The Penn State situation is a real mess. As a therapist I have worked with hundreds of clients who have been abused. Almost all of the addicts and alcoholics I worked with had been abused as children. Many had been both sexually and physically abused. Recovery from sexual abuse is a long and painful process.

How come this assistant coach was not turned over to the police immediately? Penn State is a school and the coaches are teachers. There must be some kind of mandatory reporting of these kinds of abuse. How come he was allowed to come back and do programs after he was seen sexually abusing a child? How come the legendary coach Joe Paterno, who was his direct supervisor, didn’t confront him and turn him over to the police? Was football more important than these children? Was worry about reputation more important?

I feel much compassion and concern for the victims. This should have never happened. Our education system driven by competitive sports in this case was a total failure. These victims will suffer for many years because a school system didn’t take care of them. This institution of higher education didn’t do the right thing.

The amount of abuse that goes on in this country is staggering. The number of people in prisons who have been sexually abused, by a number of accounts, is over 80%. As I said above, most addiction comes about because of abuse. These young people didn’t come into the world wanting to be criminals and addicts. They ended up this way because they were abused and acted out. Maybe this will raise the awareness of people to wake up enough to look out for each other especially the children.

What happened to the higher values of making sure our children are safe, putting right before reputation, and having higher education teaching the highest values? In this case the innocent were not protected, the right action was not taken, the educators failed in their job. Now the coach and the president are gone and shame is on them because they failed to live by their higher values.