Judge: Paterno Family's Lawsuit Can Proceed

Say this in favor of sports:

Until they came along, one of America's most popular forms of entertainment was public executions.

These days, it seems that the football world still has hanging judges, and the real  judges are showing their displeasure in ever increasing numbers.

Maybe there's a reason the wheels of justice turn slower than surges of emotion can be sustained.

Did the NCAA act so harshly against Penn State in order to make an pitchfork-and-torches mob feel better? After all, what Jerry Sandusky did -- and a measured court said he did 30-60 years' worth of crime -- couldn't have gone on so long without complicity.

Could it?

The Paterno family members have a vested interest in the answer to that question, and they want a judicial forum in which to make their definitive argument. The request was made in mid-May of this year:

And it's now going to happen:

Under oath for the first time.

That oughta be good.

Paterno is a major reason Penn State University grew from a remote agricultural school to a major academic institution. He donated $4million in 1994 to the school and $100,00 annually since then, including 2012. Those contributions built the new library there. His players graduated and were extremely loyal to him afterward. His phone number was in the book.

Well, a court can finally sort that out. It's all any citizen can ask.

The NCAA has already been found by the judicial system to be as pompous as a hanging judge in one major case already. Most believe it backed off the sanctions it imposed on the Nittany Lions because it was nervous about being found to have pandered to a public that too often forms its opinions on news bites as opposed to the time-consuming inconvenience of detailed accuracy.

So, the question as to whether Paterno was complicit or oblivious can now be determined in the proper way and not by the mob mentality that surrounded the discovery of Sandusky's sordid deeds. That the NCAA has backed off is telling and possibly tragic -- on a lower level, perhaps -- but sad all the same.