The ancient Greeks had an expression, "Call no man happy until he is dead." In other words, at any moment the thunderbolts of fate can fork down and wreak destruction. Similarly, at any time a person who is a paragon of virtue can lose his or her moral footing, and a life can slide from honor to disgrace, or in the case of the Penn State football coach Joe Paterno, who died over the weekend, to a sadly tarnished legacy.
With death there is an impulse to weigh the good and the bad, to frame a life as though it were a story. Although virtuous deeds do not annul the harm that we have done to others, a moral failure ought not to blinker us to the rest of a person's life. Paterno had a remarkable record of service to others. He emphasized and supported the importance of education in a way that was perhaps unprecedented among his coaching colleagues. He donated more than $4-million to academic programs at Penn State. He was a mentor to hundreds if not thousands of young people. In the realm of big-time sports, he was regarded as a stalwart of integrity and authenticity. In 46 seasons as head coach there was not a single NCAA investigation of his program.
At the beginning of the 2011 season, Paterno, the winningest coach in major college football history, was universally revered as one of the few beams of light in the netherworld of big college sports. But midway into the Penn State schedule, Jerry Sandusky, one of Paterno's former assistant coaches, was accused of multiple accounts of sexual abuse.
As the facts began to bubble up, it became clear that in 2002 Mike McQueary, a gridiron graduate assistant, had gone to the man known as "JoePa" to tell him that he had witnessed Sandusky sexually assaulting a boy in the locker room. Paterno duly informed both the athletic director and a university vice president of the accusations, but apparently did nothing more. He did not go to the police, nor did he make sure that Sandusky was barred from campus. It is not even clear that Paterno confronted Sandusky about the allegations. The story soon became a media conflagration. Pressure built, and on November 9th, Paterno was fired.
Paterno steadfastly refused to comment on the man with whom he shared the sideline for decades. Then on January 14th, in what would be his last interview, Paterno tried to explain himself: "I didn't know exactly how to handle it and I was afraid to do something that might jeopardize what the university procedure was. So I backed away and turned it over to some other people, people I thought would have a little more expertise than I did. It didn't work out that way."
Earlier, upon his dismissal, a sad and repentant Paterno observed, "I am absolutely devastated by the developments in this case. I grieve for the children and their families. I pray for their comfort and relief. ... This is a tragedy. It is one of the great sorrows of my life. With the benefit of hindsight I should have done more." Paterno made other similar statements, always with pain in his voice. But in his expressions of regret, he should have been more specific about what he thinks he should have done.
In his final interview, Paterno referred back to his conversation with McQueary, lamely noting, "You know, he didn't want to get specific. And to be frank with you I don't know that it would have done any good, because I never heard of, of, rape and a man." Not to pull the pundit here, but as Aristotle tells us, ignorance is not always an excuse. There are things we ought to know. For a man working around young people to be unaware of the possibility of sexual abuse seems to be a reproachable instance of sticking one's head in the sand. It could be that Paterno never heard any other complaints about Sandusky's alleged behavior. If so, he probably talked himself into believing that the athletic director had everything under control. But even if that were true, this would still stand as an egregious instance of self-deception.
Perhaps there was more moral complexity to the maelstrom that swallowed Paterno than immediately meets the eye. However, as a lawyer friend recently told me, "Sure it was a difficult situation. But Paterno was used to making tough decisions. He should have at least taken Sandusky's keys and made sure that he was never on campus again." As another adage goes, "Evil triumphs when good men stand idly by and do nothing."
Why did Paterno stand idly by? Was it loyalty to a friend? Confusion? Was he trying, out of self-interest, to guard the good name of his storied football program? We will probably never know.
As the news of Paterno's death seeped across the Internet, thousands of comments blossomed. One read, "I don't care what people say, JoePa was a good man. He shaped many young players into men." Then again, "No one is perfect," "We all make mistakes," and as I would have been inclined to add, "We all have moments of weakness and a kind of self-willed ignorance." And yet there were many others who righteously brought the gavel down like this: "Let's just remember that JoePa's 'little mistake' lead to the decades-long continuation of the abuse of children. If one of those people in the know actually stepped forward and did the right thing, some kids might have had not had to go through the hell they did. Save your sympathy for them."
But maybe sympathy is not something we have to measure out and save. Perhaps there is enough of it in us to cover both the victims, and Paterno, an otherwise good man who should have done more.
A former assistant football coach at Yale University and St. Olaf College, Gordon Marino is a professor of philosophy and director of the Howard V. and Edna H. Hong Kierkegaard Library at St. Olaf College.
