The Pulse: Penn State squandered its window to best handle crisis

At least six months.

That's the minimum amount of time that Pennsylvania State University officials had to ready their public response before everything hit the fan in the Jerry Sandusky case. While the debate continues as to who within the Penn State community was on notice of Sandusky's alleged sexual abuse of children over the years, it is undeniable that, since the spring, the university was on notice of a potentially earth-shattering investigation. Still, the ineptitude that appears to have marked the oversight and management of Sandusky while a coach and in his retirement similarly prevailed when it came to communications.

Consider that two weeks ago, the Harrisburg Patriot-News was the first to report on the grand jury charges against Sandusky, the former defensive coordinator and onetime front-runner to succeed head coach Joe Paterno. But the same newspaper first reported on the existence and purpose of the grand jury months ago. A March 31 story began: "Penn State football legend Jerry Sandusky is the subject of a grand jury investigation into allegations that he indecently assaulted a teenage boy."

Reporter Sarah Ganim, relying on five sources, wrote that the grand jury had already been at work for at least 18 months and had heard the sworn testimony of Paterno, athletic director Tim Curley, and retired university vice president Gary Schultz. Among the incidents recounted in Ganim's initial story was an allegation that Sandusky had inappropriately touched a student at Central Mountain High School in Clinton County. There was also mention of the 1998 report by university police of a separate inappropriate contact.

Go online and you can still see the original comments from readers, including "I didn't see that one coming!" Neither did Penn State, apparently, despite the Patriot-News' follow-up stories in April and August. What questions did members of the board of trustees ask as each of those stories appeared? What answers were they provided? Why was no one fired long before the grand jury report was published?

While nothing said or done more recently could have atoned for the alleged misconduct of Sandusky, the university had a duty to prepare its community of supporters for what was coming. Instead it was caught flat-footed when the grand jury report was made public. The initial reaction by Graham Spanier, the now-fired university president, was: "Tim Curley and Gary Schultz have my unconditional support."