Jan 10, 2017 3 min read

Last year, it was revealed in court documents that the once-sainted Penn State University football coach Joe Paterno might have been aware as early as 1976 that one of his top lieutenants, Jerry Sandusky, was sexually abusing young boys.

Paterno is no longer here to issue a confirmation or denial, but apparently offered little more than a shrug when a 14-year-old boy told him more than 40 years ago Sandusky had abused him. “I don’t want to hear about any of that kind of stuff,” Paterno is said to have replied. “I have a football season to worry about.”

But imagine if for just a minute Paterno had decided to set aside his transient concerns about the football season – a season that saw Penn State finish a so-so 7-5 – and actually take seriously the story of the teenage boy. Scores of other victims could have been spared the predations of Sandusky, which, from all indications, went on unchecked for another 35 years until he was finally arrested in 2011.

The psychological toll on Sandusky’s victims is incalculable, of course, and the shame of any bystanders who knew about or harbored suspicions about Sandusky’s behavior is something that will linger on their consciences until they draw their last breath.

There’s a much more tangible horror swirling around the Sandusky scandal.

If Paterno, or others at Penn State, had been more rigorous in protecting young people than protecting the almighty Penn State football program, they might well have saved a heap of money along the way.

An Associated Press story that appeared on the front page of the Observer-Reporter’s Sunday edition outlined the financial toll of Sandusky’s misdeeds. They are, without any question, staggering. The price tag to the university so far is $237 million. Though Penn State officials stressed that the money will not come from donations, tuition or from taxpayers, that’s still one heck of a piece of change. Penn State said $30 million has been covered by insurance, and some of the other costs will be covered by interest from loans.

Nevertheless, it’s all money that could have been spent in better ways had Sandusky been thwarted sooner.

The largest portion of the $237 million is $93 million worth of settlements that have been paid to 33 of Sandusky’s victims. Another $12 million is due to be paid to Mike McQueary, a former assistant football coach at Penn State who saw Sandusky sexually assaulting a boy in a shower on campus in 2001 and whose testimony helped put Sandusky, a Washington native, in prison. McQueary filed a defamation and whistleblower suit against the university, and has said that his association with the scandal has prevented him from getting jobs coaching in college or professional football, and has even foreclosed the possibility of getting jobs that would pay minimum wage or in that vicinity.

A little more than $5 million has been spent on consultants and crisis communications specialists, $27 million has gone to lawyers, and $48 million has been put toward the fine exacted by the National Collegiate Athletic Association as part of a 2012 agreement that barred Penn State from postseason competition for four years and wiped 112 of Paterno’s wins from the books.

The wins were reinstated in 2015. Restoring the other damage wrought by the Sandusky scandal will be much harder.