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Of course to his family, "I'm sorry", is the appropriate response. Beyond that, nothing else really works.
I will confess that I am not a football fan and I have no feelings one way or another for Penn State. I don't recall hearing Joe Paterno's name until the scandal involving his assistant coach came into the news and most everyone knows that sordid story. There's plenty of agony to go around and it's all pretty disturbing.
But another disturbing aspect is the amount of openly conflicted feelings that seem to surround the late coach. I have to wonder if the students, the faculty, the news media, etc. would be so demonstrative in their discordant grief if Joe Paterno had been a dedicated Band director for sixty years. Or Drama coach. What if "JoPa" had taught Biology and through his sixty years of tenure, churned out gifted doctors who worshipped the ground he walked on? Given the scandalous circumstances, what are the odds that half the student body and faculty would be weeping outside the Biology Lab, candles flickering in the chilly, Pennsylvania breeze? Or that the news media would be on hand to film it?
Here's a brief synopsis of what I've gathered in the past couple of months: Joe Paterno was apparently a really good football coach and brought Penn State some noteriety through their team. Which brought the school money. Joe Paterno donated or bequeathed substantial amounts of money to Penn State. Joe Paterno was a beloved institution.
It just seems to me that producing a winning football team that makes boo-coos of money for the university has very little to do with character. And, I am not about to pass judgement on Joe Paterno's character. I did not know him. But neither did 99 per cent of the teary-eyed co-eds or hand-wringing reporters. All they knew was the "institution". And football. And money.
Because of the "institution", what appears to be a pretty good guy made a bad decision and a number of lives were permanently shattered because of it. I wonder how "conflicted" their feelings are and I wonder how conflicted any of us would be if not for the amount of money involved.
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He was a great man who tried to be a good person, but in the end he was too focused on saving the PSU football program. Jerry Sandusky needs to know that he hastened this man's death. I believe it.