Here's what I don't understand: silence.
No, not the silence of the lambs, but the silence that persisted in the whole Penn State debacle that's currently unfolding and resulting in the retirement of a legendary coach.
You see, it doesn't matter that he, and others, followed University protocol, reported the 'situation' to their supervisors, and then went on their merry little way . . . while, allegedly, an untold number of boys were repeatedly molested/raped.
You see, forget University protocol. Someone - the assistant who first told the coach, or the coach who told his supervisors, or the father of the assistant who told his son to report it to the coach - should have said the hell with protocol and gone to the police.
You know what might have happened?
The molestation might have stopped. An untold number of boys might not have become scarred for life by the molestations.
The fact is, everybody is at fault because nobody did what they should have done: gone to the police.
I don't understand the silence that prevails in situations like this. I don't understand, no matter the circumstances, how every single person involved just went on with their lives.
Is it part of human nature to not want to assume some sort of responsibility? Well, I told the coach, so my job is done. Geesh.
What about the boys who were molested/raped after the fact? Didn't they matter?
I guess I'll never know the answers to these questions. I can only hope that I, in a similar circumstance, would do more, do what is right, and go to the police.
In the end, no matter what guilt is felt by the molester, the coach, the assistant, and all others involved in the cover up, the highest price paid is by those boys that could have been saved by molestation if only someone had done the right thing - go to the police - in the first place.
Scottford
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