Mike McQueary Testimony Does Further Damage to Paterno's Reputation

Mike McQueary's testimony today will hurt the already-damaged reputation of Joe Paterno beyond all repair. 

The account of the testimony, which comes to us from ESPN's Jeremy Schaap leaves very little to the imagination. We know what McQueary allegedly saw and exactly what he did (or didn't do) about it. 

Matt Hinton of Yahoo! Sports later reported on Paterno's previous testimony, which didn't dispute the account from McQueary. 

There's no way around this for either man. 

It leaves us with a list of questions that can't be answered. 

Why didn't McQueary actively stop what was happening? Instead of calling the police, why did he wait to even call his father, and then go to Joe Paterno? 

There are no good answers to those questions. 

Once the knowledge was in Paterno's hands, what was going through his mind? How did he not see fit to go to the police, or at least consistently follow up with the people he did go to?

The seriousness of what McQueary allegedly saw and then told Paterno about clearly can't be disputed. Yes, there are answers to every question that I posed earlier, but none of them will possibly be good enough.

This isn't a minor transgression that can be swept under the rug and forgotten about. It's bad enough when things like that happen. These charges are as serious as can possibly be, and there's no excuse for not taking more action. 

McQueary's testimony is now clear. Paterno's testimony is clear. The crimes that Jerry Sandusky is being accused of happened nine years ago and are just now coming out. 

That's unacceptable. 

After today's testimony, Paterno is not a man who might have just been an uninformed victim of circumstance. Any thought of that is now completely gone. 

Paterno's 409-136-3 record is now irrelevant, as are his conference titles and national titles. The high-character program that he built over the course of his career is nothing but a lie. 

Paterno will always be the coach that sat on some terrible information for nine years and did next to nothing about it. That's unacceptable. 

More needs to be expected out of everyone, certainly people with Paterno's reputation and status.

He had nine years to make a wrong right. That never happened. There is no benefit of the doubt anymore as it relates to the once-legendary coach.

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