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Because the good things he did were relatively banal and his failings exposed just how banal.
That's why the story has such power and resonance -- "You gave a child rapist safe haven to protect ... a college football program?!??!??"
EDIT: Not the forward.
Oh, well.
And this from a guy who's taken all the love of narrative and character out of the Great Game Of BaseBall and replaced it glorified bean-counting utilitarians in their mothers' basements (or, at the extreme, in their Uncle's missile silos).
#### you, Bill. #### you.
-- Paterno, 1988, seconding GHWB's nomination
Agreed. I mean it sounds like a great quote. It's weighty, and poignant, and profound, and all those other things great quotes should be... but I think it's pretty clearly wrong in every particular.
One look at the Olympics, or at the NFL or NBA draft, or at freaking TMZ should tell you everything you need to know. People are willing to shower their affection on the flavor of the month with out so much as a thought, or awareness of any possible consequences. This is not the age of the antihero, it is the age of celebrity.
That was my reaction exactly. More and more James sounds like John Steinbeck when he got old and decided he was more a philosopher than a story teller.
The link is in #203
well yes, and no. It is the age of celebrity, but that is very different than the people whom Bill James is talking about, for whom "the celebration and virtue of accomplishment" applies. It is the age of shallow celebrity. for the successful people who actually get things done, we strive to find their minor flaws; their brushes with impropriety, so we can tear them down and make ourselves feel better. There is so much cynicism, because there are no (or very few) absolutes, so we can all point with glee at the (minor) wrongs done by the worthy, to drag them down to our level. I see this with my 25 year old son, who can wryly point to an inconsistancy in almost anything that can be said about daily life, as somehow proving that nothing can be defended or believed in.
Does the BJ quote or what I said apply to Joe Paterno? I don't know, and I do know by popular vote, I am on the wrong side of asking the question, but I do know he had about as much chance of fair consideration as a women with perceived evil powers in Salem, Massachusetts in the 17th century.
And good lord I admire Bill James for having the courage to raise the question.
When did this not happen? There have always been gossip rags and innuendo campaigns in newspapers against public figures. Besides astronauts and firemen, what "heroes" in America have been universally beloved? It's all nostalgic mumbo-jumbo that Americans are qualitatively different now about this than they've always been. Bill James is falling into the same trap that he used to set for sportswriters as they exalted the halcyon days of yore at the expense of the present.
I think the quote is OK, not great. I used "fine" as in "OK." But James has always pontificated like that, going back to the early 1980s Abstracts. Indeed, it was a commonplace for him to talk about that in the intros--"sometimes I am going to spout off about random stuff, so be ready for that."
What James said is a cultural observation that can't really be verified or supported with data or numbers or evidence in any structured way. It is a YMMV sort of quote.
I don't think the quote is noteworthy in any way, other than how astonishingly tone-deaf it would be for Poz/publishers to use it in the intro of the Paterno bio.
seriously? JFK and LBJ were routinely banging away and young girls or anyone not fast enough or smart enough to run away from them in the white house, all widely known to the press who followed them, and that was not distributed information, was it? Do you honestly think the president today could bring in babes by the side room, or sleep with an 18 year old intern and then pimp her to a friend, and that information not get out? Mind you, these are not people to be admired, and what I am saying now does not go to my main point, but I had to react to the quoted sentence.
Not sure I agree. Half of those celebs are famous because people like to snark on them. I think we are more cynical than we were a generation ago, but perhaps I'm having a hard time seeing past my generation. I mean, look at the Olympics. Mary Lou Retton wins a gold and is a celebrated hero, the perfect American girl. Gabby Douglas wins a gold and people are nitpicking her hair, why she wasn't wearing the American flag, why her family is bankrupt, etc. Its the 24 hour news cycle - because we need things to talk about, so we nitpick everything; and its the internet because its easier to be critical when you're hiding behind a stupid anonymous handle like "RoyalsRetro."
It's more than that.
There's orders of magnitude more snark in public discourse now than a couple decades ago and the governing principle of snark is, "Nobody and nothing's perfect, so why give a #### about anything?"
This. Yes.
God, if there's a quote that perfectly sums up my generation, this is it.
EDIT: Now I'm being too cynical. There are a lot of people my age doing great things with a positive attitude.
How long has Fox News been live? Couple of decades?
Trademark it; put it on t-shirts and hats; and sell a million of each.
