[FringeNC]

Originally Posted by BigRock

The official JoePa version is that the only thing he ever knew about any of this was when a graduate assistant (Mike McQueary, former Penn State QB, current WR coach) came to him in 2002 and told him he saw "something inappropriate" between Sandusky and a young boy in the showers.

The "something inappropriate", according to McQueary, was Sandusky having sex with the boy. But JoePa denies that McQueary told him he saw Sandusky having sex with a child.

Sandusky had been investigated by PSU campus police in 1998 for similar actions, but JoePa claims to have no knowledge of that investigation. A backup safety can't get a handjob in Happy Valley without JoePa hearing about it, but his defensive coordinator and 30-year assistant gets investigated for kiddy fiddling by the university's own police and nobody mentions it to the head coach. And in a total coincidence, Sandusky happened to step down the season after the investigation. That all sounds plausible.

But JoePa has to deny knowing about the prior investigation, because if he had some inkling of what Sandusky was up to, then the handling of the 2002 allegation looks practically criminal. And he has to deny that McQueary said he saw Sandusky having sex with a child, because if JoePa heard that, then the handling of the allegation again looks awful. To say nothing of the fact that Sandusky continued bringing kids around the program for years afterwards.

So basically, JoePa says he only knew of one claim, which he wasn't told the full, horrible extent of. And he told his higher-ups at the university and washed his hands of it.

But even that version, which spins him in the best possible light, still makes him look bad. The person who made the claim wasn't some guy, it was one of his former players and an assistant coach. And even a vague claim of inappropriateness between a grown man and a young boy on your campus, in your locker room, in your shower, should be enough to make someone's blood go cold.

But apparently it wasn't important enough to follow-up on.

Nice summary. Seems consistent with my readings of events.