In the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal, most of the attention has been on the late Joe Paterno and whether he did enough in handling the allegation at the time.
Rightly or wrongly, he has become the face of the scandal. What has never really been focused on is, when the football program through Paterno reported the incident to senior university officials, why did they punt?
We know the players — Graham Spanier, Gary Schultz and Tim Curley. What we do not know is why they did next to nothing. They were given pretty credible information that a heinous act may have been committed by a former school employee on school grounds. So was their relative inaction an innocent blunder or something more sinister?
Some speculation has been cast upon the connections between Penn State and The Second Mile. The thinking goes that the inter-meshing of these two entities made it impossible for university officials to take action as their allegiance was owed to both. Work to protect the university and you hurt The Second Mile and vice versa. Best course of action is to sweep it under the rug and hope the issue goes away.
Such a theory is plausible but not necessarily correct. However, if we move our gaze just north of Beaver Stadium, another valid theory will come into focus.
The Village at Penn State was Spanier’s idea, and he had Schultz on board as a trustee. The idea was to get alumni to return to State College and enjoy many of the offerings of the area, especially the university.
Those living in The Village were given access to classes, cultural events and sports.
With a steady stream of potential buyers, investors in the project had visions of sugar plums dancing in their heads as profits from the project seemed guaranteed.
Although there appeared to be a pot of gold at the end, the financing for the project was risky. Credit swaps like the kind that caused the housing crisis were used.
In order for the project to work, alumni needed to buy, and what better way to get them here than what has always drawn the alumni: the football program. 2002 promised to be a big year.
As we know, 2002 turned out to be a fateful year, but not in an expected way. The Village at Penn State has failed despite great expectations. The financing led to much litigation, and the assisted-living portion of The Village eventually ended up in bankruptcy.
The Sandusky scandal swallowed all involved. It has shaken this town to its very core. Knowing the potential for how toxic the scandal could be (and ultimately proved to be), did those involved in the initial investigation shirk their responsibilities because of a potential impact on their own interests?
There are many ongoing investigations into this mess. One avenue that must be explored is the connection between The Village at Penn State and the university’s upper echelon.
Sandusky has been accused of using the football program as a lure for unsuspecting victims. Backers of the The Village at Penn State used the program as a lure for alumni. What happened when these two interests collided? That is food for thought.
Let’s hope one of the investigations will give us a satisfying answer.
Louis Lombardi is a community columnist for the Centre Daily Times. He is an attorney and former New York police captain who lives in Patton Township. He can be reached at info@louislombardilaw.com or follow him on his blog at www.obpopulus.wordpress.com.
