Perhaps this is why Joe Posnanski is not doing a big media tour to promote his book Paterno. It would take too much out of him to repeatedly defend a coach nobody wants to hear being defended.
Posnanski appears Wednesday on Costas Tonight (NBC Sports Network, 9 p.m. ET). The 90-Minute Show Includes Costas’ full November 2011 interview with Jerry Sandusky from Rock Center with Brian Williams with never-before-seen footage.
Posnanski has done limited interviews since release of the book last week. You can see why from the Costas interview. There are tough questions to be answered.
Here are some of the more interesting segments.
On the Freeh Report being flawed:
Costas: “Without getting bogged down in the particulars, this is the essence of Louis Freeh, former FBI director‘s report. The conclusion: In order to avoid the consequences of bad publicity, Paterno, among others, but again Paterno is the figure that the public gravitates toward here, repeatedly concealed critical facts relating to Sandusky’s child abuse from authorities, the university’s trustees, the Penn State community and the public. If that is true, as Freeh concluded, it is indefensible.”
Posnanski: “Absolutely”
Costas: “You don’t believe that though.”
Posnanski: “I don’t believe that, no. I honestly don’t. I honestly believe that what Louis Freeh did, and I have no qualms with the Louis Freeh report, he had his goals and his role in this thing.”
Costas: “Well if you don’t think that’s true, you must have qualms with his report.”
Posnanski: “He didn’t talk to Tim Curley; he didn’t talk to Gary Schultz; he didn’t talk to Joe Paterno; he didn’t talk to Jerry Sandusky; he didn’t talk to Tom Harmon; he didn’t talk to Mike McQueary. He didn’t talk to any of the major players in this and I think, I understand why he went to those conclusions, and he did, but I believe the report is very incomplete and I do believe that as things come out, it’s going to emerge that some of the people who wrote some of the emails and so on are going to say that everything has been misspoken.”
“My feeling again is, and I’m really not looking to dodge because there are so many things that we don’t understand and hard to know, but I have many of the same facts that I reported on my own that are in the Freeh report – he jumped to conclusions that I cannot jump to. I mean, I jump to definitely there was a sense that Joe Paterno knew more than he suggested; there’s definitely a sense that Joe Paterno should have done more. But the cover up, the idea that he was actively following it, these sorts of things, I think they’re still, to me, they’re still up in the air.”
On the tough reviews for the book:
Costas: “Obviously there has been mixed reaction to the book. Among the reviews we’ve seen so far, this is the most extreme, Paul Campos at salon.com, ‘Paterno is a disgraceful book and a minor literary crime. To say Posnanski botches his journalistic and literary opportunity is akin to saying that the Titanic’s maiden voyage might have gone more smoothly.’ Let’s concede that that’s at one end, what criticism somewhere towards the middle of that, do you concede correct or fair?”
Posnanski: “I kind of felt like those guys in Spinal Tap there when you were reading that review. I think this is a book that as people get away from this, and are less emotional about it; they’ll see what I was trying to do in this book. I think that some people see it now, fortunately. But I think as time goes on and as people get less emotional about it, a lot of people who have written reviews, frankly, came in with the same opinion that they went out with. I’ve been, as you know, taking a lot of hits long before the book came out.”
On his feelings about Paterno:
Costas: “(According to public opinion) the only acceptable take is that Paterno was fully culpable in the most extreme interpretation, and that he was, prior to that, a fraud and a hypocrite and this doesn’t just invalidate the good he may have done, it exposes that good as a fraud.”
Posnanski: “Exactly, and I think that’s what certain people wanted. That’s not the story, that’s not the book. I wasn’t going to write THAT book. Somebody else can if they want. I wrote the honest book, the book that I believe is true. I believe that I had better access than I’ll ever get again for a book and I believe that I used it as well as I could.”
Costas: “What did you come away thinking? What is your bottom line on Joe Paterno?”
Posnanski: “I think really what I come away with is what a complicated life it was and what a big life it was.”
Costas: “Do you view him as a good man who made a tragic mistake, be it of omission or commission? Or is he less of a good man because of that mistake?”
