Joe Paterno Dies, The Nation Shrugs Their Shoulders

I was in the gym when I saw the news that at 85 years old, former Penn State coach and former man who people liked had passed away. I looked in disbelief that something so terrible could happen to a person whose life had just finished a crash landing at the tail end of a wicked downward spiral. Never in sports has there been such a fast and overwhelming fall from grace. Joe Paterno embodied what we thought of as college football. He put Penn State on the map, and he did it all the while making the academic restrictions more rigorous. But, it was ultimately what he didn’t do that ruined his image and brought about his firing. You know the story. There was a man on Paterno’s staff who was habitually raping young boys. Joe was given an eye witness account, however vague it may have been, passed it on to his higher ups and never gave it another thought. Just the other day Joe gave an interview where he said now, looking back, he wishes he would have done more. Hindsight is a...