Joe Paterno was the head football coach at Penn State when Mike McQueary, his assistant coach, confided in him that he had witnessed Jerry Sandusky molest an underage boy in the locker rooms one evening in February 2001. Paterno passed along McQueary’s admission to his boss, Tim Curley, Penn State’s athletic director. When an investigation into Sandusky’s behavior finally began in 2011, uproar over Paterno’s alleged failure to take the allegations seriously forced him to resign.
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Joe Paterno Character Timeline in Talking to Strangers
The timeline below shows where the character Joe Paterno appears in Talking to Strangers. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter Five: The Boy in the Shower
When McQueary confided in his boss, head coach Joe Paterno, about what he saw, Paterno seemed sad but passed along McQueary’s admission to his boss,...
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...The court and the public would blame this delay of justice on Penn State’s leadership. Paterno was forced to resign, and Tim Curley and Gary Schultz, two high-ranking administrators, were charged...
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