The football culture was to blame and the 3 that are having their day in court facing charges for their part in cover up and Paterno were a big part of it.
That culture still exists in part of the fanbase and some Penn St officials.
As for charges being dismissed, legal technicalities sometimes cause that and sometimes the guilty do get off because due diligence wasn't followed to the T or the evidence isn't enough to convict someone who is guilty of the charge brought against them.
Paterno claimed he didn't know and ter was evidence he was part of the cover-up, but that evidence couldn't be confirmed so he wasn't charged.
But if what is known now about a victim claiming he talked to Paterno in 70s , Joe Paterno might be sitting at the defendant's table besides those three hoping a technicality will get him off
Blaming football for Sandusky's crimes is not only inaccurate, it insults the larger problem of child abuse. I don't think The Second Mile, the breeding ground for Sandusky's victims, had a football culture; or law enforcement agencies that investigated Sandusky; or the child welfare services that allowed him to adopt children; or former Attorney General Tom Corbett, who accepted TSM donations to fund his campaign while aware of allegations made against Sandusky. Football had nothing to do with Sandusky being a pedophile or his crimes, other than the fact that his career provided him a platform to start his charity and enough cover to dodge speculation and fool an entire town and state for so long.
Curley, Spanier and Shultz will not "get off." The case against them is weak and based on a loose interpretation of laws at the time of their alleged crimes and the time they were charged. Ultimately, no one at Penn State will have been convicted of a crime, and I look forward to the day when these men can tell their side of the story without a court case hanging over their heads. Maybe then we can get some added insight into the situation and some actual context to the very weak "evidence" people use, like random emails, to cite a cover-up. Meanwhile, TSM continues to escape scrutiny, and the lack of investigation into the relationships between TSM, some of PSU's trustees, and Corbett, as well as how so many state agencies could have failed so miserably for so long, continues to put other PA children at risk. Just recently a story broke regarding the high number of calls to the child abuse hotline that go unanswered. That's not directly tied to this case, of course, but many more people than a football coach and a few administrators should be being asked some tough questions.
I continue to focus on the McQueary incident because that is the basis for Penn State's perceived culpability in the case, and where Paterno, et. al. get criticized. Given what we know about the settlement process, and McQueary's testimony changing with the wind, and the factual inaccuracies in the other PMA documents, I find it hard to view the instances involving Bradley, Schiano, the NFL trainer, and the 1970s accusation as very credible. The 1970s one, especially, would seem to contradict, in fact, the accepted narrative that Paterno and company protected Sandusky for legacies, wins, money, etc.
