So, I started grad school here at Penn State this year and this comes out.
All those involved in the athletic department hopefully will be thrown out. I think that the trustees have called for Joe Paterno's resignation already.
How do these things happen? Certainly, there is some truth that this is what happens when you try to protect an institution over people. Despite the evidence that cover ups just don't work when shit like this happens, the evidence is legion both for the shit that happened and that cover ups in these instances will fail, higher ups still try to cover this shit up. Not only is the failure of morality abhorrent, the failure of human reason is mind boggling. Institutional protection is certainly one factor in this, but institutions are formed in some degree to combat this as well, as people will report things and combat things that would ultimately sully the institution.
Part of it, as Rev points out, is that sex crimes generally create zones of weirdness around heinousness. I can guess as to why. Some of it is sexual taboo, some of it is sexuality as being something utterly private. The root for why these crimes are so destructive and pernicious is also the reason people avoid reporting them.
However, I think a large part of this is that people were protecting a person. Sandusky is a legend here. They have an ice cream named after him in the creamery. I don't have this attachment, but I was quick to find this out. Not only is Sandusky a legend, but he "earned" that status for more than his football coaching. His work with children, now exposed as an avenue to satisfy his fetishes, was a primary reason for this. NOT ONLY was he a legend beyond all of his work on the football field, his lengthy tenure at Penn State earned him many personal friends.
That seems to be the primary reason for the moral repugnance of all involved. Joe Paterno knew Sandusky for about 40 years. McQueary was indoctrinated in the Penn State ethos. Sandusky wasn't just a co-worker. He wasn't just a long time boss and mentor. They thought they knew him, had good reason to think they thought they knew him, and they thought he was a great, awesome guy. The cognitive dissonance between knowing this and being told or shown that he rapes children is incalculable, inconceivable. I haven't lived long enough to have a friend that long. I keep trying to picture being told that one of my friends since I have been 5 years old (I have one) is a sexual predator in the most odious sense. Knowing that calling the police could destroy him even if acquitted. Knowing a guy since I was young. Knowing that I (not that I have done it, Joe Paterno's PoV here) put him in the position to molest and violate young, disadvantaged boys. I would probably still turn him in, but that is the hypothetical to ask. Not would you turn in a coworker when told by a third party. For McQueary, it's not would you turn in some stranger raping a child in the shower or beat the living shit out of him, it's would you turn in someone who you have known as a mentor and supporter to many of your teammates and potentially yourself.
This is not meant to be apologetic of Joe Paterno, but more an explanation about how this happens. Morally repugnant shit happens and rarely is the most egregious of moral failings a simple explanation.