[h=3]By Nate Mink, Special to USA Today[/h]Updated
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. – The Joe Paterno statue is coming down.
Gene J. Puskar, AP
The statue of former Penn State University head football coach Joe Paterno outside Beaver Stadium in State College, Pa.
Penn State President Rodney Erickson announced the decision Sunday morning, calling the statue "a source of division and an obstacle to healing."
"For that reason, I have decided that it is in the best interest of our university and public safety to remove the statue and store it in a secure location," Erickson said. "I believe that, were it to remain, the statue will be a recurring wound to the multitude of individuals across the nation and beyond who have been the victims of child abuse."
Around 6:15 a.m. Sunday, campus construction crews and police started closing off the main road that runs past the statue and installed fencing covered by blue tarp to block sight lines of the statue.
By 7:30, workers had started the process of removing the statue from the ground. Only a handful of spectators watched from the sidewalk opposite the statue. No immediate uproar or protest could be seen or heard.
Speculation had run rampant as to the statue's future since the release of Penn State's internal investigation into the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal last July 12, which implicated Paterno and three high-ranking university officials in concealing allegations of sexual abuse against Sandusky.
The 7-foot, 900-pound bronze statue is one of the most symbolic pieces of Paterno imagery on campus. The school's library, which also bears Paterno's name, will not be altered in any way, Erickson said, because it represents the academic mission of the university Paterno helped foster.
The statue was erected outside Beaver Stadium in November 2001, nine months after Paterno learned of one of those sexual allegations from a then-graduate assistant in which Sandusky was sexually molesting a young boy in the team's football facility. History will show the statue will come down six months to the day of Paterno's passing Jan. 22 because of complications from lung cancer treatments.
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STATE COLLEGE, Pa. – The Joe Paterno statue is coming down.
Gene J. Puskar, AP
The statue of former Penn State University head football coach Joe Paterno outside Beaver Stadium in State College, Pa.
Penn State President Rodney Erickson announced the decision Sunday morning, calling the statue "a source of division and an obstacle to healing."
"For that reason, I have decided that it is in the best interest of our university and public safety to remove the statue and store it in a secure location," Erickson said. "I believe that, were it to remain, the statue will be a recurring wound to the multitude of individuals across the nation and beyond who have been the victims of child abuse."
Around 6:15 a.m. Sunday, campus construction crews and police started closing off the main road that runs past the statue and installed fencing covered by blue tarp to block sight lines of the statue.
By 7:30, workers had started the process of removing the statue from the ground. Only a handful of spectators watched from the sidewalk opposite the statue. No immediate uproar or protest could be seen or heard.
Speculation had run rampant as to the statue's future since the release of Penn State's internal investigation into the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal last July 12, which implicated Paterno and three high-ranking university officials in concealing allegations of sexual abuse against Sandusky.
The 7-foot, 900-pound bronze statue is one of the most symbolic pieces of Paterno imagery on campus. The school's library, which also bears Paterno's name, will not be altered in any way, Erickson said, because it represents the academic mission of the university Paterno helped foster.
The statue was erected outside Beaver Stadium in November 2001, nine months after Paterno learned of one of those sexual allegations from a then-graduate assistant in which Sandusky was sexually molesting a young boy in the team's football facility. History will show the statue will come down six months to the day of Paterno's passing Jan. 22 because of complications from lung cancer treatments.
For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to [email protected]. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.
USA TODAY is now using Facebook Comments on our stories and blog posts to provide an enhanced user experience. To post a comment, log into Facebook and then "Add" your comment. To report spam or abuse, click the "X" in the upper right corner of the comment box. To find out more, read the FAQ and Conversation Guidelines.