Tragedy in Happy Valley

The True Tragedy of Penn State

I just finished reading a story on Yahoo Sports by RALPH D. RUSSO - AP College Football Writer.  He talks briefly about how the scandal at PSU is on a different scale from other sports scandals because of the nature of the events and the fact that it involves such an iconic person as Joe Paterno.  The article then dilutes the issue by listing a long trail of other scandals in sports history.

Here is an excerpt from the article:

“"That would be heartbreaking if it ended like this," Miami coach and former Penn State player Al Golden said Tuesday. He was speaking about the Paterno legacy, not the victim.
Paterno is the winningest coach in the history of Division I football, less than two weeks removed from surpassing the late Eddie Robinson of Grambling with victory No. 409, and the embodiment of a program that has generally been viewed as upstanding.
"This is like having a scandal in the White House. That's how big this is," said Beano Cook, a college football historian and ESPN analyst.
Paterno has been one of the most famous sports figures in this country for more than half a century and generally regarded as one of the foremost leaders in college sports.
"There's no doubt this will hurt his legacy, but how much?" said Cook, who was a longtime sports information director at Pittsburgh. "I hope not a lot."
Dan Jenkins, the award-winning author, sports writer and historian for the National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame, said the nature of the Penn State scandal won't necessarily do long-term damage to college sports as a whole because it doesn't call into question the legitimacy of the games.”
Think about what is missing here.  The story never mentions the victim.  The story never mentions that apparently two individuals saw one man having sexual activity with a boy in a shower and took no action
Russo also provides this quote from Dan Jenkins: "Penn State's story is for another part of the paper, not the sports section," he said in an email. "But it calls attention to all the other ills."  Jenkins is right.  This belongs on every page in the paper-but not in the form of expressed sadness related to the stain on jopa’s football rep.
So what does all of this mean?  Have we become such a callous and amoral society that there is no outrage when a child is being victimized?  Where is the concern for the child?  If the boy had been Paterno’s son or Curley’s son would they have reacted differently?  Does a young man need to be on a football scholarship to rate protection and concern in Happy Valley?

Who raced to the boy’s aid?  Who called 911?  Who confronted the perpetrator? This story reminds me of the parable of the Good Samaritan, except that, in this case, there were NO Samaritans.  In my role, as Executive Director of VOICE Today, Inc., I have talked to hundreds of adult survivors of child sexual abuse and this is a common story.  When it is ‘sound-bite time” adults will puff themselves up and talk bravely about how they would kill a child predator or tear them to pieces.  Sadly, the reality is that most adults look the other way and don’t demonstrate the courage to defend and protect a child at risk.  In most cases these same adults will tell you that they keep “their” children safe and that they don’t need to be educated about the behaviors of predators and damage the sexual violation of a child causes.

Victims of child sexual abuse suffer a long list of well-documented emotional, physical, psychological and spiritual problems.  Most victims suffer from one or more of the following:

·      Shame, disgrace, silence, torment, confusion, distrust, self hatred, self mutilation, marginal existence, isolation, low self esteem,

·      Drug and/or alcohol dependence, depression, post-traumatic   stress disorder, anxiety, eating disorders, suicidal thoughts/attempts

·      Difficulty forming long-term relationships. sexual promiscuity that leads to teen pregnancy. Prostitution

·      (70-80%) of serial rapists report they were sexually abused as children.

·      Child sexual abuse survivors have a higher likelihood of abusing others.

The self-destructive behavior uses pain to mask the horrific trauma the child victim of sexual abuse experiences.  This is the legacy that the inaction by staff at PSU will leave behind and the victims will suffer with it every day of every week of every year, as they search for true healing.  They will struggle with the fact that people they revered knew and did nothing.  They will struggle with the fact that there is a lot more open concern about a football coach’s won-lost record than the egregious violence they suffered. They will struggle as they search for the innocence they had before terrifying violence entered their life.
Is a football coach and his personal legacy so important?