Growing up, I figure skated competitively. While I was in college, I became good friends with “M” and “K”. They were pairs skaters. M was my age; he and I shared a bizarre sense of humor and became close friends very quickly. K was five years younger, but the three of us hung around together a lot and had a lot of fun. Their coach, “R”, liked me and thought I was a good influence on them. I knew he had been accused of inappropriate behavior with a couple of students at his previous two coaching stops (at the time the previous one took place, I had actually been skating and working at the same rink), but figure skating is very, very gossipy – I took rumors like that with a huge grain of salt.
M and K moved several states away to train in 2005. About a year later, there was a blurb in our local paper saying that K and another of R’s students, a girl I had known for years, had filed sexual harassment charges against R. My immediate reaction? Guilt. I was a girl, I was older, I was with them every day – how I had I not known what was going on? I remembered a couple of odd verbal exchanges between K and R that I had chalked up to K being a teenage girl, and a strange incident with a video camera on the ice. I thought, “I should have known”. I carried that guilt for a long time.
At nearly 31 years old, I’m easier on myself. I know that pedophiles go out of their way to appear normal and likeable in front of others. I’m sure the true harassment occurred in locker rooms, at competitions, and other times when M and I weren’t around. I assume now that the times R went out of his way to be nice to me – giving me coaching advice, not letting me pay for ice time, praising how hard I worked – were his way of making sure that I wouldn’t believe K if she said anything to me. I also know that, while I thought I was an adult at 20 years old, I wasn’t. I still wish I had known what was happening, or that I had at least been suspicious enough to ask K if everything was all right, but it wasn’t unreasonable of me not to when I was barely more than a teenager myself.
The people named in the Penn State report, however, are not teenagers. They are adults who are supposed to protect children, and they chose instead to protect themselves and their institution. The timeline in the Freeh report makes it clear how many times various university officials dropped the ball with regards to preventing future inappropriate behavior by Jerry Sandusky.
” Before May 1998: Several staff members and football coaches regularly observed Sandusky showering with young boys… none of the individuals notified their superiors of this behavior.”
Really? No one thought this completely inappropriate? It is an incredible violation in itself.
The mother of one of Sandusky’s victims reported to the Department of Public Welfare that he was assaulted on May 3, 1998.
“Spanier, Schultz, Paterno, and Curley did not even speak to Sandusky about his conduct May 3, 1998.” So no one even thought it was important to ask Sandusky if he did it? And even if he denied it, still no one thought to mention that showering with minors was a bad idea?
“…Spanier, Schultz, Paterno and Curley still took no action to limit Sandusky’s access to Penn State facilities or took any measures to protect children on their campuses.”
I’m starting to see a pattern here.
“On… February 9, 2001, University graduate assistant Michael McQueary observed Sandusky involved in sexual activity with a boy in the coaches’ shower room… McQueary met with and reported the incident to Paterno (the next day). Paterno did not immediately report what McQueary told him, explaining that he did not want to interfere with anybody’s weekend. ”
I honestly have nothing to even add to that. Stupidity stands by itself in this situation.
It took another month before Tim Curley FINALLY realized that Jerry Sandusky probably should not be allowed to have children on campus with him. Sandusky somehow gets the idea that this prohibition only applies to locker rooms.
I could go on, but I hope I don’t need to. How is it that I beat myself up for not intuiting as a 20-year-old that my friend was being abused, while these adults repeatedly turned a blind eye to evidence right under their noses and failed to so much as tell this man that he was not to shower with 10-year-olds?
It’s high time the NCAA comes up with rules and regulations regarding interaction with minors on campus, including during summer camps. If they have those rules, they’re not stringent enough. Priority number one: anyone working with children on campus MUST read and sign a copy of that state’s mandatory reporter law. If there are states out there without such a law (and I hope that’s not the case), the university needs to have as its policy that failure to report abuse or suspected abuse of a child is grounds for termination.
On the topic of rules, regulations, and the NCAA, I am in favor of Penn State receiving the death penalty from the NCAA, though I’m not at all convinced it will happen. I don’t know that any NCAA rules were broken. I believe the PSU players should be allowed to transfer without sitting out a season as is usually required when changing schools, because in this instance it’s not the players who failed to live up to moral and legal obligations. It’s the so-called “adults”.
*The Clery Act basically states that any school receiving federal funding is required to make timely and accurate reports of any crimes on campus so that accurate crime statistics can be compiled. It’s on page 112 of the Freeh report if you’d like to read the whole thing.