1) gossip about politicians was far more scurrilous in the past than it is now--constant printing of rumors about love children and the like
2) some few mainstream newspapers consistently didn't carry that
3) most newspapers though were rabidly partisan so ran all kinds of crazy stuff
4) by the 1940s the partisan newspapers were professionalizing so there was an anomalous window when many newspapers didn't print crazy gossip about presidential candidates
5) in 1980s that changed, and now we are back to where we had been before, with most newspapers willing to print gossip
I guess you could make a nuanced claim about hero worship in the 1940s-1980s, but that's different than a claim that we used to always worship our heroic presidents. Your typical candidate was accused of impregnating black women, cross-dressing, and homosexuality. And that's nothing compared to what the French printed about kings and queens.
I think what you say is true and fair points. I am curious about the timing, though. I have always heard that very few people knew that FDR was afflicted by polio and could not stand on his own, and while not relevant or fair to his qualifications to run the country, would have been a very relevant point to many of the electorate at that time (because the Roosevelt people worked hard to disguise it) . How was that buried in the press? Maybe the 40's was the 30's, giving us a 50 year run of buried stories on personal facts?
What's new is the modern skepticism to EVERYTHING. In some sense that's good, because we're questioning authority, questioning conventional wisdom, etc. And ironically, had more people questioned what was going on in State College, PA, maybe we don't have a scandal.
But I think we've taken it too far in that there is a prevailing "kid in the back of the room throwing spitballs at everything" mentality in this country that holds the idea as SBB says, that everything sucks because its not perfect. Louie CK sums up it well.
This goes back to the Progressive Era. There were exceptions, like the Chicago Tribune, but the Progressive Era was the big change. The rise of the New York Times serves as a nice tipping point as it strove to have no obvious bias. (Whether or not they actually weren't biased isn't the point nor the debate I'm looking to get into. But the point here is that there is a massive difference between the NYT and the openly and avowedly partisan press that dominated the 19th century).
This was part of a bigger sea change. The 19th century was the great era of partisanship in the nation. The Gilded Age in particular would have partisan papers churning out openly partisan material and parties using cultural issues to get the vote out.
At the turn of the century there was a move away from that. People stopped trusted the parties so much. The giant 1890s recession played a role. There was a sense that problems were too large scale for just a party to decide. You needed the government itself to get involved. The turn of the century was the era of civil service reform, and the early 20th century saw the first wave of modern government regulatory organizations (Food and Drug Administration, Meat Inspection Act, Federal Reserve, etc). The power went from the political parties to the government bureacracy.
Parties themselves were less partisan. The two most prominent presidents were TR & Wilson - one a Republican and the other a Democrat - both of whom claimed the mantle of progressivism. That lessens the differences between the parties, and if the parties are less different, it's hard to get the vote out based on partisanship, or to sell papers that way. Hence the rise of the new type of journalism.
In other words, if it was just the 1940s that began this shift, you'll have a helluva time explaining how the press never reported the fact that FDR was in a wheelchair.
There is one fairly obvious difference between Retton and Douglas.
Adding to what SBB said, I think with almost anything else, people might do that. But in this case, given the horrific nature of Sandusky's acts and the timeframe...well...
That ditty was used against Grover Cleveland, though it didn't stop his political career, nor prevent the parents of a future HoF pitcher from naming their son after him three years later.
Regarding a 2001 incident in which then-graduate assistant Mike McQueary witnessed Sandusky in a Penn State shower with a boy, Paterno told Posnanski a similar story to what he told a grand jury.
"Did you consider calling the police?" Posnanski asked.
"To be honest with you, I didn't," Paterno responded. "I tried to look through the Penn State guidelines to see what I was supposed to do. It said that I was supposed to call Tim [Curley]. So I did."
I wonder what the PSU guidelines for child rape were? Apparently, calling the cops was not part of the guidelines.
These don't seem like two opposing things. They seem like exactly the same thing.
240- so he never even considered calling the cops? Not even the ####### campus police? Clinging with his cold, dead hands, to the I'm-just-a-small-cog-in-a-big-wheel and please ignore my nationally broadcast claim of "compassion for the millions of tragic youngsters in the inner cities of our country."
"what is sodomy, anyway?"