Posnanski: “It’s somewhere in the middle. That’s a tough one. I don’t want to dodge it. I think he did a lot of good in his life and I think he did make a tragic mistake.”
Costas: “At his best, was he a good man?”
Posnanski: “Definitely. At his best, I think it’s too long and too distinguished and too many achievements to think that it was worth nothing.”
So wait Joe, you think the Freeh report was wrong yet you think Paterno “…and I think he did make a tragic mistake.” You can’t have it both ways. Why didn’t Freeh interview the folks you mentioned who weren’t asked, could it be that there was no worry for them of ‘being under oath’, no risk to them, so maybe they’d just LIE?
Nice try, but you’re a Carpetbagger, you should have stayed home with your family…
Try to wrap your mind around this Randolph. I know it is tough. The Freeh report basically says there was an active cover up. You can make a mistake by not pushing past the bare minimum and still not cover it up. You really have no grasp of this story and I’m sure never will.
We have to get away from this “one tragic mistake” stuff….Every night for over a decade Joe Paterno was aware that his former assistant coach was out there, likely molesting children, and every single night Joe Paterno went to sleep and awoke the next morning and decided not to do anything about it. That is NOT one tragic mistake, that is a decision made by someone without a conscience. In defending Joe Paterno, Joe Posnanski has permanently damaged his credibility…every time I read his stories, on baseball, football, whatever, I will think of the man who made excuses for a psychopath, and so will millions of others.
He who has no sins may cast the first stone.Joe Paterno was in no way a psychopath. He was a man who lived to help others become good students and men first and good football players secondly. He was human and made mistakes like all of us. Who can’t look back on their life and say, “I should have done more.”
Um, he was aware that Sandusky was molesting kids?Please explain how a person who did not witness the crime be aware of that considering there are conflicting reports of what was told to him? Maybe you should direct your anger to the person that actually witnessed it, and actually attended other functions with Sandusky after he witnessed it!
What a sad, sad interview. Costas threw him perfect BP pitches and he either fouled them off weakly, struck out, or ducked . Who ducks BP pitches?
I have always shied away from the notion that someone cannot write a balanced essay or book about a person who has been at the epicenter of much good and, in this case, complicity in hiding a terrible evil. For much of Joe Paterno’s life he exemplified a good father, husband, and role model for other coaches in his profession. You do not get the type of devotion and loyalty that his ex-players continue to exhibit if you are evil. But hero worship can crash hard when a man makes the kind of mistake Paterno made. Whatever anyone thinks of the Freeh Report too many people choose to believe it as a holier than thou document and others trash it. That depends on the perspective and view you have and want to arrive at in the end. But I look aside from the report. I choose to look at the fact that Paterno, in the end, came to realize, in his own words, that whatever he knew he should have done more to stop Sandusky. For not doing more, which he admitted, he shares some form of complicity in a cover up. I believe Freeh, knowing the legal jeopardy Curley, Schultz, Spanier, McQuerry, and others might face going on the record prior to trial, decided the probative value of their interviews probably was not going to yield anything of value. In the end whether Joe Paterno was a key focal point in a cover up, or just a go along for the sake of the university type guy, he still bears the guilt of knowing what Sandusky did and he chose not to rattle the PSU cage and insist the matter be taken to authorities much sooner. I don’t know we’ll ever find the real truth as I am sure if either Curley, Schultz, or Spanier testify in the upcoming trials I think it’s a fair bet they’ll be giving us their “take” on who knew what and when.
People, get a grip; the image of Paterno as someone who “exemplified a good father, husband, and role model” was fraudulent. He was not a “a man who lived to help others become good students and men first and good football players secondly.”; he is a man who cynically crafted a a public image that approached cult proportions–witness the number who refuse to even acknowledge the Freeh report conclusions BECAUSE IT CAN’T POSSIBLY BE….You cannot be a “good father, husband and role model” when you are aware that a child molester was hanging out with children and parents were trusting him to hang out with their children, and not do anything about it for about 4,000 days…