I remembered Ernest once telling me, “The worst death for anyone is to lose the center of his being, the thing he really is. Retirement is the filthiest word in the language. Whether by choice or by fate, to retire from what you do—and what you do makes you what you are—is to back up into the grave.”
Sandusky
The two men despised each other from the start. This was well-known among those who knew Joe Paterno and Jerry Sandusky, but at the end it seemed like nobody wanted to mention it. The news reports would assume they were the best of friends or, at the very least, colleagues who respected each other. The truth was more complicated. Paterno thought Sandusky was a glory-hound who had stopped coaching with any zeal years before he finally retired. And Sandusky, according to people who knew him well, thought Paterno a stick in the mud and deeply resented him for blocking his path to be Penn State’s head coach.
These bitter feelings had built to a crescendo over the years, as they sometimes do with longtime colleagues. But the two men were never close; their personalities would not allow it. Sandusky despised meetings, was not especially interested in details, and had no enthusiasm at the end of his career for recruiting or the detailed organizational parts of the job—which, of course, made him Paterno’s polar opposite. Sandusky and his wife, Dottie, were severe teetotalers, and the Paternos drank socially; this alone was enough to keep Sandusky from coming to the Paternos’ house, even for recruiting functions. But more than that, the two men had so little in common. Paterno was, of course, buttoned up, high-strung, and ordered. Sandusky, in the words of Penn State’s marketing guru Guido D’Elia and many others, was “a knucklehead.” He liked practical jokes and messing around, knocking a guy’s hat off his head, making prank calls, sneaking up behind people to startle them. When President George H. W. Bush named Sandusky’s charity, The Second Mile, one of his Thousand Points of Light, Sandusky grabbed the microphone during the press conference and shouted, “It’s about time, George!”
The two men clashed for many years. Sandusky played football at Penn State, and Paterno hired him as a full-time assistant coach in 1969, when Sandusky was just twenty-five. At one of the first practices before the season, Sandusky was supposed to be on the field but was instead joking around with some players. Paterno screamed at him to get on the field and did not think more about it in the moment. Later, when Paterno watched film of the practice, he saw Sandusky running onto the field waving his arms like a bird and shouting, “The breakdown coach is on his way! The breakdown coach is on his way!” It was ridiculous. Paterno called in Sandusky, screamed at him at length, called him a complete goofball. But he did not fire him. He still thought the young man might develop into a good coach.
Over time, for all of their personal differences, Paterno did come to admire Sandusky’s coaching on the field. He coached the defensive line for a year, linebackers for a few more, then Paterno promoted him to defensive coordinator in 1977. When he was focused, Sandusky was a force of nature around the players; he connected to them in ways Paterno never could. He joked with them, hugged them, taunted them, and often inspired them. The players, most of them, loved him for that. Paterno was, in so many ways, a stern father figure: brilliant but distant, caring but judgmental, loving but cold. He was the piercing voice of conscience that squealed whenever they made a mistake or got too comfortable. “You are the worst player we’ve ever had at Penn State!”
Player after player would talk about how they came to appreciate Paterno only after they left school, when they could see things from a distance. But Sandusky’s coaching was something the players understood and felt in the moment. He was like a big brother teasing them, pushing them, grabbing them, reminding them that they could be great. He often sympathized with them after Paterno had been especially cruel. “Hey,” he would tell the players, “nobody’s taken more abuse than I have.”
Paterno and Sandusky understood that, in tandem, they could lift each other up professionally. That didn’t change the personal chemistry. They did not talk outside of the office. They complained about each other incessantly. Paterno tried to hide his distaste for Sandusky publicly but was not always successful. He referred to Sandusky specifically only once in his autobiography, the same number of times he talked about the Brooklyn Dodgers pitcher Sandy Koufax. Sandusky, meanwhile, offered reporters funny but biting quotes about Paterno, like the time he mocked Paterno for always griping that defensive players need to have their hands up when running after the quarterback: “What else would they do? Have their hands down?” Looking back, many of the stories published about Paterno, even the most glowing, contain a slightly caustic quote from Sandusky. After a while, whenever an anonymous source took a shot at Paterno, well, Paterno just assumed it was Sandusky. There were a lot of signs like that. Most of them were written off publicly as the trivial conflicts between men who have worked together for a very long time.
