Paterno's Lesson

There are several tragedies attached to the Penn State affair. The rape and maiming of children by a sexual predator is the most immediately egregious and monstrous. But for some reason all eyes are drawn to Coach Paterno, a man who used sport as his instrument to mentor boys into manhood. My brother, a Penn State alumnus, four decades removed, used to regale us with Paterno’s famous “football is like life” predicate to the similarities of the vicissitudes experienced on the football field and those inescapable in real life. Although we chuckled at his mimicry we nonetheless absorbed the sensibleness of many of the coach’s dictums and I, at least, have repeated the mantra silently in my mind at various points of decision and hardship where the hard-knock of conscious direction was required in resistance to the momentum of the flow. That is why this heinous fiasco has re-humanized and re-adultified the slumbering and rote activities of my moral senses.

Not to belittle the terrible and permanent scarring that will be borne by the actual victims, but we have all been injured in that our belief in ourselves must be challenged by Coach Paterno’s shortcoming. We are beset by a society and a culture that defines and rewards a conception of adult sophistication, personally and geo-politically, as measured by our bravery to do the naughty thing, and not by our courage to do the right thing. Mr. Paterno blessed with wealth, fame, family, and success, and after the Biblically allotted three score and ten years, presented with his test of morality, principle, and courage, pitted against friendship and legacy and loyalty to a university and football program, was confounded into inaction. It was a horrible choice much beyond the sniveling choices, that thankfully, most of us are accosted with, but I’m sure in retrospect Coach Paterno will admit the consequences of belittling morality and courage for a temporary convenience is a more horrible burden to bear than the weight of the decision he had been called upon to make.

It is a shame that the Michelangelo statue of Mr. Paterno’s life and career has been graffiti-ed by a man he called friend, but it was Mr. Paterno himself who caused the chip that forevermore will not allow his personal legacy to be appraised at its highest possible value.

The riotous overreaction is somewhat to be expected from a mob of deeply disappointed youth, but Mr. Paterno’s termination was a correct decision responsible adults were required to make. It is only debatable whether they are requiring a higher or minimal standard of us all.