this whole thing makes me sick....
By the way, the condemnation of Paterno is understandable, but if you think he would be alone in acting like this, you are only fooling yourself. No coach would want this to come out about his program, so passing along the information is probably as much or maybe even more than many coaches would do. If this were Bobby Petrino instead of Joe Paterno, nobody would be that stunned by his actions. This mess surrounding the head coach is occurring because we hold JoePa to a higher standard, and rightfully so.
I'm not sure that is true in this ESPN era. There would have been nonstop coverage of the Penn State sex abuse case, and it would have presented a negative association about the school's football program. Should JoePa have told the authorities? Absolutely, he should have. At the same time, he passed on the responsibility of dealing with the punishment of a close friend to his boss. That was the correct action at the time. When it became clear that Tim Curley wasn't doing anything, that was when JoePa should have acted. Remember, though, that this means pretty much ending the livelihood of two of his best friends.
Should he have done it? Yes. Did they deserve it? Yes. Does that mean that it is easy to do, or that all or even most coaches would have done it? No, it doesn't. Paterno screwed up here and ruined one of the greatest legacies of all time. That said, his actions were not anywhere near equivalent to Curley and the University President, so I don't know why he is being grouped with them.