Imagine that you're walking through a building where you work one night and you hear a noise coming from another room. Out of curiosity, you go investigate. You turn the corner and witness a woman being robbed. Obviously your first instinct is to protect yourself from harm. But your second instinct would be to help the victim or to at least immediately inform the police. Most right-minded human beings would do one or both immediately. And, not only that, but even if the victim was a complete stranger, you'd most likely want to know the outcome of the situation with the assailant and victim. Now, change the scenario. You turn the corner and see a grown man raping a young boy. A grown man that you know. There are no weapons being used. There is nothing besides the assailant that would indicate any danger to your person. What would you do? What do you hope that you would do? If you said that you'd run away, call your father and then wait until the morning to inform your supervisor then you'd be Mike McCreary, Penn State football graduate assistant. It was 2002 and this is the story that we're being told in a Grand Jury investigation that was released nearly a week ago. Now, return to your own scenario. Let's say that you did exactly what McCreary did. You told your supervisor. Now what? You'd follow up, right? You'd try to find out what was being done about the most heinous thing that you'd ever see for the entirety of your life. An image that absolutely is burned into your mind and won't go away. An image that most likely comes into your mind's window daily. But instead of following up, you wait more than eight years before anyone in any official capacity from the outside world asks you about it. Not even a district attorney investigating a similar connected incident a few years later talks to you nor do you step forward to offer your testimony. And while you're waiting, you see the man responsible on a daily or weekly basis for those eight years. You see this man with more young boys. You see this man receive awards praising him for his work with underprivileged kids. You read articles in national magazines talking about all the great things that he has done for his community. And while you're promoted to become a coach at your alma mater, your office is located within the same building that you saw that man rape a ten year old boy. You shower in the same shower where it happened. And still you say nothing. Not until more kids are subjected to similar grotesque atrocities by the hand of that same man and someone actually did inform the proper authorities. Again, as mind boggling as it may seem, you'd be Mike McCreary. And this is what we are being told happened at Penn State University.

That man, as most people in America (and around the world) now know, is Jerry Sandusky. The "architect" of a defense that won two national titles for Penn State. A long time assistant for the legendary coach of Penn State, Joe Paterno. The second most important man in the Penn State football family for a long, long time. The one-time heir-apparent to Paterno. The founder of a charity organization called The Second Mile that began in 1977 with the purpose of helping underprivileged boys. And, as hard as it is to believe, the 2002 incident wasn't the first time that someone within Penn State had witnessed Sandusky with a young boy in that same shower. Apparently in 1998 a janitor saw Sandusky receiving oral sex from another young boy. All of the details of this, as well as seven other incidents, including the one that McCreary witnessed, are detailed in the 23 page stomach-churning Grand Jury report. And yet, even as coaches, teachers and parents were being interviewed for this report over a 17 month period beginning in 2010, Sandusky was allowed to access that same locker room and campus for his personal use. In full view of McCreary, Paterno and the other higher-up administrators that had knowledge of the 1998 and 2002 incidents. Sandusky was even allowed to continue his work with The Second Mile until right up to the beginning of the Grand Jury investigation.

Does it seem real? Does it seem like the actions of those involved are ones that most right-thinking human beings would logically follow? Of course not. There are so many head-scratching turns of events in this sad, horrific story that it leaves one to wonder if those in control of Penn State had somehow gone mad? Because it's the only "logical" way to process the illogical actions of so many people who had the power to stop everything that Sandusky did past 1998.

Today Penn State played a football game at home in State College. A game that wasn't coached by Joe Paterno for the first time since 1966. And as I watched the pre-game this morning and saw so many signs saying things like "We Miss You JoePa," "Win This For JoePa" and "Long Live JoePa," I kept wondering whether or not the people of State College had all gone mad. It's the only logical explanation as to why they still feel like Paterno was worthy of their loyalty after he, the most powerful man at Penn State (and maybe in all of Pennsylvania), did next to nothing to stop his long time assistant and friend from ruining more young boys lives for those 13 years. They say, "But he reported it to his supervisor. He did his job." But just as McCreary is guilty of not doing more, Paterno, as the defacto head of everything Penn State, did even less. He had all of the power to make things happen once he first learned of ANYTHING in regards to Jerry Sandusky and strange goings-on with young boys. Is there such a thing as "mild" fondling of a young boy in a shower that doesn't require an immediate call to the police? Paterno and his cronies would have you believe that. "Oh, that's just Jerry being Jerry." Right? Their official behind-closed-doors response to Sandusky? Please don't shower with boys anymore. OK. They must have gone mad. It's the only logical explanation. Sane people do not make decisions like that.

