Joe Paterno Scandal: On Penn State, Perception and Painting over Halos

The question of Joe Paterno's legacy refuses to go away. It seems pretty cut and dried—Paterno publicly did many great things for Penn State, and he also evidently privately enabled a serial child predator for over a decade in the name of protecting Penn State's name.

Well, OK, that's not exactly simple, but there's less of a contradiction there than most would think.

Still, since Paterno has passed away, the only thing to stand in for him in the pursuit of justice is his name, his legacy—the one thing he strove to control: perception. His family continues that fight, but it's probably not one they'll win.

According to ESPN, the Paterno family announced Monday morning that they would be conducting their own review of the data in the Louis Freeh report. The Paterno family released a lengthy statement—all of which is available at that ESPN link—but two rather telling passages are as follows:

"

The announcement of the findings by the Freeh Group is yet another shocking turn of events in this crisis. We are dismayed by, and vehemently disagree with, some of the conclusions and assertions and the process by which they were developed. Mr. Freeh presented his opinions and interpretations as if they were absolute facts. We believe numerous issues in the report, and his commentary, bear further review.

...

The process of reviewing the report and other relevant information is going to be a complicated and time consuming exercise. It took the The Freeh Group roughly seven months to conduct more than 400 interviews and review three million documents. We do not expect or intend to duplicate this effort but we are going to be as thorough as reasonably possible.

"

Now, say what you will about the subjectivity of the Freeh report—there are conclusions drawn, so this report isn't just some data dump—but the investigation did what nobody outside the legal system has done since the scandal came to light: It gathered information.

Anything other than that is arguing interpretation of facts—in essence, fighting over perception.

Joe Paterno's presence in Happy Valley is the current battleground of that fight. They don't know what to do with his statue anymore, per USA Today. They painted over his halo, per the Associated Press (via Yahoo!). Hell, it's news that one ice cream store still sells its "Peachy Paterno" flavor, according to Darren Rovell. Seriously, that is something being reported on right now.

But let's get back to that halo.

There's some consternation over why a halo was ever on Paterno in the first place, but per Deadspin, the mural artist gave one to everyone on there who had passed away. It's sort of hokey and trite in retrospect, but participating in the idolatry of heroes means you just roll with things like halos. Who at Penn State was ever going to tell people to cut that out? 

The Paterno family's tireless defense of Joe is understandable. It's even to be expected. Nobody's more interested in protecting Joe Paterno's good name than everyone else named "Paterno," after all.

But that's a bias, and it's the single biggest one in this whole mess. Again, that's fine—biased people aren't necessarily incorrect, and sometimes they even right great and popular wrongs—but these are folks who are wholly uninterested in painting over that halo.

The Paterno family readily acknowledges that they can't do as thorough a job as the Freeh investigators did. That's a good start. But the data we've got is what it is. That's the objective part. That's done.

Reaching different conclusions with that data, though? That's just fighting for control of perception. And with all due respect to all involved, the ability to successfully control perception is what led Penn State into this awful scandal to begin with.