"i tried to look through the penn state guidelines to see what i was supposed to do. it said i was supposed to call tim, so i did."
if you want to insist that these quotes prove that paterno was a cold, heartless bastard who put his name and legacy ahead of child welfare, feel free to try, but i think they're much more persuasive as confirmation of the fact that he was in over his head and unaware of the gravity of the situation.
that doesn't absolve him of his share of the blame in this, but this characterization of him as some kind of monster just doesn't ring true to me.
Just exactly what sort of a person is "unaware of the gravity" of a situation involving allegations of child sexual abuse?
you are a smart one. you are choosing to be overly generous of spirit
i know and have known hundreds of guys like paterno. who built something of real substance out of nothing (in a manner of speaking) it's a life's work. they are proud of it and rightfully so
and now they are faced with seeing this great accomplishment be harmed.
he was protecting that which he had built with his own two hands. the output of a lifetime's blood, sweat and tears. and if that meant hiding behind protocols or plausible ignorance of how others perceive his generation so be it.
but in the deep of night when he laid awake thinking about the possible outcomes and glanced at his wife and what she might think if she knew, really knew, he grasped the choice he was making
but still he chose that path.
i am not others who come to condemn out of some sense of self-righteous piety
i know this path. watched it. had my own choice to make. not nearly as grave as paterno but that moment came to keep my friends and associates or see that all vanish by saying what was wrong and saying it publicly. i became a social pariah and my wife to this day is shunned by a segment of our area for the decision i made
paterno faced something a 1000 times more serious. and he knew the fallout. he knew
and he chose the wrong path
he chose it
p.s. of course i am shunned but i don't give a ####. my wife is the social one so the impact is far more emotional
that question actually kind of reminds me of fahrenheit 9/11. just exactly what sort of a person is "unaware of the gravity" of a situation where a commercial jetliner crashed into the world trade center?
i just don't think that's the right question to ask because i don't think what sort of person joe paterno is is the relevant part of the equation.
i agree with that in this instance. i don't know with any degree of certainty that my interpretation of this is accurate.
but i am fairly sure that the overwhelming judgment of paterno being some craven, power-hungry, legacy-protecting, child-exploiting monster is much less plausible.
i'm not suggesting here that paterno's hands are clean. i'm not suggesting that he bears no responsibility. and i'm not even saying that paterno should continue to be held up as saint joe of happy valley.
i just think there's a very large gap between what he did and what people think he did, and when 40% of americans either think he's an accused child molester, or aren't sure whether he's an accused child molester, i think it's worth speaking up--at least to a point.
You and Pony Excess overlook that Craig James killed 5 hookers.
You aren't supposed to do that? Great, now you tell me...
Actually, if Paterno had waited seven minutes before correctly addressing the gravity of the situation I don't think anyone would hold it against him. Further, Bush knew the importance of the situation even as he finished up with those kids. Paterno's reaction was more like "what's an airplane?"
You aren't supposed to do that? Great, now you tell me..
If someone had told me that was frowned upon....
Actually, I think what sort of person Joe Paterno is is the relevant part of the equation.
It wasn't the BoT that was buffaloed so much, it was the administration. When challenged, Paterno was not going to be stood down. Spanier likely could have run Paterno out, and got the BoT to go along with it, but Spanier would have been looking for a job himself once the Paternut cabal started making noise. The idea of letting Paterno run out the clock on his own terms was not unreasonable, at least if there were no horrible skeletons in the closet, and of course, there were. It's also important to note that after 2004 the team was pretty good.
but in the deep of night when he laid awake thinking about the possible outcomes and glanced at his wife and what she might think if she knew, really knew, he grasped the choice he was making
This could be true, but my guess is that he did not think about it much. Someone in Paterno's position has to be pretty good at compartmentalization.
i just don't think that's the right question to ask because i don't think what sort of person joe paterno is is the relevant part of the equation.
I definitely think it's relevant -- Paterno's psyche looms large in this situation. What isn't very relevant, or at least not a very useful thing to consider if you're really trying to understand what happened here, is whether he is a bad person, or a good person.
If so, then he was one very sick, very sad person. I guess I'm supposed to reserve judgment on whether that makes him a "bad person or a good person."
How does a coach survive a 3 win season at a football factory? He tells them that Mr. Wins is testing their slave worship of Mr. Wins through their obedience to His Messenger, and, if they don't stay securely locked up in his posterior crawl space, he, then, as His Messenger, will advise Mr. Wins to send 'em all straight to eternal damnation.
