Pennsylvania State University (more commonly known as Penn State) is located in State College, Pennsylvania. State College is basically your typical “Anytown USA”, known for it’s family friendly surroundings, laid back environment, community orientated citizens, with a reputation as a safe haven for people to raise their children. It’s a happy place.

So happy, in fact, it’s known as the original “Happy Valley”.

So safe, in fact, that in 2010, the “CQ Press” deemed it the third-safest metropolitan area in the United States, while “Sperling’s BestPlaces” research group ranked State College the number 1 safest small city in America.

So laid back, in fact, that “Physchology Today” ranked it as one of the least stressful places to live in the United States.

Penn State is a highly respected school, placed among the top 15 public universities nationally and is considered to be one of America’s “Public Ivy universities”.

Recently, the town of State College was ranked 19th among the “50 Smart Places to Live” by Kiplinger.com.

And for the last 40 years, State College Pennsylvania has been the home of the sickest man in the history of college sports.

Jerry Sandusky played defensive end for the Penn State football team from 1963-1965. He returned to campus in 1969 as the defensive line coach, and 8 years later was promoted to the team’s defensive coordinator, a position he would hold for 30 years before retiring in 1999.

Sandusky was known as one of the best assistant coaches in all of college football, credited for laying the foundation of one of the most dominant and fiercest defenses in the entire country.

Under his tutelage, Penn State became known as “Linebacker U”, producing the likes of Greg Buttle, Shane Conlan, and Lavar Arrington.

He was twice named college football assistant coach of the year (1986, 1999).

He was part of a staff that won two national championships (1982, 1986).

He was thought to be the heir apparent to Joe Paterno, ready made to become the next Penn State head football coach after “Joe Pa” retired.

He also raped and molested young boys.

On November 5th, Sandusky was arrested for 40 counts related to allegations of sexual abuse over a 15-year period. He was inexplicably released on $100,000 bail, and now awaits trail. The initial grand jury report released on November 6th named 8 victims who had been molested by Sandusky. As of this writing, more than 20 male victims have come forward, claiming they had also been violated by Sandusky.

And while Sandusky is clearly and obviously the sick twisted sociopath in this situation, what’s come to light over the last three days is he was protected by those around him for what is believed to be close to 17 years.

The grand jury report names 16 separate people thought to have some sort of knowledge of Sandusky’s sick and perverted habits, making this all the more maddening. The first incident of indecent behavior involving Sandusky and a young boy (10 years-old) is reported to have taken place in 1994. He was allowed access and spotted working out in the Penn State facilities last week.

For 17 years Sandusky has been given every possible platform to enable and support his lifestyle choice as a pedophile by the administration and coaching staff at Penn State. If the charges against Sandusky are indeed held up in the court of law, they all should lose their jobs, and potentially spend years in prison.

In 1977, Sandusky founded “The Second Mile”, a charity that, in a sick and ironic twist, was supposed to be “devoted to helping troubled young boys”. Part of The Second Mile’s mission statement reads: “we aim to help children who need additional support and would benefit from positive human interaction”. It was under the guise of this foundation where Sandusky found his prey. All 8 of the young boys named in the grand jury report were all members of The Second Mile program.

Sandusky would take them to Penn State and Philadelphia Eagle football games, give them cash, buy them clothes, send them to sports camps, and do whatever else he could to make sure they saw him as a hero. But his main motivation was to keep them quiet for as long as possible, while he went about his business of ruining their lives and taking their innocence to fulfill his own deviant and disgusting desires.

He molested the boys at his home, offering his basement spare bedroom as a “safe place” for them to stay, when in reality his intention was to turn the room into his own personal perverted play place, while his wife was sleeping upstairs.

He molested boys at the local Toftrees Golf Resort and Conference Center, where the football team and staff stayed prior to home games.

He molested boys on road trips to bowl games. Trips where Sandusky was thought to have taken young boys on as part of his contribution to The Second Mile.

He molested boys at a local high school, where he was a volunteer assistant coach for the football team. On two separate occasions, employees of the school (a wrestling coach and a janitor) witnessed Sandusky engaged in inappropriate behavior with young boys.

He molested boys in the Penn State facilities, using his clout as a former coach and his emeritus status at the University to gain access to his own private office and the football locker rooms. The same locker rooms where Sandusky was caught in 2002 raping a 10 year-old boy in the shower by then graduate assistant coach and now wide receivers coach Mike McQueary.

