A former assistant football coach at Penn State, Jerry Sandusky, is embroiled in a scandal, accused of multiple counts of sexually assaulting children and now head coach Joe Paterno has been shown the door.
But as HLN's Dr. Drew points out, this is not about football.
“This is not a sports story,” Dr. Drew said on his
HLN show Wednesday night. “This is about children's lives being destroyed."
Guest Troy Craig said he knew Sandusky through Sandusky’s charity, The Second Mile.
“Most of my experiences came from being alone with Sandusky -- usually during a long car ride,” Craig said. “It was pretty much a given. You got into the car -- just like strapping on a seat belt -- his right hand went on my left thigh and then it stayed there.”
Dr. Drew asked Craig if Sandusky was talked about by other kids.
“I remember asking [an older boy], ‘does Jerry do that thing with the hand on the leg’? Craig said. “I seem to remember him saying ‘yeah, yeah, that's Jerry...he's weird like that.’”
Dr. Drew asked former Penn State football player Matt Hahn why he thought the situation was allegedly ignored by some Penn State officials.
“I wish I had a great answer for that,” he said. “I don't. It's something that's very disturbing as a former player because being within the program you never thought that anything like this would happen. We always would pride ourselves on being a program that did the right thing -- carried ourselves with integrity.”
Later, Dr. Drew gave his take on this disturbing story.
“As physicians, we are required to report this stuff immediately or we go to prison,” he explained. “These are criminal acts not to protect and report children. How is it possible they just didn't know? Do we have educators out there that don't understand their basic responsibility to protect -- not just their own students -- but the community in which they live? If that's true…we've got some educating to do around here.”
Join the conversation...