Two statues: One for a true hero, and one for Joe Paterno

LAST FRIDAY was a tale of two statues in my life.

I was honored to be invited to a fundraiser for a statue to be placed in Philadelphia to honor William "Wild Bill" Guarnere, a national hero who was the inspiration for one of the characters in the TV miniseries "Band of Brothers."

Wild Bill was a Philadelphia character who possessed enormous character. Far beyond his inspiring military service, Wild Bill was involved in aiding veterans over a long life. We need to get this statue done to offer inspiration to future generations.

The other statue that was back in the news was the statue of former Pennsylvania hero Joe Paterno that used to be at the entrance of Beaver Stadium, at Penn State. As the Inquirer reported, the NCAA, facing a trial that probably would have exposed its own questionable practices, agreed to restore the 111 victories they took away from Paterno's record after the Jerry Sandusky child sex-abuse scandal. They also kept intact the $60 million fine they levied on Penn State, but allowed them to spend it on child-protection services in Pennsylvania.

I accept the fact that the NCAA is not a worthy arbiter of almost anything. I accept the fact that Paterno deserves the victories he won on the field. I accept that it's a good idea for the $60 million to be spent in Pennsylvania.

I don't accept the claim that Joe Paterno was a victim in this. I don't accept the notion that it's time to restore the statue of Paterno to its place of honor in front of Beaver Stadium. Anthony P. Lubrano, an influential Penn State trustee whom I've interviewed, predictably called for the Paterno statue to be restored and to be restored quickly.

What would be the message sent by placing the statue in front of the stadium? To me it says that JoePa's wins and devotion to Penn State trump his failure to use his enormous power to stop a serial pedophile who allegedly even attacked a kid in a Penn State shower. It says, "We beat the NCAA and we can go back to the good old days of Happy Valley," where the mantra seemed to be "hear no evil, see no evil and do nothing to stop the evil," because it might affect the beloved football program.

It's amazing to me the spins and defenses that callers have offered to me to defend Paterno. The first wave argued that JoePa was of a generation that couldn't comprehend what he was being told when he was informed by Mike McQueary, the assistant football coach, that he had witnessed Sandusky assaulting a young boy in the athletic-building shower.

I wonder what Paterno's reaction would have been if McQueary had told him that he saw Paterno's grandson in that shower. Would Paterno have merely done the minimum and reported it only to his supervisors?

The second wave of defenders loves to tell me that Joe did all that he could to stop Sandusky. He reported Sandusky to his "superiors." Who was JoePa's superior at Penn State?

The third wave of defenders has started the argument that we beat the NCAA and now we'll put Joe's statue back because we are a huge alumni group with a lot of power. I wonder what an alum would do if it was his child or grandchild who had been victimized by Sandusky. Would he truly be OK with JoePa's minimum effort?

If you feel that I'm being too harsh, then I think you're part of the problem. Allowing Penn State to move on is a normal process. However, we still have not even had the trial of the three Penn State officials charged with various offenses around Sandusky's raping of children. Doesn't common decency demand that they wait until all the sordid details are all out?

I think that when those trials take place, the testimony and the facts will point to a very clear conclusion. Despite the very good things Paterno did in his Penn State career, he came up very small in the face of clear evil. We don't give statues to people who bureaucratically report evil to superiors and then say, "Well, I did all that I could." We don't give statues to those people who quoted Virgil, Homer and Shakespeare and their life lessons but apparently lost the words "Jerry Sandusky" in the translation.

"Wild Bill" Guarnere didn't win 409 football games or endow a major university with a huge amount of money, but he helped to take down the evil of Hitler. His statue will be a tangible public display of the values we cherish and honor. I'm glad I could help start to make this statue a reality on a day when that other statue was in the news.