Paterno ‘Despised’ Sandusky Long Before Sex Scandal, New Book Claims
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Justin K. Aller/Getty Images(NEW YORK) — Long before Jerry Sandusky’s child sex abuse crimes led to Joe Paterno’s downfall, the two Penn State coaches “despised each other,” according to a new biography of Paterno.
Former Sports Illustrated writer Joe Posnanski describes in his new biography, Paterno, how tension built between the two men as Paterno grew frustrated with Sandusky, whom he thought paid more attention to his charity, The Second Mile, and children than to the Nittany Lions football team.
“These feelings had built into a crescendo over the years, as they sometimes do with longtime colleagues,” Posnanski writes, describing how the men never got along.
Sandusky hated meetings, overlooked details and was uninterested in recruiting. He and his wife did not drink much alcohol, while the Paternos drank socially.
“The tension between Paterno and Sandusky gurgled just below the surface,” Posnanski writes.
When Sandusky retired after the 1999 season, Sports Illustrated asked Sandusky if he would miss Paterno.
“Well, not exactly,” Sandusky responded.
Despite the tension, the book maintains that Paterno never knew that Sandusky sexually abused children, and only had a vague idea that Sandusky had acted inappropriately with a boy in the Penn State showers in 2001, based on a description by graduate assistant Mike McQueary.
“Many of the people who had come to admire Joe Paterno believed that, no matter his own legal role, he should have made sure the incident was reported to the police. ‘But, to be honest, that’s just not how Joe was in the last years,’ said one of the people in his inner circle. ‘He was not vigilant like he used to be. I think a younger Joe would’ve said to Tim after a few days, “Hey what’s going on with that Sandusky thing? You guys get to the bottom of that? Let’s make sure that’s taken care of.” But he didn’t understand it. And he just wasn’t as involved as he used to be,'” the book reads.
Posnanski notes that after Paterno’s family convinced him to read the grand jury presentment outlining the charges against Sandusky and two other Penn State officials, the 85-year-old coach asked his son, Scott Paterno, “What is sodomy, anyway?”
Sandusky has been convicted of 45 counts of child sex abuse, and is awaiting sentencing in a Pennsylvania jail.
Paterno, who died in January, said that he wished he had done more to investigate the incident involving Sandusky and the boy in the shower. He maintained that he never knew about a 1998 investigation into Sandusky, though a report released in July by former FBI chief Louis Freeh found that he had known about it.
The new, 400-plus page tome, out Tuesday, covers Paterno’s life before the scandal, though its main focus shifts to the fallout from Sandusky in the latter half of the book. Posnanski began working with Paterno on the book before the allegations against Sandusky became public.
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