WHAT IF PENN STATE HAPPENED HERE??

How would UK students, fans, trustees respond?

Not as their Penn State counterparts, I hope.

I mean..trashing the home of the chief suspect? Rioting in the streets (and destroying a news van that was trying to cover student indignation?) Firing people (The president and JoePa) who haven't yet been charged with any crime, let alone convicted?

We need to go back to Duke and the infamous lacrosse case...have we forgotten so soon? And boy were there lessons to be learned from that incident: reputations ruined, a venerable school that forgot its traditions, the most elemental belief in fair play, a rush to judgment that did almost no one any good.

Yes, I am the last man in America who still believes in the presumption of innocence--a belief reaffirmed by what happened at Duke. It took time but eventually the accusations of a local "dancer" cum prostitute against the team were found to be false, pursued by an overzealous prosecutor, who warped the law in his attempt to ride the sensational case into a new term.

OK, child abuse is much worse. Failure to report suspicions of it is a major ethical and moral lapse. Both the grad student and Coach Paterno should have, could have done more; and so should almost everyone who has touched this case---including state and local officials, some of whom knew about, or suspected what was going on. There is more than enough "guilt" here to go around.

None of that justifies the rioting, the threats against the grad stduent (threats for reporting what he saw! Those people are apparently justifying child abuse!), the premature firing of the coach and president..all because the trustees saw an "image" problem for the school.

Image! What about fairness? Justice? Following the law? (weak though it appears to be in Pennsylvania), learning from Duke, or just plain old common sense.

There appears to be a mimimum of eight boys involved in this sordid business. Over ten years why did none of them, or their families, or their friends (do you really think they kept it to themselves?)--or the family or friends of the "witnesses" not come forward?

Yes, there is the even more sordid history of the Catholic Church's unconscionable behavior recently in the background here..but let us not yet equate Penn State football with that older religion.

Let the law take its course. Some or all of these allegations may be proved or disproved, but acting the way many at Penn State have done so far is not the American way.

I'm just sayin'...