Mara Ticcino-USA TODAY Sports
Welcome back to a true American horror story.
Sadly, this isn’t one that is told amid a backdrop of haunted houses or the macabre. This horror story is one that took place at an institute of higher learning. It’s a story that involved a beloved college football program and it’s even more beloved head coach. It’s a story that many would like to go away so they won’t have to remember all of the graphic detail or have to once again remember that all of it did happen.
However, it’s a story that must be remembered, no matter how tough to digest.
The interview Sandusky had with Bob Costas is something that still amazes me to this day. How Sandusky’s lawyer thought this was a good idea is inconceivable. There was no time for Sandusky to be prepped by his lawyer for the interview because of how quickly this whole thing was set up and that became the key factor why the interview went the way it did.
I’m not saying that Sandusky would have sounded innocent if he had been prepped properly, but he couldn’t have come off any worse than he did that night.
Also, maybe Sandusky’s lawyer wasn’t properly prepped either. Not just for the interview with Costas, but also not properly prepped on the case that he was defending a man for, not properly prepped in how to work with the media and maybe not properly prepped for how to deal with his client.
Combine Sandusky’s infamous interview with Costas and then the lawyer’s own interview where he gave Sandusky’s “shower” explanation for him, and you couldn’t put your client in a worse situation before a trial.
Crimes against humanity is a term often used in war crimes trials, but I’ve always felt that the term would be apt for child abuse cases such as Sandusky’s. Consider the mind a person has to have to commit acts like the ones Sandusky was convicted of committing, but doing them for decades, and you’ll probably begin to see where I’m coming from.
I’ve always had little tolerance whatsoever for child abuse, child molestation, and sexual assault perpetrators of any kind, so my opinion of Sandusky shouldn’t be a secret by this point in the article, and it was sealed completely after the interview with Costas and reading the grand jury testimony of Sandusky’s victims.
The thing that makes this scandal so scary is that despite the crime, this scandal is just like any other major college football scandal, and isn’t all about one man.
In this case, it should just be about one man because it was only Sandusky committing the crimes. The reason this scandal was about more than just Sandusky and his crimes has to do with the answers to two very important questions: how was Sandusky able to get away with his crimes for so long while working at Penn St., and who was effected by Sandusky’s crimes other than the man and his victims?
Phil Clark is a writer for Rant Sports. Follow him on Twitter or Facebook. Or check out his blog.