Behind the scenes, though, their dislike for each other was not hidden or insignificant. “I would be in meetings,” said Christian Marrone, who came to Penn State as a player, got hurt, and then served on the coaching staff, “and they were openly hostile toward each other the entire time. Joe would say something, Jerry would roll his eyes, Joe would scream something, it was crazy.” Player after player told similar stories of near fights they saw on the sidelines between the two coaches. Reporters closest to the program noticed the tension too. “You know, they really didn’t like each other,” said Rich Scarcella of the Reading (Pennsylvania) Eagle, the dean of Penn State reporters, at the end of Paterno’s life. “I was shocked by that at first, when I was on the beat. I knew that Joe and Jerry had masterminded that 1986 championship game, knew that they had worked together for a long time. But it was clear that even though those guys had a healthy respect for each other, they could not really stand each other.”
As the years went on, that thin line of respect that had kept their relationship operating began to fade. Paterno thought Sandusky’s energy for coaching decreased considerably after the 1987 triumph over Miami. He grumbled to people that Sandusky was getting too full of himself. In Paterno’s mind, an earlier coach, Dan Radakovich, was the real coaching genius who made Penn State into “Linebacker U,” the ideal place for linebackers to play. He thought Sandusky was taking way too much credit. More to the point, Sandusky’s defense wasn’t stopping anybody. Even during the undefeated 1994 season, Paterno thought the defense was way too soft. The Nittany Lions gave up 21 points a game on average—too many, in Paterno’s book—and had gone undefeated only because the offense was so great. The defense was worse the next year. Paterno’s frustrations bubbled. He complained to friends that he did not know what to do about Sandusky. He began writing little notes to himself, things he wanted to say to Sandusky in meetings:
• Why is it you are the only one who, when a meeting starts, wants to know when it will end?
• Jerry, we ARE going to tighten up the ship.
• I knew I should have been worried when Jerry said Wisconsin got impatient running the ball against us. We have to stop people.
There was something else: The Second Mile. Sandusky had started The Second Mile charity for children in 1977. He was forceful about his Christian faith; the name of the charity was inspired by Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount: “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I tell you not to resist an evil person. But whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. If anyone wants to sue you and take away your tunic, let him have your cloak also. And whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him two.”
The charity’s stated purpose was to help troubled children, a worthy cause that seemed to obsess Sandusky and his wife. Unable to have children of their own, they adopted six children. In 2002 Jerry and Dottie Sandusky received the Angels in Adoption award (later rescinded) from the Congressional Coalition on Adoption. They took in so many foster children that even their closest friends could not keep track of them
all. Children constantly surrounded Sandusky, so much so that they became part of his persona. Nobody at Penn State, and certainly not Paterno, knew who these children were. They could be Second Mile kids; they could be foster kids; they could be adopted kids. This would seem much more sinister later, when a Pennsylvania grand jury indicted Sandusky for child molestation and released a presentment with details so graphic and grotesque that they would shock a nation. But at the time, people saw only Sandusky’s charity. “He would bring around new kids, and you would just say, ‘I guess those are his new foster kids,’ ” D’Elia explained, and his words were echoed by dozens of people I interviewed. “And—this is terrible to say now, but it’s true—you just didn’t think anything more about it. Everybody just thought Jerry was this great guy.”