Mean SECURELY locked up there. Like from this vantage point can only see the Messenger's uh "judgement lapses" like child rape, child pimping, highway robbery, mass murder, etc, as he either didn't do 'em, or if he did had good reason to, or, what the heck, not judgement lapses at all but exercises of virtue just as worthy of emulation as what hand the Messenger uses to take a piss.
A book about these vegetables might make an interesting read. On second thought, rather wallow in pig dung.
The Kennedy hero worship is interesting as the last gasp of the big Democratic Party. Reagan Democrats valorize Kennedy as their way of remembering the Democratic Party they left. Liberals valorize it as the last gasp of the FDR coalition they succeeded within. Kennedy was neither the last moderate nor the last great liberal, but that's irrelevant to the perception, and his personal failings are irrelevant to that, too. Nostalgia doesn't need a reason. And people who are nostalgic for the early 2010s will be so too even if Obama commits some disgraceful act.
That quote is completely nonsensical and by far the worst quote ever given its own page.
That Joe included it at all, especially since it's a James quote, kinda reminds me of what Lucas did after RotJ.
Now now, it's only been alleged, and never proven, that Craig James brutally murdered five prostitutes while at SMU.
it seems to me that quite a lot of people won't be happy until the entire state of pennsylvania is burned to the ground, dresden-style.
To be clear, I am not saying that PSU should or should not have to deal with accreditation oversight organizations right now, but this is not really that surprising in view of what happened.
Indeed. And certainly, there are numerous allegations that Craig James murdered prostitutes at SMU, including reputed media sources in Texas reporting on the (former) Craig James senate campaign's inability to stamp out the allegations that Craig James slayed five hookers. Remember the Five (TM), always.
To accept the Commission-requested information report, to remind the institution that the Commission must continue to be informed of any further developments that may result in changes in mission, programs, personnel, and/or budget arising from the institution’s investigation or that may result in a change of status with external oversight bodies, such as the NCAA, and to request that the institution provide to the Commission copies of all relevant reports from its investigation or to its external oversight bodies. To further remind the institution of the progress report due by April 1, 2012, documenting evidence of further progress in: (1) the establishment of learning goals at the program level in all programs; and (2) the use of appropriate assessment of the attainment of learning goals at the program level, including use of direct measures of the assessment of student learning and evidence that assessment results are used to improve teaching and learning (Standard 14). The next evaluation visit is scheduled for 2014-2015.
On August 6, 2012, the Middle States Commission on Higher Education acted as follows:
To Warn the institution that its accreditation is in jeopardy based on information contained in the institutionally commissioned Report of the Special Investigative Counsel (Freeh, Sporkin & Sullivan, LLP, July 12, 2012) and the Binding Consent Decree Imposed by the National Collegiate Athletic Association and Accepted by the Pennsylvania State University (July 23, 2013) and insufficient evidence that the institution is currently in compliance with the Requirements of Affiliation 5 (compliance with all applicable government policies, regulations, and requirements) and 9 (institution’s governing body responsibility for the quality and integrity of the institution, for ensuring that the institution’s mission is being carried out, and for making freely available to the Commission accurate, fair, and complete information on all aspects of the institution and its operations) and with Standard 4 (Leadership and Governance) and Standard 6 (Integrity). To note that the institution remains accredited while on Warning. To request a monitoring report due by September 30, 2012 documenting steps that have been taken and are planned to ensure the institution’s full compliance with Requirements of Affiliation 5 and 9 as well as Accreditation Standards 4 and 6. In addition, to request that the monitoring report also address Accreditation Standard 3 (Institutional Resources) with regard to the institution’s capacity and plans for addressing financial obligations that will or may result from the investigation and related settlements, etc. A small team visit will follow submission of the monitoring report. To remind the institution that the Commission must continue to be informed of any further significant related developments, including the provision of copies of any and all relevant external reports. The due date for the next evaluation visit will be established when accreditation is reaffirmed.
All pretty easily predicted. Administration and BOT get caught looking the other way on something like this, Administration and Public Safety become concerns; given the likelihood of monetary damages, financial preparedness (one of the biggest issues with accrediters) becomes a crucial concern.
Unless one prefers a culture of wasn't watching ...
ETA Link: http://www.msche.org/institutions_sas_pds.asp?idInstitution=351
Yes. SugarBear basically nails it.
Retton is ugly?
And apparently, talking them out of calling the cops was. Because there's credible evidence that that's what Paterno did.
