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A Longtime Penn State Football Assistant Got Charged With Some Terrible Things

Joe Paterno is Penn State football, but Jerry Sandusky, perhaps more than anyone, helped Paterno build Penn State into the power it became. Sandusky served under Paterno for three decades, and for 23 of those seasons, he was JoePa’s defensive coordinator. During that time, Penn State won a pair of national titles and won 10 or more games 12 times. Also, not for nothing: immediately after Sandusky stepped down, the Nittany Lions suffered through the worst five-year stretch of Paterno’s career.

Sandusky was just 55 when he retired. His reasoning: he wanted to spend more time running his nonprofit organization devoted to helping children, The Second Mile. And that sounded about as wholesome as possible a reason for leaving, at a curiously early age, a profession in which he’d achieved such success that whenever Paterno were to step down (not for a long while, as it turned out), Sandusky would be one of the favorites to replace him. It fit with the Paterno image – a guy noted for valuing integrity and “doing things the right way” would have someone so apparently devoted to the well-being of others as his right-hand man.

Well, not exactly, as it turned out. Earlier this year, it came out that Sandusky had for some time been the subject of a grand jury investigation “on allegations that he inappropriately touched a young boy over a four-year period.” Said Neil Rudel of the Altoona Mirror at the time: “[I]t’s fair to wonder: Was Sandusky told to retire from the Nittany Lion coaching staff?”

Those questions are about to get a lot louder. Today, news broke that Sandusky was indicted on “felony charges of sex crimes against minors.” Needless to say, this sounds really, really bad. Ad the details only make it worse:

[F]elony charges of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse of someone under 16, aggravated indecent assault, indecent assault of someone under 16, indecent assault of someone under 13, and corruption of minors charges have been filed in the state court docket system.

The offense dates include 1996, 1998, 2000, 2002, and 2005. There are 40 counts included in the paperwork filed against him.

There’s really not much to add to that. This is just sad. The Second Mile, according to The Patriot-News, says it has every intention of continuing on its work even despite the situation surrounding Sandusky – hopefully, their work isn’t, and was never, adversely affected by the guy. If we were Penn State fans, we’d suddenly be feeling awfully glad – no matter the exact reasoning behind it – that he left as early as he did.

[h/t Stewart Mandel]

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