the wall.  Yeardley, a young woman with so much goodness, so much potential, died in an early morning conflict in her apartment; it's been said to have been a quarrel about breaking up. 

Huguely had been disciplined previously by the school, and ordered to alcohol rehab, but none of it sunk in, and he kept playing, we're pretty sure. He's in jail now, awaiting trial for beating Yeardley, for leaving her to die.

That story, and many stories about interpersonal violence, is very much about alcohol abuse, a transgenerational problem.  George Huguely's father, George Wesley Huguely IV, is currently charged with a DUI.  Alcohol abuse is the enemy when it comes to relationship violence, it's worth noting.  It is invariably associated with accidental death in group statistics.

The latest is that Joe Paterno protected his ball players from academic disciplinary measures and suspension. In 2007, two dozen football players broke into an apartment and violently bashed heads with broken bottles.  Dr. Triponi, Vice President of Student Affairs, complained that the players weren't cooperating in the investigation. In a meeting with Paterno, University President Spanier, and others, she was told that it would ruin team cohesion if the players testified against each other.

No one missed a game.  Paterno's version of discipline for head bashing? The team takes responsibility for cleaning the football stadium after a game.

Any one of us would be tried, fined, jailed. Something. Accused of other campus rule infractions in the past, Mr. Paterno forced players to train to exhaustion, run.  It is a military model.  A hundred and fifty pushups for scowling, more for smarting off.

Ms. Triponey resigned, couldn't be a part of an institution that relegated privilege to student athletes.

Obviously the sex abuse scandal that put Penn in the spot light, the cover-up, the very thought of Jerry Sandusky raping young children in campus locker rooms, disgusts and appalls.  That investigation will go back to 1975, as it should. Assuming Sandusky is found guilty, the 1.7 billion dollar Penn State endowment, a haul to the credit of football supportive alumni, will feel the pinch, much as the Catholic church is feeling the pinch for sexual assaulting clergy.

But it is just a pinch.  The only good thing about the scandal is that the other issues, this one about privilege, are in the public consciousness.

It is a privilege to represent a university or a college in any capacity.  Despite the thinking, each and everyone of us is replaceable.  When the behavior of one, especially the behavior many, demeans the honor of an institution, it can't be tolerated, can't be swept under the rug. One thing about the Internet. There are no rugs big enough anymore.

We impeach presidents in this country for lesser crimes. Let's see if team cohesiveness, if team performance, actually does suffer when teammates, even coaches, are held accountable for breaking the law. It's not a proven hypothesis by any means.

Linda Freedman, PhD, LCSW, LMFT