Mike McQueary: Why Key Witness Is Not Blameless in Jerry Sandusky Case

When it comes to the child sex scandal that is currently rocking the Penn State football program, people should be familiar with all the key players.

At the heart of it all is former defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky, who has been charged with 40 criminal counts resulting from allegations of crimes against children for over a decade. Next to him are administrators Tim Curley and Gary Schultz, who have been charged with perjury and failure to report Sandusky's crimes.

Also involved in the mix is none other than legendary head football coach Joe Paterno. Though legally in the clear in this case, his crime is that he could have done more to have Sandusky brought to justice.

But make no mistake, this case doesn't exist without Mike McQueary. He is the key witness in the case, as a grand jury report detailed a 2002 incident in which McQueary supposedly witnessed Sandusky sodomizing a young boy in the Penn State football locker room showers.

The story goes that McQueary fled and that the first person he told was his father. He then told Paterno, and Paterno told Curley and Schultz. After that, pretty much nothing happened.

Here we are nearly 10 years later, and there is plenty of blame to go around. That Sandusky deserves blame goes without saying, but Curley, Shultz and Paterno have all been vilified as well. And rightfully so given the allegations.

Though people are starting to come around to the idea, what many still don't seem to realize is that McQueary deserves to be blamed as well. Given what he saw, he had even more of a responsibility to make sure the police found out about what he had seen, but he never took that next step.

In fact, the mother of one of Sandusky's victims is shocked and appalled that McQueary never bothered to inform the authorities.

“I don’t even have words to talk about the betrayal that I feel,” said the mother, per PennLive.com. “[McQueary] was a grown man, and he saw a boy being sodomized ... He ran and called his daddy?”

This complaint is more than justified. The first thing McQueary should have done was contact the police. Instead, he sent it up the ladder and watched as nothing happened. If Paterno's indifference is a crime in the court of public opinion, then so is McQueary's. In fact, his indifference is the key reason why Sandusky was not put in handcuffs until this past weekend.

Now, given what we know about the cover-up that followed McQueary's report to Paterno, it is easy to speculate that he was told to keep his mouth shut. McQueary was just starting his coaching career at that point, and it would have been very easy for Curley and/or Schultz to threaten its ruin.

Even if such a threat did take place, it's no excuse. This is a case in which all signs point towards a handful of people prioritizing their reputation ahead of the safety of young children, and McQueary helped the process by remaining silent for so long.

The more you hear about this case, the more it becomes clear that none of the key players are entirely guiltless. This is a mess of a situation, and it exists because a small circle of people chose not to be good men.

For all intents and purposes, McQueary is a member of that circle.