QUESTION: Did the Penn State board of trustees make the right decision in firing Joe Paterno over the child sex abuse allegations made against one of his former assistant coaches?

VAHE GREGORIAN

We don’t know why Joe Paterno didn’t do more, as even he said he should have. Was he trying to protect Penn State? Himself? Jerry Sandusky, even? Did his power, or the pedestal he’s been put on, blind him? Was it ignorance, somehow, of what the true implications were, even when his senses should have been screaming?

But we know this: Paterno knew of a horrible accusation, likely more than one of them given the control and knowledge you could expect he would have of virtually anything involving a program he ran for nearly half a century.

And the man treasured for being more than a football coach, for being a model of all that’s right in sports, the most influential man in an insulated part of the country, the one who could have done the most with the least effort, did even less than that. He simply passed the buck, without any hint that he followed up in any way to see that justice was being carried out – or the victimization stopped.

There is no doubt Paterno has done much, much good in this world, and there is deep tragedy in his downfall. But there is infinitely more tragedy in what his lapse of judgment wrought.

His failure either to understand the circumstances or care enough about putting an end to them is a breach of the blind faith so many put in him, and now it will be hard for his legacy not be entwined with the grotesque accusations he took no stand on.

Paterno is just one link in the chain that could have put a stop to the terrifying acts Sandusky is alleged to have carried out, but all it would have taken was one link to save all the likely victims that came afterward. He had the power, he had enough information and he had the moral stature that says he should have known what to do.

That’s why he had to go, now.

BRYAN BURWELL

The board absolutely made the right decision. If anything, they acted too slowly, but this was the right thing to do. To anyone who feels this is the worst thing that happens in Joe Paterno’s life, consider the abused children who are now adults and will spend the rest of their lives coping with a million more difficult things.

STU DURANDO

A difficult decision but ultimately the necessary one. Paterno, by his own admission in yesterday’s statement, said he should have done more. He used those words. Anyone who knew of Jerry Sandusky’s offenses and did not report them to police should be gone, which begs the question why assistant coach Mike McQueary will be allowed to coach in Saturday’s game.

Paterno and McQueary do not face charges. But by not reporting, they and anyone else who knew allowed the terror to continue. Additionally, universities are required by the Clery Act to disclose information about crimes on or near campus. The U.S. Department of Education is investigating whether Penn State violated the the act by not reporting. And Paterno is one person we know who made the decision not to report a crime.

JEFF GORDON

That was the right decision for many reasons. First, it was the correct thing to do. Paterno failed in his leadership role and helped disgrace the institution in the process. Also, firing Paterno was the practical thing to do. His lingering employment would have created a media circus. The molestation issue would have hung over the team’s every move. JoePa’s dismissal allows the school to begin the wholesale clean-up in earnest.

DERRICK GOOLD

I think you used the one word that trips me up in all this – allegations. The grand jury report and the subsequent coverage from local newspapers there, especially the tremendous work by The Patriot News, are so detailed and so nauseating and horrifying in their details that we have to fight to remember that a conviction has not taken place, yet.

That said, what the grand jury report does lay out is a lack of institutional control and a blind-eye culture that cannot be ignored. Relaying the allegations up the chain of command may have been the professionally correct thing to do, but it falls well short of being the morally right thing to do.

What kind of atmosphere could create a situtation where someone walks away from an apparent assault of a child continues to confound me. When someone takes a position of leadership at a university or a business, they know the glory and the paycheck comes with higher responsibilities because their actions – or, in this case, their apparent inaction – reflect on the university or business as a whole.

Joe Paterno is the face of Penn State, and to some he’s not only the moral compass of the campus but also the Penn State ideal personified. Turning the other way is not what Penn State wants to see when it looks in the mirror. Paterno’s ongoing presence with the football team would have engulfed the entire program, with post-game press conferences and other appearances impossible to conduct until questions about this scandal had been answered.

This is not a scandal that is easily purged, or one that can be wished away by cancelling a press conference. This is one that runs deep and corrosive, and every day Paterno had to face questions about his former assistant and what he knew and when he knew it was another day the football program was stuck in a tar pit that may yet swallow it whole.

The Board of Trustees had only one option. They had to decide in the interests of the university. They had to act. They could no longer do what the leaders of the university and its football program apparently did for years – look the other way, pass the buck and hope it all goes away.

TOM TIMMERMANN

Yes. Even if Paterno did nothing illegal, he had a moral obligation to do more than he did. He turned a blind eye to the situation, not even pursuing the matter. There is no good explanation for a grown man to be taking a shower with a 10-year-old. Zero.

Should others have done more? Yes. But that’s no excuse for Paterno not to have. If there were 10 or 20 or 30 people who should have been more active in this situation, he was one, and in many ways the most powerful of the bunch, even more powerful than the university president considering how things work in State College. And the university couldn’t allow this cloud to hang over the team and the school until the season ends in January. It would be a continuing black eye for the school and would overshadow everything that happened. There would be no such thing as an ordinary day on the Penn State campus.

KATHLEEN NELSON

"Right decision": ironic choice of words. No one seems to have made the right decision at Penn State regarding this case. Why should this one break the chain? ONLY decision is more accurate.