The passing of Joe Paterno gives us pause for many reasons...as we try to engineer his legacy into something we can all live with, I find my self reflecting on decisions made in my own life.
Would I have done things differently and made other choices if I knew they could possibly be my last?
Of course I would...and watching the Penn State scandal unfold has been one of the best lessons out there for doing the right thing.
We all look back on our own decisions in life, we all wish for do-overs, especially those that involve a lack of moral turpitude.
Unfortunately, Joe Paterno lived under the assumption that his legacy was intact and he had control over it. Yet, there are too many "free radicals" out there to ever assume such a thing.
One of them was Jerry Sandusky.
Paterno and others thought they had him under control and contained...
but you can never contain someone with an addiction, they will find a way to maintain their addiction even if it means destroying you...and that's what Sandusky did to Penn State ...and those in power were just as addicted to their own positions, which blinded them to the truth of the situation.
Paterno would have passed away a hero if he had done one simple thing from the very beginning of this mess.
He should have used his power to expunge Sandusky from the world of Penn State, rather than be part of a long time cover up that runs deep and disturbing.
His power was used many times to protect execrable players that had no right to be on the Penn State gridiron.
Paterno's powers ran deep and quite far, which some of us know all too well.
His own words "I should of done more." rang empty for me, as I know he had the power to do more and didn't.
Whistle-blowers usually come from powerless places and are crushed by the very machine they are trying to unmask. ...but in this case Paterno was the machine, he not only had the capacity to speak up, he had the efficacy to see Sandusky brought to justice.
The public at large would have hailed him a hero, for jettisoning a child molester from the grounds of Penn State.
End of story, legacy intact.
Martin Luther King Jr. said it best...“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."
The beginning of the end started with the truth about Jerry Sandusky and now has ended with all of us examining the misguided silences in our own lives.
Joe Paterno leaves this life, with a conflicted ending...and most of us searching for a better way to say goodbye.
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