Multiple reports are indicating that later today, legendary Penn State University football coach Joe Paterno will resign in the wake of the pedophilia scandal that has rocked the football program and the school. And that’s good news.

Not as a crime story, where the focus is and should remain on the victims. And not as a sports story, since a 60-year career that combined on-field success with a sterling reputation for integrity will now forever be remembered in disgrace. Ask Woody Hayes, whose sin was far less egregious, how that works.

But Paterno is so iconic, in sports and in our larger pop culture, that as tragic as the whole mess is, a lot of good will come out of this. The Catholic Church’s sex scandals mortified Catholics, but for people not deeply religious in general or Catholic in particular, the oddity of a priest’s (supposedly) celebate lifestyle and the archaic nature of the Catholic hierarchy left the scandals at an arm’s length.

For better or worse, in America, football is a much more widespread religion, and the better analogy in terms of the cultural import of this story is Magic Johnson’s announcement, 20 years ago this week, that he had contracted the HIV virus. Johnson’s announcement took AIDS/HIV out of the gay ghetto; for many, the combination of his celebrity, his race, and especially his (vigorous) heterosexuality meant that AIDS was now a disease, not simply a judgment of God upon people who have nothing in common with “normal” Americans. And the way mainstream culture treated (and funded) AIDS/HIV victims and research was never the same.

Similarly, as either a local crime story or a huge sports story, Paterno’s fall is a tragedy. But it also is likely to be a pivotal moment in how we treat the sexual abuse of minors – like AIDS in the ’80s, a topic most people are deeply uncomfortable with. The idea of someone raping a child enrages and horrifies most people – which is precisely why, when confronted with evidence that it’s happening, the instinct of a lot of people is denial. “Jerry is a nice guy; I’ve known him for years. He’s no monster. He can’t possibly be doing that.”

Well, yes, he can. And is. And the value of the downfall of Paterno is twofold. First, it underscores that a situation like that can happen anywhere, to anyone – even in a place as idyllic as Happy Valley and with the moral rectitude of Paterno’s football program. Secondly, while Paterno has been legally exonerated of wrongdoing, there’s also been a pretty clear public moral judgment that his actions were not adequate. That as the most influential man in his community, he should have followed up. He should have asked why Sandusky continued to be around his program – with more young children in tow, no less – for a full decade after the initial allegations against him. When nobody else contacted authorities, Paterno – among others – should have.

The damage of this story to Penn State University as an institution is enormous not because of the crime; pedophiles are uncovered in positions of authority, including among the ranks of sports coaches, with disturbing frequency. It’s the lack of an appropriate response that is going to cost the school hugely in terms of its reputation and its pocketbook, and that has now led to the downfall of college football’s all-time winningest coach. As a cautionary tale, it is powerful and pervasive in a way the Catholic priest coverup scandals, for all their appalling and sordid details, never were, for the same reason that Magic Johnson’s contraction of HIV as a heterosexual had greater impact on AIDS awareness than Rock Hudson’s death as a gay man. Priests aren’t usually viewed as paragons of masculinity (and, by extension, healthy male sexuality). Football coaches are.

Pedophiles operate, compulsively, until they’re caught; theirs is almost never a one-time-only crime. A lot of victims will be avoided, and a lot of perpetrators brought to justice, because of what has happened to the career and legacy of Joe Paterno. The fact that it happened to him, and not to, say, the football coach of Texas Tech or Bowling Green, will quite literally save lives. This is a terrible story, but it’s also a watershed moment that many people will learn from. That may wind up being Joe Paterno’s greatest legacy and gift.

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