Penn State gets stupid and Sandusky/Second Mile rumors worsen

Back in the early '90s, it was something of a truism that students who posted to Usenet from psu,edu were either complete idiots, raging assholes or perhaps a stunning combination of the two. I'm not sure if that's changed, but the rioting that occurred in the wake of the Joe Pa firing is enough to make me think that things haven't (although, to be fair, there were counter-protests today in sympathy with Jerry Sandusky's victims). And there's more. Two days ago, an alleged ninth victim not included in the initial grand jury investigation was reported to have turned up, and the following bombshell from Pittsburgh area sports radio host Mark Madden was dropped on Boston's WEEI:

I hear there’s a rumor that there will be a more shocking development from the Second Mile foundation. Hold onto your stomach boys. This is gross. I’ll use the only language I can. That Jerry Sandusky and Second Mile were pimping out young boys to rich donors. That is being investigated by two prominent columnists even as I speak.

Madden is hardly a Johnny-come-lately to the Sandusky scandal. He authored an article at the Beaver County Times detailing some ominous early information on Sandusky in April of this year; even though his new assertions concerning Second Mile can't be termed anything other than a rumor at this point, it may become something far, far more tangible if the grand jury investigation were to go further in the direction of how Second Mile was run and what purpose it was run for.

Here's hoping that Madden wasn't entirely right when the wrote the following at the end of his Times piece:

A grand jury, spurred by a complaint made by a 15-year-old boy in 2009, has been investigating Sandusky for 18 months.

Witnesses include Paterno and Penn State athletic director Tim Curley. Interviewing Paterno about a subject like this had to have been one of the single most uncomfortable acts in the history of jurisprudence.

Plenty of questions remain yet unanswered. Potentially among them: What's more important, Penn State football or the welfare of a few kids? You might not want to hear the answer.

On the other hand, Madden may be right. From John Gonzalez:

In the report, (receivers coach Mike) McQueary is identified as a “graduate assistant who was then 28 years old” in 2002 when he witnessed an alleged incident between Sandusky and a 10-year-old boy in the shower at Lasch Football Building.

(NOTE: as before, the information that Gonzalez reproduces is directly from the aforementioned grand jury report; you can read it at the link if you so choose, but I'm not reproducting it here.)

Distraught or not, the operative part of that last sentence is “the graduate assistant left immediately.” McQueary was a grown man – a former starting quarterback for a college football powerhouse who was listed at over 6-feet and 200 pounds – and he chose to flee rather than intervene.

The Grand Jury report goes on to detail how McQueary called his father, a long-time friend of Sandusky, and told him about the incident. His father instructed McQueary to leave the building immediately, which he did. McQueary went to his father’s house, where the two decided that McQueary should “promptly” report what he had seen to Paterno rather than the police. “Promptly” in the McQueary household must have a different definition than anywhere else, because McQueary didn’t discuss the matter with Paterno until the next day.

There are some who defend McQueary and believe he handled the matter appropriately. Their argument is that Paterno was a deity and the supreme authority at State College, and so telling him was as good or better than informing the police. Those people are wrong and possibly delusional.

"Delusional" is a far too polite way to put it, if you ask me.

And then there's the issue of prosecutor Ray Gricar, who could have gone after Sandusky as early as 1998 but ultimately chose not to file criminal charges. You could try to ask him about that, but good luck to you if you try: in what can only be called a "WTF?" factoid of truly gargantuan proportions, he's been missing under suspicious circumstances since 2005.