Paterno: “I Just Did What I Thought Was Best”

Joe Paterno and wife Sue spoke out for the first time since the Jerry Sandusky scandal broke to the Washington Post's Sally Jenkins

In the first public interview since the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal broke in early November, crippling Penn State University and casting a black eye over the football program he had helped to build, former Nittany Lions head coach Joe Paterno and wife Sue spoke at length to the Washington Post’s Sally Jenkins this week.

The interview, posted online Saturday at 4 p.m. and available in the paper’s Sunday print edition, includes many thoughts from Paterno on the scandal itself, how it was handled, the victims in the case, his future plans and more. A few excerpts are below:

“He came to see me and we talked a little about his career,” Paterno said. “I said, you know, Jerry, you want to be head coach, you can’t do as much as you’re doing with the other operation. I said this job takes so much detail, and for you to think you can go off and get involved in fundraising and a lot of things like that. . . I said you can’t do both, that’s basically what I told him.”

On Sandusky retiring from his coaching staff in 1999 to spend more time with the Second Mile:

“He was very upset and I said why, and he was very reluctant to get into it. He told me what he saw, and I said, what? He said it, well, looked like inappropriate, or fondling, I’m not quite sure exactly how he put it. I said you did what you had to do. It’s my job now to figure out what we want to do. So I sat around. It was a Saturday. Waited till Sunday because I wanted to make sure I knew what I was doing. And then I called my superiors and I said, ‘Hey, we got a problem, I think. Would you guys look into it?’ Cause I didn’t know, you know. We never had, until that point, 58 years I think, I had never had to deal with something like that. And I didn’t feel adequate.”

On graduate assistant Mike McQueary telling him about what he had allegedly seen in the shower:

Jenkins then writes, “At that point, Paterno set up a meeting for McQueary and Curley, the athletic director, and Schultz, who oversaw university police. McQueary has testified that he gave both men a far more graphic description of what he witnessed, which he believed to be Sandusky sodomizing a boy of about 10, who had his hands against the shower wall. At the preliminary hearing for Curley and Schultz on Dec. 16, McQueary said he had been reluctant to go into similar ‘great detail about sexual acts’ with Paterno, out of respect for the coach, who was 78 at the time.”

Paterno adds that McQueary was unclear with him about the nature of what he saw:
“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. So I just did what I thought was best. I talked to people that I thought would be, if there was a problem, that would be following up on it.”

On how he is not the victim in this case:
“You know, I’m not as concerned about me,” he said. “What’s happened to me has been great. I got five great kids. Seventeen great grandchildren. I’ve had a wonderful experience here at Penn State. I don’t want to walk away from this thing bitter. I want to be helpful.”

On his future:
“Right now I’m trying to figure out what I’m gonna do,” he said. “Cause I don’t want to sit around on my backside all day…If I’m gonna do that I’ll be a newspaper reporter.”

Sandusky has denied all charges, which were first filed on Nov. 5. Paterno was fired Nov. 9 after 46 years as head coach at Penn State. To read the full article, click here.


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