The Only Thing

Joe Paterno, the legendary American football coach, has died from shame. In something that really mattered, he came up short. Some people have said that his failure to report the sexual abuse by his assistant coach Sandusky was "a lapse in judgment." But, it was more than that, because now we know that there were previous occasions in which he intervened so that players of his who engaged in criminal behavior were not even disciplined by the university. So, it appears that he felt that he was somehow above it all. For a man who, reputedly, was well-read and acquainted with the classics, he failed to realize that he had fallen prey to hubris.


All of his accomplishments on the field mean very little when compared to his failure off the field. To try to justify himself by saying that he didn't know what to do when informed that Sandusky was having sex with underage boys in the showers was outrageous. It was very simple: call the police and let the authorities handle it. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to know this. Just a decent human being. Had he done this, he would have saved a lot of people grief and himself the shame that speeded-up his death.

Vince Lombardi, another football icon, once said that "winning isn't everything; it's the only thing." Wrong. Doing the right thing is the only thing.

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