The lone Penn State player on the Packers roster shared his feelings on the fall from grace of his university and beloved coach Joe Paterno.
In an ESPNMilwaukee.com story Saturday, TE Andrew Quarless said he thought Paterno, who died in January, “could have done more” in the sex abuse scandal that’s embroiled the school and football program this year. The internal investigation commissioned by Penn State found that Paterno, as well as three other top Penn State officials, apparently covered up the rampant sexual abuse of children committed by former defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky.
Quarless didn’t want to badmouth his former coach, whom he said helped him become a “stronger person.”
“Coach Paterno was one of the reasons I went there to play, just to play for a legend. My feelings haven’t changed, but it’s definitely a tough situation when I look at it,” said Quarless, who attended Penn State from 2006-09. “I feel like he could have done more, but it’s hard when he’s not alive anymore to really try to talk bad about him.”
In the story, Quarless also said Paterno had become too big on campus and in the community, an opinion echoed by many who blamed the coach’s hero-worship treatment in Happy Valley for how he handled the scandal.
“There’s only one God,” Quarless said. “Only one God. I’m not saying he was a god out there, but they put him on a high pedestal, where it was like he could do no wrong. I don’t think you should put anybody above football, above who they really are. That was one of the things I took out of that. They really put him on a big pedestal there, and he could do no wrong, and then when stuff happens it’s, ‘Am I going to take a little blemish on my legacy, or am I going to try to [cover it up]?’ I don’t even want to say that’s what he did, but you can’t explain it. It’s definitely a tough situation.
“I think rather than have a little blemish on his legacy, rather than have his whole legacy erased, I think that was on him and the coaching staff and the whole organization. It was what, 12, 15 years ago? It would have been a little blemish from 12, 15 years ago. Now it’s something real detrimental to his whole legacy, and it’s sad. … It’s a sad story, a sad day in Happy Valley.”
Quarless mentioned “some hiccups” he had at Penn State, perhaps a reference to drinking-related transgressions in 2007 and 2008. He said the way his coach responded to that problem “only made me stronger as a person.”
“And that’s one thing I do thank Coach Paterno for, really building me into a person,” said Quarless. “That’s one of the things, when you look at a lot of alumni, they’ll say the same thing. They really made you into a great person, being accountable, stuff like that -- building you into [not only] a good player but a good person. That’s one thing he did do. He was a great coach for that. He had some stern, stern ways that definitely made you tighten your game up. So I can definitely thank him for that.”
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