Through all the years of Sandusky’s perverse existence, people knew what was going on. People witnessed it in person, and people talked about it.
Important people.

Penn State head coach Joe Paterno was directly informed of the shower incident in 2002. And don’t believe for one second Paterno didn’t hear anything prior to 2002, as Sandusky was one of his closest friends and a former colleague.

Paterno hides behind his claim that he wasn’t fully informed of what exactly happened that night in the shower of his facilities, categorizing it as “fondling or some sort of sexual behavior”. As if we should give him a free pass based on the difference between what he claimed to have known and the actual act of rape. He knew enough to put the hammer on Sandusky. He knew enough to put a stop to the behavior, and salvage the lives of all the young boys who were molested after the incident.

Sandusky retired out of nowhere in 1999, when he was only 55 years old. The reasons for his “retirement” are now crystal clear, as campus police reportedly investigated Sandusky in 1998. That same year, a mother of one of the victims claims Sandusky admitted to her that he had molested her son. Safe to say Sandusky was most likely politely asked to retire, because, oh, I don’t know, people probably didn’t want a pedophile on the coaching staff.

Paterno took the matter to Penn State Athletic Director Tim Curley, who then shared the information with Sr. VP of Finance and Business Gary Schultz. In the grand jury report, it claims that both Schultz and Curley also met with McQueary, who directly told them he witnessed Sandusky having sex with a young boy in the locker room showers. Both informed McQueary they would look into the situation and delve out what they deemed to be appropriate punishment.

After a week and a half of “investigating”, Curley and Schultz came to a conclusion: They would take Sandusky’s keys and ban him from bringing children onto the Penn State campus.

That’s right, the punishment for raping a 10 year-old boy in the shower at Penn State was simply removing a few keys from a key chain.

And what about the investigation by the campus police in 1998? It stopped at the top. The man in charge of overseeing the police department at Penn State never sought or reviewed the police report, nor did he involve the police in any way shape or from regarding the shower incident in 2002.

And who was that man?

Gary Schutlz.

The case in 1998 actually did reach the office of the Centre County district attorney Ray Gricar. Reports indicate the Gricar wanted to pursue the case further, but for some unexplainable reason, chose not to prosecute. And in yet another bizarre twist, Gricar mysteriously disappeared in 2005, and was legally declared dead in July of this year. His abandoned car was discovered, along with a laptop recovered months later in a river without a hard drive. His body was never found.

Last but not least, the University President himself, Graham Spanier was advised by both Schultz and Curley of Sandusky’s behavior. Instead of acting like a leader of men, an educator or even a responsible adult, he told Schultz and Curley to handle the situation, and left it at that.

Spanier, Schultz, Curley and McQuery didn’t molest children, but they protected the man who did for 17 years. They should all lose their jobs, and face criminal charges.

And so should Joe Paterno.

We are parents. An if we are not, we are brothers, we are sisters, we are grandparents, we are aunts, we are uncles. No matter who you are, chances are you know a young boy who is important to you. Imagine if that child was the boy in the shower with Sandusky in 2002. Imagine if you witnessed his sick perverse ways with your own two eyes. What would you do? Would you look the other way, as the principals in the case have done for 17 years? They hide behind the walls of “protocol”, when in reality they have all failed miserably as decent humans.

On Monday night, I sat down and read the 23-page grand jury report on Sandusky from start to finish. After I was done, I walked out into my back yard and threw up. I was angry, sad, depressed, scared, and even panicked. Typically when I need an outlet or advice, I call my parents or a friend. But on Monday night, with tears swelling in my eyes, I placed a different phone call.

I called my son.

Who is 10 years-old.

“Hi dad”, he answered.

“Hey buddy”, I replied, my voice quivering on the other end.

Fighting back tears, I had a five-minute conversation with the most important person in my life. We talked about school, we talked about basketball, we talked about soccer. Small things.

I just needed to hear his voice.

It is our duty to protect our children from sick perverts like Jerry Sandusky. It’s our duty to do our best to preserve the innocence of our children for as long as we possibly can, until the world inevitably rips it away, in the way the world tends to do in it’s own time.

But it was the duty as decent and logical people in and around Pennsylvania State University, located in one of the safest cities in America, to protect the world from Jerry Sandusky. And no matter how they try to spin it over the coming days and weeks, they failed us all.