Like Paterno, Spanier's role in Sandusky's crimes involved his handling of an incident witnessed by former Penn State quarterback and graduate assistant coach Mike McQueary. 9, 2011, the same day the board fired Paterno. The Penn State board of trustees forced Spanier to resign on Nov. "When I went to have this put on at the probation and parole office, I said, 'Is this really necessary?'" At the time he remained under home confinement. I know that's not a single place I want to go, not ever again."įormer Penn State president Graham Spanier pulled up his pant leg during an October 2021 interview with ESPN to reveal a monitoring device strapped to his left ankle. "There's people out there who are trying to move on with their lives and not be put back in that downstairs basement again. "There's always the thought that me being sexually abused by Sandusky did in fact happen, but this is me trying to move forward. Fisher said he wants to keep Sandusky in the past. Penn State has paid more than $100 million to at least three dozen people who say they were abused by Sandusky. He's unemployed but spends time pursuing his hobbies of repairing and customizing cars and off-roading in his Jeep. Now 28, Fisher is a father of two children and lives in central Pennsylvania. That's how close I got," Fisher said, describing an attempt to hang himself in his closet. "If the closet bar was high enough, I wouldn't be here. "First words out of my mouth were, 'Why did he get fired? They're going to kill me.'"įisher says his lowest point came when he attempted suicide when he was 15. Fisher said he received threatening notes and that he and his mother's cars were "keyed." He says his concern for his safety only grew on the November 2011 evening that Joe Paterno was fired by Penn State's board of trustees. When Sandusky was dismissed as an assistant, word filtered through the small community that it was because of Fisher's report. When Fisher first reported Sandusky's sexual abuse, Sandusky was serving as a volunteer assistant football coach at Fisher's high school in Mill Hall, Pennsylvania, about 30 miles northeast of State College. and he would lay in bed with me, and then it just progressively got worse," Fisher told ESPN. Sandusky took Fisher to Penn State games, to a Philadelphia Eagles game and eventually invited Fisher over to his home for sleepovers on dozens of occasions, where Sandusky then molested him in a basement bedroom. Sandusky used The Second Mile, the charity he founded in 1977 to help at-risk youth, to meet and groom his victims. In October 2012, Fisher, along with his psychologist, Michael Gillum, released a book, "Silent No More," which chronicles Fisher's experiences meeting Sandusky at a summer camp for The Second Mile when Fisher was in fourth grade. Looking back, Fisher says his main concern in coming forward was that he "wouldn't be believed." Initially identified in court documents as "Victim 1," Aaron Fisher was the first survivor of Sandusky's sexual abuse to come forward, first to his psychologist, then to Pennsylvania State Police.įisher's decision as a 15-year-old to speak with detectives about Sandusky's serial sexual abuse launched a police investigation that spanned more than three years and led to criminal charges that would land Sandusky in prison for 30 to 60 years - effectively a life sentence. A decade later, the stunning and sudden end to Paterno's 61-year coaching career continues to divide the Penn State community and beyond, and many of those involved, including Sandusky's victims, are still reckoning with what he did and what school officials did after that.ĮSPN recently interviewed key surviving figures from the most wrenching period in Penn State's history to see how they want to reconsider Paterno's legacy a decade later. Paterno died of lung cancer in January 2012, 74 days after Penn State fired him for his role in Sandusky's crimes. In addition to Sandusky's conviction and imprisonment, three high-ranking Penn State administrators received jail time, and the winningest coach in major college football history, Joe Paterno, was abruptly fired. A little over 10 years ago, the public learned of the horrific sexual-abuse crimes committed by former Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky.
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