Paterno respected Sandusky’s efforts on behalf of children. In the foreword to a self-published book Sandusky wrote about coaching linebackers, Paterno wrote nice things about him. Reporters quoted Paterno praising Sandusky, and he made a few half-hearted gestures of support for the charity. But when you scratched just below the surface, it was not difficult to see how Paterno felt about The Second Mile. When Sandusky painstakingly relived the early financial struggles of The Second Mile in his ominously titled book Touched, the absence of Paterno’s name and support is unmistakable. One of Paterno’s financial advisors said, “I could be wrong, but I don’t think he ever gave a dime to The Second Mile, certainly not in the later years.” Sandusky conceded as much in a detailed interview with Ron Bracken of the Centre (County) Daily Times in April 2000: “Joe gave me the opportunity to coach. And he gave me the opportunity—or maybe I should say he didn’t stop me—to start The Second Mile.” In Touched, where he thanked dozens of people for the work they did building up The Second Mile, he did not mention Paterno.
Paterno would say again and again that he did not see anything perverse in Sandusky’s dealings with children. His problem with The Second Mile was much simpler: the kids annoyed the hell out of him. There’s really no other way to say it. Paterno had compartmentalized his own life, putting work and family in separate categories, so that there wasn’t much crossover. Football was sacred. Practice was sacred. Family was sacred. Paterno had drawn his famous blue line around every element of his life. He did not want kids around when there was work to do. And Sandusky brought the kids around. He worked on The Second Mile constantly. Paterno and other Penn State officials with knowledge said Sandusky would often use Penn State letterhead and mailing capabilities to promote the charity (which drove Paterno crazy in a different way; he would not even let his own children use Penn State pencils at home).
These were problems that drove Paterno to distraction. He did not want to fire Sandusky; he had never publicly fired a coach. He felt loyalty to Sandusky for all his successes. He also understood the politics. Because of the team’s defensive success, his gregarious personality, and The Second Mile, Sandusky was almost as prominent in the Penn State community as he was. Paterno turned seventy in 1996. Rip Engle had retired at fifty-nine, Bear Bryant at sixty-nine, and Vince Lombardi had quit the Green Bay Packers at fifty-four. Sandusky was seventeen years younger than Paterno. If a vote had been taken in 1997 to name the next Penn State coach, Sandusky probably would have won in a landslide. There were many who thought that change was long overdue.
Paterno felt certain that Sandusky did not have the work ethic, maturity, or dedication to be the next head coach. And besides, Paterno did not want to retire. Sandusky never said anything about it publicly, but he did tell a friend that Paterno had promised him the job when he retired, and then would not retire. Sandusky felt betrayed. Paterno told his family that Sandusky had stopped caring about coaching. Paterno felt betrayed. The animosity between the two men grew to the point where, according to three different coaches, change was inevitable.
AT THIS POINT, WE MUST swim in murkier waters. In spring of 1998, according to a Pennsylvania grand jury presentment, Sandusky met with one of the many boys he knew from The Second Mile and brought him to Holuba Hall, the indoor practice facility on campus where the football team trained. The boy was identified as “Victim 6” in the presentment. Sandusky and the boy worked out together, and the boy told investigators that Sandusky did some things that made him feel uncomfortable. Victim 6 said that Sandusky put his hand on his knee, wrestled with him on a mat in Holuba Hall, and handed him shorts to put on even though the boy was already wearing shorts. Then, Victim 6 said, Sandusky insisted that they shower, even though the boy did not feel sweaty. In the shower, Sandusky allegedly grabbed the boy, picked him up, and said, “I’m going to squeeze your guts out.”
When the boy got home, he told his mother what had happened. She was shocked and enraged that Sandusky had showered with her son and reported the incident to Penn State University police, who had jurisdiction over the campus. The investigation led to a hundred-page police report and at least two recorded conversations between Sandusky and the boy’s mother on or around May 13 and May 19; the latter included a haunting quote from Sandusky: “I was wrong. I wish I could get forgiveness. I know I won’t get it from you. I wish I was dead.” Sandusky was questioned directly by detectives and told not to shower with young boys. The case was closed by Centre Country District Attorney Ray Gricar (who disappeared years later under mysterious circumstances, sparking many conspiracy theories). Sandusky was also investigated by Centre County Child and Youth Services, but, for reasons that are not clear, the agency did not indicate the report, which would have put Sandusky’s name on the Pennsylvania Statewide Central Register of child abusers.
