Update: 11/10/11 10:30am – The more I am learning about this case, and after having read the grand jury testimony in the Sandusky case, I’m starting to look at this entire thing a little differently. I really want to believe that Joe Pa didn’t do anything wrong, or try to cover up / do the right thing in this case, but if some of the allegations I have heard since writing this post are true, I’m going to be pretty heartbroken.

I returned home this evening and saw a firestorm of tweets related to the news that Penn State’s Board of Trustees had decided to go ahead and fire Joe Paterno even though he had already announced that he was retiring at the end of the season. I was shocked to say the least. Now, before I go any further I want to make this known:

I despise the idea of a grown man, especially a person of trust, like Jerry Sandusky, molesting young children. It’s wrong, and I pray for the victims and their families. I just want to get this on the record, I also have no sympathy for anyone who participates in these acts either directly or indirectly by trying to cover it up.

The part that bothers me in this whole scenario is that I have a lot of respect for Joe Paterno, he’s always carried himself w/ a lot of dignity, class, and integrity over the years. He’s coached college football for over 60 years and in those 60 years there’s never really been any questioning his character on or off the field. He’s still married to his wife Sue that he’s been faithful to since the day they said “I do”. There’s never been any mention of Joe Pa sneaking around or having affairs, instead there’s always been stories about how he and his wife have given millions of dollars to various charities and establish educational facilities at Penn State. I know for a fact that the student library at Penn State came about as a donation from Joe and Sue Paterno. If you think about it long enough, I bet you can’t think of one skeleton that has ever came out of Joe Paterno’s closet over the years.

I recall a story where some sports vendor at Penn State, it was either Nike, Under Armour, or Adidas, approached the coach before a ball game and asked him to put on one of their sweaters to wear during a ball game. I can remember the sports vendor was under the impression that their contractual agreement with the school had locked in the fact that Joe Pa was going to wear their sweater on the sidelines as some sort of endorsement. Upon hearing this request, Joe Pa just smiled at the corporate representative and told them no that he thought he would just wear the sweater he had on because he liked it better, the rep stood there shocked and almost insisted that he change sweaters. Joe Paterno, still smiling, looked at the rep and told them that it wasn’t happening because his grandchildren had bought him that sweater and then he walked out of the room. To the best of my knowledge, he was never asked to change sweaters again. This is just one story about Joe Paterno that I have heard over the years, he was a class act.

If I am wrong about Joe Paterno’s character and if it comes out in trial that he did know about the child molestation and tried to cover it up, I will be the first to admit that he needs to go down w/ the rest of the group involved. This is something we don’t know for sure yet but we will soon. I’m saddened by the fact that one low-life, Jerry Sandusky, has brought down one of the brightest personalities in college football.

One other thing I would like to mention in closing, I feel as if Penn State’s Board of Trustees jumped the gun and acted prematurely given the fact that Sandusky hasn’t even been to trial yet. I feel as if they should have just left Joe Paterno’s resignation at the end of the season, that he had already announced, stand as his punishment. You just don’t fire someone who has been loyal and without blemish for over 60 years w/ a phone call if you can’t substantiate the allegations against him with anything other than here say (and that’s exactly what it is at this point, hear say, nothing has went to trial yet).

What are your thoughts??