I don’t remember exactly how I heard about the Jerry Sandusky scandal at Penn State, but I know I immediately took notice of the situation.
As a lifelong college football enthusiast, Penn State has always been considered one of the premier programs in the nation, and their longtime head coach Joe Paterno one of the sport’s most revered coaches. To have any situation cloud the program means it’s something to keep your eye on.To have this happen at the hands of someone Paterno kept on staff for over 30 years was a horrifying fact, even before it became painfully apparent Paterno knew more than he let on.
There was more than just one fact that jumped out at me from these stories. One that was certainly eye-opening was that the former district attorney who was involved in the case, Ray Gricar, had been missing for seven years and considered legally dead. Also, the fact that there was a sting operation involving Sandusky in 1998 that yielded some evidence but not enough is disconcerting to say the least. This turned out to be a string of what Ganim calls “missed opportunities” in which people had the chance to take down Sandusky but, for various reasons, were not able to follow through.