As if one needed "guidelines" to know what should be done when someone reports an eye witness account of child sex abuse in the showers late at night.
That's pretty much how we at CSU Long Beach got to have Bob Maxson as president. His time at UNLV didn't last very long after he'd stood up to Jerry Tarkanian.
harveys is teh awesome. and dead on. harveys hasn't been no saint but he is honest enough and man enough to take responsibility for his actions instead of saying absolute crap like - oh, i had NOOOOOOOOOOO idea what to do when i heard about child rape except tell my yesman supposed superior who knew better than to ever let it get out
http://www.theolathenews.com/2012/08/19/1636323/rich-hofmann-paterno-bio-is-insightful.html
Also, I have seen it suggested that some Paterno defenders believe that the "Coach" in the infamous email is Sandusky, not Paterno.
The trial for the PSU admin guys is months away--January of '13.
And Sandusky was on the job after the 2001 when he was witnessed in the shower with a child. Had an office in Paterno's building where he emitted his conditioning correspondence, Just transfered out of the football department into something, as Paterno called it "Volunteer Youth Organizer" or something like that, better name would be "Offical PSU Child Rapist"
Again questioner would know this if kept up with media accounts, all of which exactly described the actual circumstances, and wouldn't have scored the survey wrong..
And Paterno did not arrange for the head of the campus police to be informed about 2001, because Harmon, the head of the police, did not know crap about 2001. Score 1 for the public again.
I'm sure the public doesn't appreciate being called a bunch of monkeys.
But what I'd like to know is this.
Which one of those monkeys designed it?
you could make the case without speaking down to your readers as if they were wayward halfwits.
The entire display from Posnanski is sickening. He wants us to pretend that there was some big, difficult issue at play here. But there wasn't. There was nothing difficult about this at all.
(Note: Poz screwed this one up very very very badly. But it isn't like we needed more proof that you have no idea how human brains or emotions work, Ray. Poz being entirely wrong does not make you right.)
One reason Paterno was so "respected" is because of his character. But when it turned out that his character was so morally bankrupt that he chose to cover up child sex abuse to protect a football program, Posnanski had difficulty writing that.
Engaging in a calculus of whether Paterno's "mistakes" offset his achievements is a fool's errand (*), because it imputes a level of respect to him that is no longer deserved. The things Paterno got credit for may well have been true to an extent (as banal as they were), but his legacy was so colored by what we did not know about the man's character as to be a myth. If Paterno were the one who had actually raped children, people would be able to see this, but since he "merely" covered up for it people get lost.
(*) Yes, yes, I know that Posnanski specifically states - e.g., in his USA Today column - that he is not doing this, and that he takes no position on it; he merely lets the reader make up his own mind. But Posnanki *is* doing it, because if he weren't, he *would* take a position on it - a position that is so simple and clear that anyone who doesn't take a position on it has actually taken a position.
So his greed and ego took him down.
the more i read joe pos' stuff the angrier i become
excusing someone's moral failure due to age.
that is such utter bs.
I'm not taking this as a direct shot at you Ray. I have little doubt that you believe you are going to accomplish much more in your life -- and things much more meaningful -- than what Joe Paterno did as a football coach. And while I don't know your accomplishments, I might very well believe that as well.
But for myself and probably 90%+ of the population, Paterno did an awful lot more than we could hope to achieve. Before the Sandusky thing changed *everything*, Paterno was believed to be a man who (1) did things above the board in a sport where everybody else is assumed to be cheating, (2) he built character in men that is theoretically inherent to football (for those that believe in the sport) but was "obviously" better at it due to the graduation rates, and (3) unlike all those other greedy coaches who made their millions by cheating, he gave his millions back to PSU, most notably to the library. The fact that he did all of this while running a program that was in the running just about every season for a national title just made the legend that much more impressive.
Now all that came crashing down, but before that happened I don't find it too hard to for folks like myself to look at the myth and be extremely impressed with Paterno's accomplishments. Going by the legend, Paterno had positively impacted the lives of hundreds (thousands?) directly in his coaching and impacted thousands of others in his charity.
