Focus on Sandusky, not Paterno please.

My nephew Anthony, 10, is the proud owner of Penn State shorts, underwear, socks, jerseys, sweatshirts and plastic football players.

The thrill of his young life was seeing the Nittany Lions beat Indiana at FedEx Field last year. He even bravely broke with generations of family tradition to declare that he loved Joe Paterno more than Notre Dame.
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Paterno, who has cast himself for 46 years as a moral compass teaching his “kids” values, testified that he did not call the police at the time either. The family man who had faced difficult moments at Brown University as a poor Italian with a Brooklyn accent must have decided that his reputation was more important than justice.
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I can only hope that by the time Anthony’s parents work up their nerve to have what they call “the conversation” with him about his fallen idol, St. Joe and the other Penn scoundrels will have been ignominiously cast out of what turns out to be a not-so-Happy Valley.

Instead of blaming an old man, Maureen -- the wrong old man, at that -- why not yank lil Ant'ony off the Worship and Praise bandwagon yourself? With the help of his parents, I mean...

Any little boy, who has to have the Penn getup garb, all the way down to the team underoos ... you don't see anything at all wrong with the child-rearing there?

Why not ... keep sports more in perspective? Teach your little nephew that it's a game, a fun game, a great sport and all, but not something to base his whole life (and wardrobe) around?

If sports worship were kept in perspective -- and really, don't the parents and immediate family members have a role of their own to play here? -- you wouldn't get the hero-worship in the first place, and you'd see that these are simply, fallible men.

Remember: Joe Paterno isn't accused of raping children. He didn't ply them with favors or special treats -- the logo'd clothing, the hard-to-acquire tickets, the aura of gameday, or close contact with celebrity players. He tried to do his job -- coaching football.

You want blame? Don't blame these coaches. Blame the administrators who take home the big bucks and have responsibility for the big picture legally -- liability, protection, accountability, and the school's reputation.

Nobody likes how things turned out. But was it Paterno's responsibility to bring a child rapist to justice? Was it the duty of the 28-year-old who stumbled upon the scene in a closed lockerroom in the middle of the night to play hero and stop it?

What if ... the kid had gotten himself clothed, and then he and Sandusky lied and denied that anything untoward had taken place? What if the kid clammed up, and lied? What if ... the two of them -- the boy and his rapist/lover -- concocted a story of their own?

To me, that's beyond the paygrade of an assistant football coach. That's administration territory.

After the fact, it's easy for ladies like Dowd to tell us about their hero-worshipping nephew and how "real men" should have reacted. The funny thing is... I recall Dowd writing about a job interview years ago, that ended with the future boss propositioning her. She demurred and declined, got up the next day and went into work, as if nothing had happened. If I recall correctly, she ended up having a distant but cordial relationship with the man who hired her.

Now, after the fact: morally, was that the right thing to do? Shouldn't she have risked her career, and blown the whistle on this man, who presumably went on to target other more vulnerable creatures, some of whom may have taken the man up on his underhanded offer?

You see why it's not cool to judge, after the fact, and lay blame on the wrong person. Focus on Jerry Sandusky. Following the legal concept of due process, let him be convicted in a court of law; if the evidence is there, let the professionals -- not the coaching professionals, the people who get paid to investigate and prosecute these crimes as a part of their jobs -- do an honest job in taking an alleged monster off the streets.

You know the janitor, the one alleged to have observed Sandusky performing oral sex on the boy? You heard how he turned out? In a mental home, traumatized himself? Sure, it's nice to think that had he turned to the police professionals, everything might have gone down another path.

But to me? That man, like McQueary himself, is a victim too. How it got to that level, I don't know. But blaming the wrong people -- and not taking pains to teach your own boys and girls a bit of balance in their own hero worship -- let's just say, that's setting up the next scandal right there.

Keep the focus on Sandusky, not Paterno, in the coming days. Anyone can take out an 80+ plus man, after the fact, and point fingers. But stopping these types of crimes by teaching potential victims and responsible authorities what their proper roles are?

Sometimes it's much easier just to sit back on the sidelines cheering along with the crowd... Waiting for the next shoe to drop, so to speak.