He didnt go to the school prez

1/22/2012 12:29:55 PM
By: Tookie the Condor



He went to a VP whose office had oversight of campus police.

That move was grossly cynical because Penn State already had a pattern of how to sweep matters under the rug and keep Paterno's legacy clean. That was handled internally through intimidation, strong-arming independent oversight levels of bureaucracy within the university etc. etc. The New York Times documented some of this.

Its not unreasonable to assume that when he went to the VP the impression made wasn't "take this to police" but rather "handle this". Which they did, by distorting the story, like that children's game Telephone where you whisper the message to someone who whispers the message to someone else until it reaches the receiver, completely distorted from the original message. I'm pretty sure that's kind of what happened here and its why Paterno's story is different from McQueary's is different from the VP's is different from Spanier's. CLASSIC game of telephone to spread out responsibility for who owned that story. So it became, oops, the VP didn't go to campus police because Paterno told him something less than what Paterno testified to which was less than what the assistant coach said he told him. This was a well-worn defense mechanism on Penn State's part. They knew what they were doing.

Paterno chose to take this damaging matter into a system he was familiar with (and probably assumed would keep a lid on) instead of the uncertainty of actual authorities.

Post Please Log in OR Register for an account before posting.