I'd consider myself to have done something great if my impacts could touch 1/100 of those that the Paterno legend allegedly did. To me, the question would have been why wouldn't we have considered him great. So if you are Posnanski and you have that opinion even before you start your "research" which was likely just him talking with those in Paterno's circle that told unknown tales of the man's generosity and charity, wouldn't that make Paterno's hero stature even more impressive. I can't imagine any of Posnanski's "research" was revealing any type of a dark side to the man. So when the reality of the Sandusky affair hits him smack in the nose, I'm not at all surprised that it dazed Posnanski in a way that had him torn, conflicted, etc..
If there's a lesson to take from this whole mess for our own lives, it's that small events can have disproportionate import. I don't doubt that Paterno spent only a few hours of his whole life contemplating the Sanusky mess before it blew up, and that Posnanski's account is true in that regard, that Paterno didn't view Sandusky as important and did not engage in a well-devloped plan to keep the Sandusky matter quiet. But that's not relevant, is it? Paterno's knee-jerk response to what he heard was DONT ENDANGER THE PROGRAM and those who worked with him followed his wishes. Paterno may have had a lifetime of good works undone by 3 hours of self-interested, perhaps "inadvertant" evil, but that's that.
Because Paterno had let his reputation and his obsession with his works consume him, he put himself in a position where he truly could commit "banal" evil - evil that was ordinary and not thought-out and flowed naturally from the course of his affairs. Paterno is horrifying because he is not a damaged monster like Sandusky, but someone like you or I who demonstrates how one can do great evil without being "evil".
Actually, I don't believe this at all. I don't think my life will be any more meaningful than Paterno's legend was. I just don't think the things he did as a football coach are "great." And I'm surprised that anyone other than a child would think so.
He was a gym teacher with a bankrupt moral compass.
I mean this seriously: Who cares?
I don't really buy the whole "sports is character" thing.
But he still kept millions. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but let's not go overboard here.
Wait ... what? He didn't go live on an ashram somewhere & serve the poor?
I've been misled!
That's because you're a pod.
Is there ANY evidence that Paterno was worried about the children rather than his program? Any, at all, until the night he was fired and uttered his "and by the way, say a prayer for those kids" comment?
Any evidence at all? Because I've not had a chance to read the entire Freeh report yet, but from what I can recall I've seen none. Not in his words, not in his actions, not in the emails of the others.
Does Posnanski present any? The excerpt I've read has Paterno completely focused and consumed by what this will do to his name and legacy.
And it wasn't just "3 hours," or "one decision," either. Paterno had years to reconsider his "decision."
Paterno was viewed as some sort of great father figure, instilling direction and purpose in men, while doing something that mattered to a lot of people. The smashing of the worldview was twofold:
* He wasn't a great moral compass
* What he was doing wasn't all that important, when put into perspective
People have really lost their way.
I had a child who played a D-1 sport, and I find most of this just flat out wrong. HC's (any sport) can be supportive of the athlete's academic side of life; indifferent to the academic side of life; or destructive to the academic side of life. Those HC attitudes permeate through the program and the assistant coaches. If PSU football players graduated in higher percentages than other like schools, it is most likely attributable to Paterno pushing the academic side; making practice flexible enough so kids could get classes that they needed to get for the major; forcing attendance at study halls; and generally not tolerating crappy academic performance.
And following the recruiting rules? You trivialize that? There are so many coaches out there who cheat; if paterno was never caught cheating in his high-profile program in his eaons of coaching, you can be assured that he was not cheating at recruiting, while many of his competitors were.
I get his indifference to the crimes here were terrible, but you paint a braod brush here. I may think that Jessica Alba is a bad acress, but that doesn't mean that she is a whore and a thief, too. Give credit where credit was due, and weigh the bad acts with the good.
* He wasn't a great moral compass
* What he was doing wasn't all that important, when put into perspective
I've never fully understood the "father figure" bit when it comes to football coaches and 18-22 year old men. I was that age and went to college and had teachers and never once would the thought of them being "father figures" to me have ever crossed my mind.
Sure, there are the guys who come from broken homes whose fathers are either missing or not very good at the job, but the whole point of exposing them to a place like Michigan or Penn State or Stanford or Notre Dame is to give them an opportunity to find life influences in people other than their football coach. Or at least it should be.
Neither Penn State nor Paterno were necessary even for the "father figure" model to work. There are plenty of other places guys that went to Penn State could have gone where the coach and school would have done just as much for them as Penn State and Paterno.
(*) Perhaps more, if you believe the reoprts of him approaching the people in charge and demanding plenary jurisdiction over his players' crimes -- reports fully consistent with the man we now know better.
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