Sue Paterno Defends Husband As Moral, Disciplined Man

Sue Paterno, the widow of former Penn State coach Joe Paterno, has broken her year of silence in a letter addressed to former Penn State players defending her husband against allegations following the Sandusky Scandal.

“I knew Joe Paterno as well as one human being can know another. Joe was exactly the moral, disciplined and demanding man you knew him to be,” Sue Paterno wrote. “Over the years I watched as he struggled with countless personal and professional challenges. Never – not once – did I see him compromise his principles or twist the truth to avoid bad publicity or protect his reputation.”
“The great fathers, husbands and citizens you have become fulfill the dreams Joe had,” she wrote to the former players. “All that we want – and what I believe we owe the victims, Joe Paterno and everyone who cares about Penn State – is the full record of what happened.”

Sue Paterno, wrote the letter as a response to former FBI director Louis Feech, who accused Joe Paterno and university officials of covering up the allegations against Sandusky.

“When the
Freeh report was released last July, I was as shocked as anyone by the findings and by Mr. Freeh’s extraordinary attack on Joe’s character and integrity. I did not recognize the man Mr. Freeh described,” Sue Paterno wrote. “I am here to tell you as definitively and forcefully as I know how that Mr. Freeh could not have been more wrong in his assessment of Joe.”
“In addition, they present a passionate and persuasive critique of the Freeh report as a total disservice to the victims of Sandusky and the cause of preventing child sex offenses,” Sue Paterno wrote.
“This cannot happen,” she wrote. “The Freeh report failed and if it is not challenged and corrected, nothing worthwhile will have come from these tragic events.”

We will probably know the whole story, and quite frankly at this point that’s not what’s important. The important thing here are the victims. I understand Sue Paterno defending her husband and challenging the accuracy of the report, but that only helps her husband’s reputation.  I’m not sure how far that would go to helping the real victims.

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