You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy.
Jerry Sandusky is crazy.
The former Penn State coach is accused of molesting children, and raping a young boy in a shower at the university.
The former coach says he is not a pedophile, but quite frankly, I don’t believe him.
The accusations are poignant like snorting tear gas. The allegations have destroyed the reputations of young lives, and Penn State’s station among academic institutions.
The university president was fired, and the tragedy has severely damaged the saint like persona of beloved football coach, Joe Paterno.
And then Monday night there was the bombshell itself. It was an interview, a “phoner”, that allowed the toxic tones of Jerry Sandusky to ooze all over the nation.
Quite honestly it was uncomfortable, almost nauseating to listen to.
In a move that surprised even interviewer Bob Costas, Sandusky did a phone interview and his voice, his words, his demeanor, made a nation cringe.
I heard it and it made me feel dirty. I felt like showering, alone, without a 60 year old man to help cleanse me, without the hands of an old man touching me or making sure I didn’t fall during any inappropriate horse play – in the damn shower.
Come on old man, Get real!!
In a major journalistic coup; Bob Costas did the first substantive interview with the man who is in the filthy eye of this salacious hurricane.
But Costas says he didn’t know that he was going to do a “phoner” with Sandusky till about 10 minutes before he did it.
The long time sports anchor says he had prepared to interview Sandusky’s lawyer, Joseph Amendola, who then said on his own, ‘What if I could get Sandusky on the phone?’
Hmmmm?
Let me think about that for a micro-second.
Get him on the horn NOW.
I’m sure the eyes of Costas’ producers were spinning in their sockets like drunken dashboard hoola girls.
“In retrospective, I know I shouldn’t have showered with those kids,” Sandusky said.
UNDERSTATEMENT!!
Now the man is charged with 40 counts of child abuse and it’s his first on the record interview.
Costas calmly asked the accused; “are you sexually attracted to boys?”
Sandusky paused and repeated the question “as if he was pondering it,” deciding how to answer.
To me it was like he was deciding to come clean and say hell yes I’m a pedophile and I’m sorry as hell I did this. But in the end, some 16 seconds later, he answered the question by saying he is not sexually attracted to young boys.
NOT VERY CONVINCING JERRY. You don’t even sound like you believe yourself.
While Costas played down the interview, fire breathing sports journalists like Jim Rome climbed in their clock towers and sniped Sandusky’s head clean off.
Jim Rome is a salty pirate of a sports analyst and he wasn’t pulling punches.
With flames burning around him, Romey went off calling Sandusky a perp and his legal team a bunch of morons.
“What the hell was his legal team thinking?” the animated, volatile TV host screamed.
Rome’s guest said “I cringed watching that.”
Sandusky denied being a pedophile, but Rome says it was hardly convincing.
Sandusky is now accused of sexually abusing 8 boys, but the line of victims is growing like homeless people outside the Y on Thanksgiving morning.
Rome went on a toxic bender of angst questioning how a grown man can even rationalize taking a shower with a child.
Sandusky’s lawyer said that after athletic events, people shower. The lawyer tried to play it off as something that is natural.
“But old men don’t shower with children,” Rome hollered.
“Yeah, maybe you are innocent, but grown men don’t touch the legs of boys and don’t horseplay around with children in showers!”
Rome was incensed.
“How could anyone look at this and say this guy is innocent?”
Then Rome and his guest attacked the lawyers.
“He didn’t help his client,” the guest said. “He hurt his client,” Rome chimed in. “I spoke with a defense attorney who said he may have added years to a potential sentence.”
“What kind of legal strategy was that? Did the attorney think that was a good idea?”
“It might have been the worst legal strategy imaginable,” Rome said his voice crackling with anger.
“EPIC FAIL!” Rome says in typical Rome style.
The interview was a great get for NBC but it only reinforces the fact that this horror is just a few layers deep, and this onion is going to have to be peeled back.
Prepare for a lot more tears America.
And that is crazy.