Joe Paterno's statue was removed from Beaver Stadium on Sunday. The decision came from Penn State president Rodney Erickson, who said the statue "has become a source of division and an obstacle to healing."
In response, the Paterno family put out their own statement—the latest in a series of statements from the descendant of an embattled former icon—to claim the removal of the statue won't serve the victims. Clearing JoePa's name, per his family, will.
The Paterno statement specifically states that "the only way to help the victims is to uncover the full truth," before outlining in six paragraphs the specific reasons why the Freeh report has unfairly condemned Paterno.
There are some people who haven't followed this all that closely and probably believe Paterno was the one who abused young children. His name has been in the news as much or more than Jerry Sandusky throughout this process.
There surely are some who believe that Paterno's lack of action in stopping Sandusky and Paterno's involvement in a cover-up outlined in the Freeh report are tantamount to what Sandusky did to those children.
Looking the other way while a monster preys on innocent children will not win you any new supporters, and while Paterno has somewhat inexplicably had acolytes throughout this process, it doesn't mean the Paterno family needs to take every opportunity to try to publicly clear the name of a man whose legacy has been so visibly tarnished.
Give it a day. Give it a week. Give it a year. Nothing anyone with the last name Paterno has to say right now is in any way helping the legacy of their patriarch. Or the actual victims.
When the Freeh report first came out, the Paterno family felt the need to announce they were conducting their own investigation, asserting the Freeh report was filled with conjecture and opinion masked as fact.
Now, on the day Paterno's statue is removed from the foot of the stadium he helped build, the family felt the need—again—to defend his name by claiming the only way for the victims to truly heal is for the truth to come out about Paterno's involvement in a cover-up.
It sure does read like the Paterno family thinks Joe is the biggest victim in this whole ordeal.
Last week, I mentioned on Twitter that it feels like we lost the point of the Jerry Sandusky case if we have become more worried about Penn State football getting the death penalty than Sandusky himself.
That's what this Paterno statue story feels like as well; a completely sanitized distraction from the real story.
There are more angles to this situation than just Sandusky, one must admit. NCAA president Mark Emmert and the brass in State College are ready to lower a hammer down on the football program that ESPN's Joe Schad claims could be "more damaging long-term than the death penalty" (all due respect to Mr. Schad, a three-year bowl ban and loss of scholarships are not more damaging than not existing at all) and there are still other members of the Penn State hierarchy who have yet to face the reckoning Paterno has posthumously been handed.
The Paterno family is understandably upset with the way the last few months have been handled, but they have to take ownership of the fact that much of this could have been avoided had Joe handled the situation better from the start.
The removal of Paterno's statue was surely about him,—in this whole process it has admittedly been the one act since his termination the most about him—but his family had a chance today to show they have the real victims in mind by keeping quiet and not trying to make the decision by the current Penn State administration to remove Paterno's statue into a story about them.
The great irony in all of this is that the Paterno family's inability to acquiesce is doing more harm to JoePa's legacy. If they really wanted it to be about the victims, at some point they have to realize they aren't them. Instead, they keep doing more harm to everyone involved.
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