On Wednesday night, when a group of sane individuals finally fired Paterno from his post, gasps were heard in the room. Anger ran through campus like a disease. "He was fired with a phone call?" The atrocity! "But look at all of the good things that he did!" Insanity. Pure and simple insanity. If a man lives his whole life doing good for people, is respected by the community and is generally championed as being a pillar of society, but then murders his family, is he still a good man? When he goes to court and receives the death penalty, do those same people who supported him for all of those years cry out that he didn't deserve the sentence because of the way he lived his life until he murdered his family? Of course not. Whereas Paterno did not rape those kids, he ALLOWED it to happen over and over again after the first time that he found out about it. But yet, because he won over 400 football games for his school and was respected by his community and was generally championed as being a pillar of society, people were outraged that, not only he was fired, but HOW he was fired. And they cried on Saturday because he was not on the sidelines. The players, unfortunate collateral damage in all of this, wanted to give him the game ball if they had won (they did not). I don't know about you, but once I find out that my hero had the opportunity to stop something that is so unimaginable and sick and he chose not to, that's the last day that he (or she) is my hero. Paterno was not my hero. But if I grew up in Pennsylvania, I'm sure he would have been. And my lasting memory of him for the rest of my life will be the countless numbers of kids that he could have saved from a lifetime of shame, emotional duress, social issues, alcohol and drug problems, potential suicide, etc. Since Paterno successfully guided thousands of young adults into manhood as a football coach does that equal even one boy being raped by a man he knew to have done it before? Of course not. But those people in State College would have you believe it. You fired him by phone? Doesn't his long service to Penn State, his wins, his good works dictate that he is given a proper send off? Why not let him retire with dignity? He didn't commit a crime! Madness.

I don't claim to know everything that went on at Penn State. And I won't go into the theories as to why Sandusky retired in 1999 in the prime of his coaching career. Or why, as one of the top assistants in all of college football, he was never a candidate for any major program and never coached Division I football again. Or the strange disappearance of the district attorney who couldn't find enough facts to prosecute Sandusky and has never been found (although his destroyed computer was found in a local river). I only know what I've read, just like the rest of the world. And, of course, the due process of law will now take over and we will all know more in the coming days, months and years. I may even have some of the dates and facts wrong in my ramblings here. But the one thing that we (allegedly) know is that Mike McCreary witnessed a ten year old boy being sodomised by Jerry Sandusky. He told Joe Paterno the next day and Paterno then told his supervisor (his hand-picked Athletic Director, a former football walk-on that he had coached). And for the next eight years Jerry Sandusky was given free reign to walk the campus of Penn State. He was given an office and a listing in the staff directory. He was still the head of his charitable organization. He was allowed to travel to games and bring young boys with him. He was even allowed (I've read recently) to help recruit young men to come to State College, PA to play for Coach Joe Paterno. For Paterno (or his "supervisors") to deny accountability for every boy that Sandusky touched in showers, in beds, in cars any day past the day McCreary first came to him is shameful. And for those in State College to continue to support him is simply blind misguided loyalty.

For those that did nothing, or "the absolute minimum according to the law," they have already been judged and will continue to be for the rest of their lives. For Jerry Sandusky, his time will come. In this life or the next. And for Joe Paterno, this will be his legacy. When his story is written, it will start with this. Do not cry for Joe Paterno. Cry for all of those kids. And talk to your own kids, today or when you do have kids. Go to seminars on child sexual abuse and learn about what to look for and how to help prevent it. Donate your money to organizations that support molested children. Do more than you should. More than anyone at Penn State ever did.

Stop the madness.