The Single Worst Scandal In Sports History

Before we get started, I'm going to let your mind wander and think of the worst sports scandal you've ever heard of.  The White Sox throwing the '19 World Series?  Pete Rose betting on baseball?  Boosters buying a house and a Hummer for Reggie Bush's mom?  All bad, and all basically irrelevant as of today.

This morning, a report broke that former Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky raped eight boys over his 15 years at PSU on school facilities.  Boys that he met through The Second Mile, his not-for-profit dedicated to helping at-risk kids.

And this isn't just shit being made up.   Victims are coming forward; eight of them so far.  One claimed that Sandusky initiated advances with a "soap fight" in the shower.  The boy in question once appeared in a Sports Illustrated photo with Sandusky.  In the fall of 2000, a PSU janitor witnessed a young boy, aged 11 to 13, pinned up against a wall while Sandusky blew him.  Two years later, a graduate assistant witnessed Sandusky rape a 10 year old boy in the shower.  The graduate assistant reported it to AD Tim Curley, who promptly covered it up.  Sandusky, once considered Joe Paterno's heir apparent, resigned in 1999,* but allowed to continue to use PSU facilities for his work with The Second Mile.

Suddenly, gambling and false amateurism seem like small potatoes.

The unfortunate thing is this will almost certainly fail to get the attention it deserves.  It will be a story for a few weeks, then disappear.  And that should not happen.

Paterno, Curley, and vice president Gary Schultz (who is being charged along with Curley) are all unforgivable in this.  Paterno, rather than alerting the authorities, simply reported the incident to Curley.  I know eyewitness accounts are hardly airtight, especially when the 10 year old boy being sodomized against his will is black, but at the same time Sandusky was banned from again bringing children onto PSU's campus.**  And Curley enabled the living fuck out of Sandusky.  Letting him continue to use the facilities?  Not telling the police?  Worse yet, attempting to justify the grad assistant's report by claiming that a 55 year old man and a 10 year old boy in the shower was "little more than horseplay?"

Something smells like shit, and it's not Jerry Sandusky's dick for once.  Curley literally did everything he could to help Sandusky short of buying him orphans or making him the new host of "Are You Harder Than A Fifth Grader?"  Little more than horseplay?  I'll believe the ER patient who "doesn't know" how the remote control got stuck up his ass before I buy that.

Look, I'm not a big time moral crusader--in fact, I'm quite fond of the "live and let live" approach to forcing your beliefs down others' throats.  But when the "other" in question is forcing his cock down the throat of a child, well that's wrong no matter how you spin it.  This is, as the title indicates, The Single Worst Scandal in Sports History.  Miami may have provided their players with hookers and blow, but you can defend hookers (the players were 18) and blow (it was the '80s).  USC and Ohio State may have paid their players, but you could argue that they ought to have been paid in the first place.  Pete Rose may have bet on baseball, but he didn't bet on his team.  Mark Sanchez may have fucked a 17-year-old, but it was consensual.  The Roethlisberger accusations are flimsy hearsay, at best.

There is no spin to this.  Rarely in life are things so black and white; so cut and dry.  Jerry Sandusky used his position of power in Happy Valley to sodomize children.  Joe Paterno knew about this sodomy, and did nothing.  Actually, I take that back--he didn't do nothing.  He informed his higher ups, covering his own ass.  Paterno KNEW this was going on in his facilities in 2002; when Curley chose to cover it up Paterno was complicit.  At no point in the past 9 years did Paterno go to the police, even as this was still happening.  It took a high school, investigating a 2009 abuse of one of their students by Sandusky, to bring this to the authorities.  In a legal sense, Paterno is clean--by telling Curley, he effectively passes the buck on liability.  In a moral sense, Paterno could not possibly be more wrong--he knew of abuse, was easily in a position to stop it, yet he did not.  What, exactly, was his logic here?  "I told my boss, it's in his hands now."  HOW IS THAT DEFENSIBLE?!  The cocksucker was more concerned with safeguarding his legacy than protecting future victims.  If there were such a thing as justice, every last person involved in the coverup would be fired, put in stocks, and marched off the PSU campus to a public stoning.

By the way, this gives the 1988 Orange Bowl a whole new spin, doesn't it?  At the time, it was the wholesome squeaky-clean Penn State team against Miami's band of criminals.  Now?  Miami's party boys against PSU's child-rape-enablers.  Congratulations, Miami--for once, you're the good guys.  Don't get used to the feeling.

Another quick aside, as well--Penn State Creamery has a sundae named the "Sandusky Blitz."  The ingredients?  Banana, chocolate-covered peanuts, and gooey ropes of caramel.  I'm trying really, really hard to avoid joking about child rape, but the only way that could be any funnier is if they added marshmallows made of jizz.

I know the sports media is generally useless, but it's up to our reporters to keep this from going away.  Paterno press conferences should be full of questions like "Coach, when scheming to stop Russell Wilson, did you ever consider alerting the authorities to the child rapist on your staff?"  "Historically, Penn State's defense has been good at backside pursuit and pressure--did Coach Sandusky teach that in the shower?"  "Coach Paterno, whats more rewarding to you: Being the winninest coach in history, or helping Coach Sandusky rape children?"  "Coach, if you were going for a rape theme, why did you not offer a scholarship to Ben Roethlisberger back in the day?"  You get the point.

And it's on the rest of the NCAA coaches, too.  I know your lot.  When it comes to recruiting, you will use every advantage you have--and if you don't have any, you'll make one up and lie about it.  Well you don't have to lie here.  Thanks to NCAA's recruiting rules and regulations, plus the power of technology, we now know who, specifically, every coach/school is targeting.   If you're competing for a recruit with PSU, beat the kiddy-rape angle into the ground.  "You're a good looking guy, I'm guessing you'd like to have a family some day?  Bring the kids back for Homecoming, show them where Daddy used to play?  Well, would you like them to also get raped?  Didn't think so.  I'd shy away from PSU if it were me, then.  Just sayin'."  Make it so these scumbags are picking from the dregs of the borderline talent that nobody else is willing to deal with.

On the bright side, if you're a fan of Miami, Notre Dame, USC, Ohio State, Florida State, or someone along those lines, today is the greatest day in the history of fandom.  Now, whenever your rivals skewer you for violations, all you have to say is "Hey, at least no children are being raped on our campus!"  And if you're a Florida State fan, you now have in your history the winningest head coach who never helped cover up child rape among his staff.

Penn State is one of only four BCS schools who do not have a major NCAA violation in their history.  Since there are technically no NCAA rules against this kind of thing, that will still stand.  But at least they are now the only school with a child-rape violation in their history--and personally, I think that's just a little bit worse than boosters paying off players.

*By the way, Sandusky's resignation smells fishier than Paris Hilton's underwear drawer.  He was first investigated for child rape in 1998, and the investigation ultimately did not lead to charges.  A year later, Sandusky resigns but is allowed to continue using PSU facilities.  If you believe that the two events are unrelated, I have a bridge to sell you.
**Because that's a solution--don't stop him from doing it, just make sure it doesn't happen on our watch!