The tragedy of Joe Paterno is as old as the human experience. The great literary works — from Sophocles and Milton, Shakespeare to Tolstoy, Fitzgerald to Hemingway, O’Neill to Miller — warn us about the dangers of greatness.
We need heroism, for heroism is the opposite of cowardice. But heroism contains the seeds of its own corruption. And so when we see great men fall — and, in the world of sports, Joe Paterno was a great man — we need to reflect on the vices inherent in all of us that lead to that fall.
The Greek concept of hubris applies here. Hubris refers to excessive pride, the belief that some people are better than others, and the arrogance that comes, almost inevitably, with power and prestige.
The Greeks understood that people possess a powerful capacity to do great deeds. Those people could be rulers, generals, teachers, sailors, mothers and sisters, athletes, and even children. This capacity for greatness gives life energy. It makes advances in civilization possible. So when we see these people rising above the ordinary, we want to applaud. Somehow, it’s not enough for us to show appreciation for good deeds. Somehow, we must exalt and deify heroes.
That’s when the trouble begins.
Heroes are, after all, fallible. Given a taste of adulation, heroes get addicted to their own beliefs about their superiority. They might guffaw and aw-shucks the praise that comes their way. But they love it and want more. And so they begin to construct a mythology and build a team to spread the word of their heroism. When they make mistakes, they deny them or ignore them. They make excuses. They rough up the truth-teller. They turn their attention away from the work that brought them accolades and toward the business of amplifying those accolades.
You can often tell when this transformation occurs — the switch from heroism to its perversion — when the hero and his coterie make bold claims about their superiority. When the Paterno Empire boasted about “Success With Honor,” they slowly separated themselves from the unglamorous need to do the right thing. Life at Penn State became about the image. Followers wore their adulation like a coat of superiority. And so we all lost sight of how fallible even the great Paterno could be.
Even with real evidence of flaws, people look the other way. It’s too hard to explore investigate unpleasant reports or to speak unpleasant truths.
People in Happy Valley, the isolated kingdom of Joe Paterno, had heard rumblings of scandal and depravation in the Penn State football program for years. But who dares to speak up? When the university’s president and athletic director visited JoePa and dared to suggest that he retire after a dismal season in 2003, Paterno showed them the door. He had that kind of power. (For a superb treatment of the scandal, see this piece by L. Jon Wertheim and David Epstein in Sports Illustrated.)
And that is what is so ugly about Paterno’s role in the coverup of child molestation. When Paterno learned that sick things were happening, as WFAN’s Mike Francessa notes, he alone had the power to pick up the phone and demand justice. But he did no such thing. Instead, he focused on protecting the image of his Penn State football program.
So what does this have to do with writing or journalism? Everything.
All too often, writers get carried away by glory. Who doesn’t want to chronicle the exploits of a great person? Who doesn’t want to bask in the glow? Who doesn’t want to take in the electricity of great moments — a parade for Wilson, a fireside chat of Roosevelt, Kennedy’s Berlin speech, Reagan’s toughness after getting shot, Obama’s celebration at Grant Park? Or, in sports, Ali’s Thrilla in Manila, Brady’s “tuck” victory, the Yankees’ heroism after 9/11, the Red Sox’ triumph over the Curse? It’s a thrill. And so when the hero makes claims to be morally better and the throngs stand and cheer, it’s hard for reporters to stick to the facts. It’s hard not to get sucked into the glory and the glee.
And it’s easy to ignore the whispered rumors of wrongdoing that fill every community.
To understand the failures of the Penn State tragedy, consider the story of Martin Baron, the editor of The Boston Globe. Baron was brought in from the Miami Herald in 2001. When he arrived in town, he heard a rumbling of rumors about the Catholic Church and a generations-old practice of priests molesting children. Baron wondered why The Globe had not investigated. The response was like this: Well, er, um, everyone knows it already.
Because he was an outsider — and a good editor and journalist — Baron did not accept that answer. It’s a story, dammit. Cover it. And so The Globe unmasked the unholy deeds of a long series of priests. This reporting began a global uncovering of this awful scandal.
A couple of years before the Catholic priest scandal broke, I went to a press event at the gilded mansion of Cardinal Bernard Law, the man most responsible for allowing priests to prey on young boys. As a researcher at Northeastern University, I was the coauthor of a report on affordable housing sponsored by the Catholic archdiocese. I was amazed at the royal way Law was treated by academics and politicians and corporate and civic bigwigs and other dignitaries. It was strangely sickening and thrilling at the same time, the sights of this inside world of privilege and power.
After the Catholic pedophilia scandal broke, I thought back to that day at the Cardinal’s Xanadu. Suppose a victim of that abuse had gotten in and confronted the Cardinal? What would have happened? I think I know. I think he would have been quietly but forcably removed from the premises: This is not the time. We are holding an event. Please state your concerns in a letter.
So who’s going to demand that Law investigate and punish and report the predators in his church? No one, of course, except an out-of-town newspaper editor.
Joe Paterno, sadly, gained that same holy status in Happy Valley as the Cardinal did in Boston. And so when people knew about strange and dangerous goings-on, few had the nerve to demand that the football program and its great leader be held accountable. The few lame attempts — like the request from superiors that he resign in 2003 — fed the aura of the great leader’s invincibility.
Happy Valley had no Martin Baron.
Now that the scandal has broken, reports are surfacing of the suspicions and concerns about the “darker side” of Joe Paterno. And of suspicions about the departure of Paterno’s assistant coach who had abused and terrorized innocent boys. But suspicion gets stifled, not explored, in the kingdom of all-powerful leaders.
When JoePa finally got fired for his role in the greatest scandal in college sports history, hundreds of students gathered outside his home. They chanted: “We are … Penn State! We are … Penn State!”
They were right.
In this scandal, as in all others, we are all Penn State. Everyone who bought into the mythology, everyone who contributed to a climate where reporting a child rapist is hard because it might upset “the program,” everyone who reported this big-time football program as if it were an episode of “Father Knows Best” and not a big, sprawling business involving hundreds of millions of dollars, is part of this scandal.
We are … Penn State. We are … Penn State.
