Posts tagged confusion

I’m the father of an alumni of Penn State. My son is in law school now and thriving very well. While he was at Penn State he loved going to all the football games, and taking part in all the excitement, starting with the tailgating, painting his face the games, and rooting his Nittany Lions on.

Joe Paterno has been an inspiration to anyone who has known him or known about him. I feel quite badly that this sex scandal at Penn State came so close to the end of his life. He gave 60 years of service, donated much money, and according to my son was one heck of a guy.

However, I’m a trauma therapist. I practice eye movement desensitization and reprocessing. Many people I work with are survivors of childhood sexual abuse. Joe should have done more. He knew this Sandusky creep for 32 years. Sandusky was going to be the next head coach, or so it looked for a while. Joe was told that something was going on between this creep and children. He should have done more. When you’re in this kind of a position I don’t think you just tell your superiors that you believe something may be going on and leave it at that. He knew he should have done more and he said so. I do give them some credit for that.

As far as Sandusky goes, if he’s found guilty, then I stand by my other posts and continue to advocate for chemical castration of any pedophile, perpetrator, rapist, etc. Etc. Etc. People who prey on children ruin their lives. I don’t believe there’s any salvation for that nor do I think there should be. I don’t care how much work he tries to do to make amends. As far as I’m concerned he should be shunned by society. There is no excuse.

In truth I don’t know how much Joe actually knew. I want to be kind to his family, to his memory, to my son’s pain, but in the harsh light of reason no matter how much I want to forgive him I can’t. I have the good fortune of knowing my childhood friends, some for over 50 years. When you know or work with someone for a great period of time you pretty much know what’s going on. Though I can’t be sure, I can only assume that he may have known more than what was stated.

Still his death leaves me with a great sense of sorrow and loss. He made a bad mistake and in doing so he allowed children to be defiled. Joe what were you thinking? Still I want to end this blog on a note of sorrow and sympathy to his family, his friends, and the entire Penn State family. We have all lost the man who embodied many great values. I wish that his life hadn’t ended on this note.

Sandusky, the redhead, Joe, and others must have known that there was something going on. The people I hold most responsible, aside from the creep, are the Board of Trustees. Joe didn’t make any money by not doing more than he did. However college sports has become a hotbed of millions and millions of dollars of donations, and other contributions. Reggie Jackson, the great baseball player, and scout for the Yankees, once remarked, “cocaine is God’s way of telling baseball players that they are overpaid.” Well the money that flows into the coffers of all the colleges connected to football, basketball, and other sports as well is way too much. Maybe what happened at Penn State, Syracuse, and other colleges, is God’s way of telling the Board of Trustees of every institution that they better be careful about who’s minding the store. They say that money is the root of all evil. I don’t think it’s so. Immoral people who do nothing, or people who do not do enough (I am not calling Joe immoral), should not be rewarded. I just hope that everyone in this country can learn a valuable lesson, if not a painful one.

If you’d like to read more on these issues please go to www.markdworkin.com

My deepest hope is that this situation never happens again. However I’m not that naïve. I’m afraid I’ll be working for 20 more years helping survivors heal.