In 2011, Sandusky was charged with more than fifty counts of sexual abuse of children. In 2012, he was convicted of forty-five counts.
In his grand jury testimony, Paterno stated that he did not recall hearing about the 1998 incident, but he admitted that rumors about Sandusky could have been discussed in his presence. In the last months of his life, he sounded more sure that he was never told about the 1998 incident. Sally Jenkins of the Washington Post interviewed Paterno a week before he died and wrote, “Paterno insists he was completely unaware of a 1998 police investigation into a report from a Second Mile mother that Sandusky had inappropriately touched her son in a shower.” This denial matches what Paterno told me.
“I don’t want to say Jerry was the last guy I would ever expect something like that from,” he said, “because I don’t want to exaggerate. But he would have been one of the last guys I would have expected it from. Jerry was a man’s man, you know, a tough guy. This is not exactly my field of expertise, but I certainly never thought anything like that about Jerry.” As we will see, the truth is cloudier than that. In the months after Paterno died, some evidence surfaced that he had been told something about the 1998 incident, though what he was told remained unclear.
There is reason to believe that, whatever Paterno was told, it did not make much of an impact on him. The coaches’ meeting that leads this section was held on May 26, 1998—precisely at the time Sandusky was being investigated—and his detailed and pointed notes make no mention of any investigation. Also, by the late 1990s, he had explored numerous options for removing Sandusky from his coaching staff. He tried to start a football program at one of Penn State’s satellite campuses with Sandusky as head coach; it didn’t pan out. He tried to find Sandusky a job in athletic administration; Sandusky refused to consider it. If Paterno did know the details of the 1998 investigation, he might have used it as a way to get rid of Sandusky. He did not. The fact is, Sandusky coached with Penn State for two more seasons, the second of those being one of the most frustrating and infuriating of Joe Paterno’s coaching life.
WHEN SANDUSKY SUDDENLY DECIDED TO retire in 1999, it surprised many people. From the outside, he seemed to be at the top of his game. He was fifty-five years old, decorated as a coach, celebrated as a humanitarian, beloved by Penn State fans and players alike. His retirement would later be used as circumstantial evidence that Paterno, knowing about the 1
998 incident, quietly pushed him out.
Some evidence, however, points to the contrary. The notes Paterno wrote to himself leading up to the retirement did not contain any reference to the 1998 investigation. These files could have been censored, of course, but there were so many private notes in the files that it seems unlikely. Multiple sources, including Sue Paterno and several Penn State administrators, confirmed that Paterno made several attempts to move Sandusky into another job before the 1998 incident occurred. “Jerry was the second most famous coach in Pennsylvania,” Sue said. “And the perception was that he was a great coach. Joe knew that if he tried too hard to push Jerry out, there would be an uproar.”
In May 1999, when Paterno was seventy-two, the school announced a special retirement program in which employees could get a large percentage of their retirement package early. Sandusky showed interest. He was fifty-five and had grown tired of waiting for Paterno to retire. He went to see Paterno, and the discussion did not go well. Paterno would say he unloaded on Sandusky about his dwindling work ethic, his divided attention, and his lack of effort as a defensive strategist. He told Sandusky he would not be the next head coach at Penn State. Sandusky mentioned the early retirement package, and Paterno suggested it might be a good time for him to take it. Both men later said that the 1998 incident was never discussed.
Paterno said of the meeting, “I told Jerry he wasn’t going to be the next coach. I think that disappointed him a lot, and he was angry and hurt. I can’t really blame him for that, but it was the decision I made. He decided to retire.”
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