Spurred by the ovation, he continued:
"Conventional wisdom dictates that I would phrase it a different way. It would say in 11 of those 12 years he never let me down and those years outweighed this last year, but nobody ever accused me of wisdom of any kind, let alone conventional."
Knight then referred to 2002, when Paterno was told about an alleged attack on a boy by former coach Jerry Sandusky:
"In the year in question, he gave full disclosure to his superiors up the chain to the head of campus police and president of the school. The matter was in the hands of a world-class university and by a president with an outstanding national reputation. Whatever the details of the investigation are, this much is clear to me: If there was a villain in this tragedy it lies in that investigation, not in Joe Paterno's response to it."
That drew a standing ovation.
He said that for his "actions," Paterno was "excoriated by the media and fired over the telephone by his university." Knight then asked rhetorically, "Who is the real trustee at Pennsylvania State University?"
To the extent Knight was suggesting that Paterno was the "real trustee," his confidence was sadly misplaced. His eulogy, which was devoid of any mention of the alleged victims in this scandal, overlooked testimony provided under oath by Paterno to the grand jury. There, the longtime coach acknowledged awareness of what Mike McQueary reported seeing between Sandusky and a young boy in 2002. This is from his responses while testifying before the grand jury:
"Q: Without getting into any graphic detail, what did Mr. McQueary tell you he had seen and where?
"A: Well, he had seen a person, an older - not an older, but a mature person who was fondling, whatever you might call it - I'm not sure what the term would be - a young boy.
"Q: Did he identify who that older person was?
