Jerry Sandusky Case: Scandal Won't Taint Joe Paterno's Legacy at Penn State

Amid all the finger pointing that is sure to ensue in Happy Valley after shocking revelations of sexual abuse and misconduct by former Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky, there is at least one man who deserves no penance—Joe Paterno.

According to a report by the New York Times, Sandusky, who coached under Paterno between 1969 and 1999 and was at one point the leading candidate to succeed his legendary boss in retirement, has been charged with a veritable laundry list of offenses related to the abuse of eight boys between 1994 and 2009.

All of the victims identified had first encountered Sandusky through Second Mile, a foundation for at-risk youth, which he founded in 1977 but retired from last fall.

One of the incidents occurred at the Lasch Football Building on the Penn State campus in 2002, when Sandusky allegedly sexually assaulted a boy in the showers. A graduate assistant from the football team witnessed the misconduct and alerted Paterno who, in turn, reported the incident to Tim Curley, the university's athletic director.

That's where Paterno's involvement in this whole fiasco ends.

From there, Curley and Gary Schultz, Penn State's senior vice president for finance and business, met privately with the graduate assistant. Schultz would bar Sandusky from bringing anyone of the kids from Second Mile into the building, but local law enforcement was not alerted.

Curley and Schultz were later charged with perjury after providing false testimony to a grand jury, denying any knowledge of sexual misconduct on Sandusky's part.

Regardless of what happens to Curley and Schultz, these developments are no less jarring for the university and the State College community. Sandusky had been a pillar of the community, for his role in turning Penn State into Linebacker U in the 1980s and later for his dedication to improving the lives of young people in the region.

But, as far as anyone can tell, none of the taint from these circumstances belongs on JoePa's hands. Sandusky was undoubtedly a trusted figure, having spent so much time working with Paterno, but the reports indicate that Paterno wasted little time acting in response to these allegations rather than shielding the wrongdoer.

The hope, then, is that Paterno's name, one that now sits above that of Eddie Robinson atop the list of winningest football coaches in NCAA history, won't be marred simply by its proximity to Sandusky's and Curley's, and that the Nittany Lions, ranked 16th in the BCS and on track to play for the Big Ten Championship, won't have their storybook season derailed as a result of this rather unsettling distraction.