The Penn State administration had finally hatched a plan. It was too kind, backward and included possibly tampering with a criminal investigation. Still, it was enough of a plan that it could've stopped Jerry Sandusky, child molester, back in 2001.





Just a couple weeks earlier, a football graduate assistant, Mike McQueary, had witnessed Sandusky abusing a boy in a Penn State locker room shower. He told coach Joe Paterno. He told vice president Gary Schultz and athletic director Tim Curley. He could've been more specific. He was clearly specific enough, however, to get their attention.

Schultz plotted out a course of action, according to a bombshell report by CNN, citing an email exchange that's been uncovered in the school's independent investigation by former FBI chief Louis Freeh. The report could be released as early as next month.

According to CNN in an email dated Feb. 26, 2001, Schultz wrote to Curley about a three-part plan that included talking "with the subject asap regarding the future appropriate use of the University facility," … "contacting the chair of the charitable organization" and "contacting the Department of Welfare."

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It would have been better to skip directly to the third action and let the welfare authorities do the meeting and informing, but this should've been enough to end Sandusky's reign of terror.

Except that Curley sent an email to Schultz and school president Graham Spanier on Feb. 27, 2001, that changed everything.

"After giving it more thought and talking it over with Joe yesterday, I am uncomfortable with what we agreed were the next steps. I am having trouble with going to everyone but the person involved. I would be more comfortable meeting with the person and tell them about the information we received and tell them we are aware of the first situation," Curley's email said, according to CNN.

It's unclear why Curley suggested that Sandusky (the "person involved") wouldn't be contacted when Schultz's email told Curley to "talk with the subject asap." But the bottom line is that child welfare services was never contacted. And Sandusky, convicted earlier this month on 45 counts of molestation, continued to stalk and abuse the area's disadvantaged boys for seven more years.

The email is devastating on multiple levels, perhaps most for Paterno, who had escaped some measure of scorn thus far by having played the, in-hindsight-I-should've-done-more angle. Paterno, who won more games than any other major college football coach, died at age 85 in January of lung cancer.

[Yahoo! Sports Radio: Dan Wetzel on the Sandusky verdict]

According to Curley's email, Paterno participated more than he ever admitted, including likely talking Curley – and thus the others – out of the plan to turn Sandusky over to authorities.

Take a second for that one to sink in.

It is now perfectly reasonable to postulate that Joe Paterno protected Jerry Sandusky, who had been a Penn State assistant coach from 1969 until retiring in 1999. Sandusky went right along with his business of showering with boys in the locker room, of bringing kids to the sidelines during games, of sitting in the press/luxury box area of home games. Sandusky used the program's allure like a lollipop to draw kids into his van.









Paterno will never have the chance to defend against this charge or answer these troubling questions.

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