How the mighty have fallen. Literally.
Joe Paterno, who for 46 years as the head coach of his self-described "winning with honor" football program at Penn State, has been shown to be a man who kept many secrets. It has been revealed he did not act in the way that justified a statue erected in his honor.
And now, a day before the NCAA is expected to come down hard on Penn State, the statue has been removed.
The decision by Penn State president Rodney Erickson to tear down the statue of Paterno that once guarded Beaver Stadium was the right thing to do. The 900-pound bronze statue, which was built in 2001 to honor the Hall of Fame coach's record-setting 324th career victory and his contributions to the university, was gone by 8 o'clock Sunday morning.
Police barricaded the roads leading to the stadium just before dawn. Workers erected a chain-link fence and concealed the seven-foot statue under a blue tarp. They then lifted the statue off its base and used a forklift to move it into the stadium as 100 to 150 students, watching, chanted, "We are Penn State."
Ever since the Freeh report came out on July 12, the statue has been an eyesore on campus, a target for criticism and a constant reminder of the evil Paterno condoned by burying child sex abuse claims against a retired assistant coach, Jerry Sandusky, who molested 10 little boys over a 15-year period. Some of the incidents occurred in the Lasch football building on campus.
Paterno's failure and the failure of three other top university officials — former presdent Graham Spanier, former AD Tim Curley and former VP Gary Schultz -- to report a 2001 incident to authorities allowed Sandusky to continue abusing children, according to the report.
Sandusky has been convicted of 45 criminal counts and is scheduled to be sentenced within the next two months for upwards of 468 years in prison. All four men had denied they protected a pedophile. Curley and Schultz are both scheduled to go on trial shortly for lying to the grand jury. Their hearing is Aug 16.
"I believe that, were it to remain, the statue will be a recurring wound to the individuals who have been the victims of child abuse,'' Erickson said in a statement.
The statue will be put into storage, Erickson said, "because it has been a source of division and an obstacle of healing.''
The Paterno statue has been an emotional, focal albeit misguided, rallying cry for students and alumni who were upset by Paterno's firing by the Board of Trustees four days after Sandusky's Nov. 5 arrest. The coach's death Jan. 22 from cancer at age 85 only made his adherents more adamant.
