Their coaching legend will retire at season’s end, if he’s not ousted sooner. Their president is on the verge of getting a justified boot out the door. Their athletic director as well as a high-ranking vice president have been charged with perjury and failure to report, and have either taken a leave of absence or retired.
Penn State is under a microscopic furor the likes of which has never been seen in college football, and their response has been, for the most part, silence. Or, in the one case where there should’ve been silence, there wasn’t. Five days after the child-sex abuse scandal broke, however, the athletic department has finally spoken.
In a release, acting athletic director Mark Sherburne addressed the growing scandal and said the university will do everything in its power to restore the trust that has been broken. Here’s Sherburne’s statement, in its entirety:“The Penn State athletics family is devastated by the details in the Grand Jury presentment. Our hearts go out to the children involved and their families.
Every day we are entrusted with the lives of young people, and we do not - nor have we ever - taken that trust lightly. We are outraged that a valued trust has been broken. We can promise you that we are doing everything in our power to restore that broken trust. Everyone within athletics - coaches, administrators, staff and student-athletes - are committed to this pledge.”