“It was, you know, almost an extended family,” Mr. Sandusky said of his household’s relationship with children from the charity. He then characterized his close experiences with children he took under his wing as “precious times,” and said that the physical aspect of the relationships “just happened that way.”

Wrestling, hugging — “I think a lot of the kids really reached out for that,” he said.

Mr. Sandusky said his wife, Dorothy, known as Dottie, ultimately had some concerns about the household dynamics. He said she had warned him not to neglect his own children — the Sanduskys had adopted six children, including one from the Second Mile — “for the sake of other kids.” Mr. Sandusky recalled one scene after a Penn State football game that underscored her concerns.

“I remember the kids were downstairs, and we always had dogs,” he said. “And Dottie said, ‘You better go down and check on those kids, you know those Second Mile kids after football games.’ I went down, and I look, and there goes a kid flying over a couch, there goes a dog flying over a couch. And I go, ‘I don’t think she wants to see this.’ ”

He said of his household: “Yeah, I mean it was turmoil. It was turmoil.”

During the interview, conducted at the home of his lawyer, Mr. Sandusky was at times subdued, but occasionally capable of humor — some of it awkward laughter about his legal jeopardy and ruined reputation, some of it bright amusement at a recalled anecdote about his own father, who himself had worked with disadvantaged and disabled children, or a moment of remembered comedy at one of the many summer camps he helped run for children.

He grew most animated when talking about his relationships with children, and he grew most disconsolate when he, with a touch of childlike reverence, spoke of Mr. Paterno and Penn State, and the damage his indictment had caused them. “I don’t think it was fair,” he said.

During the interview, Joseph Amendola, Mr. Sandusky’s lawyer, captured what he asserted was his client’s predicament:

“All those good things that you were doing have been turned around,” Mr. Amendola said, speaking to his client, “and the people who are painting you as a monster are saying, ‘Well, they’re the types of things that people who are pedophiles exhibit.’ ”

Prosecutors, in their indictment of Mr. Sandusky, charged him with a horrific array of abuse, including the repeated assaults of young boys.