The Monster in their Midst: "Jaws" and the Penn State Scandal

The belief in an institution can drive men towards unspeakable deeds.  Over the past several months, the world found out just how true this could be as it was revealed that top officials at Pennsylvania State University conspired to conceal, and in some cases enabled, the crimes of a child sexual predator.  Under their watch, they allowed evil to roam free on the campus, all in an effort to prevent damage to the university’s storied football program, which had been a financial juggernaut for decades.

Like the great white shark that was allowed to keep feeding on bathers in Jaws, Steven Spielberg’s 1975 thriller, the danger was exponentially increased by the inaction on the part of those who could have confronted and vanquished the monster in their midst.  The scandal is the quintessential example of life imitating art, and the similarities between the fictional Amity Island of Jaws and the real life “Happy Valley” of State College, Pennsylvania are striking.   

The man that was being protected at Penn State was Jerry Sandusky, who served as an assistant football coach from 1969-99, with access to campus athletic facilities long after his retirement.  On June 22, 2012, Sandusky was found guilty on 45 of 48 counts of sexual abuse involving eight young victims. The crimes occurred from 1994-2009, including the anal rape of a ten-year-old boy in a locker room shower.  At age 68, Sandusky’s sixty-year sentence virtually guarantees that he will never again breathe free air.

Sandusky is a despicable man who got what he deserved.  But nearly as disturbing as his crimes were the results of an internal investigation led by former FBI director Louis Freeh.  Released less than a month after Sandusky’s verdict was handed down, the report found that head football coach Joe Paterno, university president Graham Spanier, athletic director Tim Curley, and senior vice president Gary Schultz knew of the molestations as early as 1998.  These four men continuously suppressed the crimes from the school’s board of trustees, the university community, and local authorities.

“I feel betrayed,” laments Theo Drivas, a 2008 Penn State graduate.  During his time at the university, it was always stressed that the school’s football program played by the rules, engaged in fair recruiting practices, and maintained rigorous academic standards for its players.  This, Drivas says, was a fraud, as behind this sham of integrity they were harboring a man who posed far more danger to the community than a cheating athletic team.

Sandusky had exhibited a long-term pattern of abuse that was willfully ignored.  “You don’t suddenly wake up one morning,” Drivas says, “and decide, ‘I’m going to rape a boy today.’  They knew about him for years, and did nothing about it.”  At the very least, Sandusky could have been permanently banned from the university, but even this most basic responsibility was neglected.

The prime concerns of the leaders of both Amity Island and Penn State were twofold: the avoidance of bad press, and the need to keep money flowing.  Their greatest fear was not for the safety of potential victims, but for the potential despoiling of their institutions if they were to publicly acknowledge the existence of danger.  Both communities revolved around a single point that its inhabitants would do anything to protect.  

For Amity, this was the summer tourist season which brought in the cash that kept its businesses thriving.  At Penn State, it was the football program that raked in millions of dollars, and where Paterno had become the most powerful and revered figure at the university.  There is certainly nothing wrong with wanting to run a successful motel, or coaching a team to a winning record, but when these desires begin to overrule logic and safety, there are bound to be catastrophic ramifications. 

In Jaws, when Chief Brody (Roy Scheider) moves to immediately shutter the island’s beaches following the first shark attack, he is overruled by Mayor Vaughn, (Murray Hamilton) who tells him that, “Amity is a summer town.  We need summer dollars...You yell ‘shark,’ we’ve got a panic on our hands on the Fourth of July.”  Like the four men who guarded the Penn State football program against bad publicity, Vaughn repeatedly has the chance to step up and do the right thing, trading momentary agitation for the long-term safety of the community.  But the preoccupation with the avoidance of fallout and the drop in business that may follow robs the men of the conviction to make the tough, though necessary, choice.

It wasn’t only the people in charge who behaved shamefully.  Marine biologist Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) arrives on Amity Island and finds himself violently berated by a group of local fisherman for presenting evidence that a tiger shark they caught may not be the animal behind the two attacks.  This mirrors what happened in the aftermath of Paterno’s firing in November 2011, when thousands of Penn State students took to the streets to riot in protest, throwing rocks and, at one point, overturning a news van.

In the eyes of many at State College, Paterno was a god who could do no wrong, and this belief was the catalyst to such an aggressive and irrational outburst.  Their actions were not only disgraceful to themselves and the university but, more importantly, enormously insensitive to Sandusky’s victims.  The loss of a football coach, even one who had risen to such lofty heights, was nothing in comparison to what Sandusky took from those boys.

For both Amity Island and Penn State, an insular culture led to a skewing of priorities that made a dangerous situation much worse.  Jerry Sandusky was a real-life monster.  His superiors had the power to ensure that he wouldn’t have any more chances to cause harm to a single child.  But the danger wasn’t stopped when it could have been, and the lives of eight children were ruined.  

The scandal at Penn State is, unfortunately, not an isolated incident.  We are living in a society where, time after time, the allure of money and prestige outweighs the responsibility to do what is right.  From the financial crises of the last few years, to the doping by professional ballplayers, there are countless individuals who will protect their own interests above all else.  It is an unacceptable state of affairs that needs to change.  

The words of Mrs. Kintner, the mother of an attack victim in Jaws, poignantly reminds us of the price that has been paid by these repeated lapses in morality.  “You knew there was a shark out there.  You knew it was dangerous, but you let people go swimming anyway.  You knew all those things, but still my boy is dead now.  And there’s nothing you can do about it.”