For decades, they?ve known him as a
man everyone wanted to be.
And it appeared from their faces that they can?t quite grasp, and aren?t yet willing to accept, what their friend and colleague
Jerry Sandusky has been
charged with doing to young boys.
Two former Penn State assistant coaches took the stand in Sandusky?s defense Monday, both saying they find nothing wrong with men showering with young boys.
Booker T. Brooks, a former receivers and tight ends coach who left Penn State to coach at Oregon State, said he takes showers at the YMCA with his young granddaughter.
Richard ?Dick? Anderson, a former Nittany Lions offensive line coach, said he would consider sharing a hotel room with a young boy if it was for the child?s emotional benefit.
Their testimony elicited ?ahs? from the courtroom gallery. Hushed whispers resonated through the room after the two men acknowledged that they, too, shower with boys, and saw nothing strange about Sandusky doing the same.
They echoed something defense attorney Joe Amendola foreshadowed in his opening statements ? that shared showers are a part of a culture of sports in which Sandusky was immersed.
Perhaps even an acceptance of the generation in which they grew up.
The testimony quickly went viral online, too, with plenty of virtual criticism.
?It?s being discussed a lot more, and I think there?s more vigilance,? Rich Curl, executive director of the Harrisburg-area YMCA, said when asked about the testimony.
At 57, Curl said he has never experienced a shared shower with a coach but said the issue is getting a lot more discussion than it did a few months ago. The Y has implemented family showers in the West Shore facility and looks out for suspicious activity.
?If something seems not appropriate or normal, we would be very sensitive to it,? he said. ?Let?s say if someone was coming in from time to time with different boys, that?s something we would look into.?
Jim Cantafio, head football coach and retired physical-education teacher at Cedar Cliff High School, said he remembers team showers when he was in school.
The 59-year-old Cantafio said coaches would participate occasionally. But group showers were much more of a norm then ? in the 1970s. Now, Cedar Cliff and some other area high schools have replaced open showers with individual stalls, he said.
At that time, no one thought anything of it, he said. But as time has gone on, opinions have changed.
Brad McDermott, a spokesman for the YMCA of the USA, stated in an email that locker-room policies vary on the configuration of a given facility, ?but child safety is always a primary concern.?
?At the Y, the safety and well-being of children in our care has been and always will be a top priority,? McDermott wrote.
He added that many YMCAs have family locker rooms where parents and grandparents can care for children. They have separate changing and showering areas.
A distinction
In testimony Monday, neither of the former football coaches thought it was OK for a man to touch a young boy while naked.
Neither has ever done that in a shower, they said.
Neither had witnessed Sandusky doing that, either, they said.
They both stopped short, when questioned directly and within hypothetical scenarios presented by prosecutor Joe McGettigan, of saying it?s OK for a man to bear-hug, lift or press his body up against a boy while naked.
The distinction is important, because Sandusky has admitted to touching the bare legs of young boys. He has admitted to horsing around in the shower.
Jurors heard that last week when a taped interview of
Sandusky?s phone conversation with NBC?s Bob Costas from November was played in court.
McGettigan, on cross-examination of the coaches, also pointed out in his questioning that neither man invited any young boys to shower with them. Their experiences were in groups, not one on one.
Still, they seemed painfully adamant in defending Sandusky?s actions as they know them.
Anderson, Brooks on the stand
They called him great. Well-educated. Organized. Focused. Exemplary. Top-notch.
?I know Jerry extremely well,? Brooks said. ?We would take eight-hour drives, going out scouting. We would scout a future opponent and then eight hours back. You get to know a person.?
Brooks said he?ll reserve his judgment for later.
Anderson, who described Sandusky as a close friend, was called to the stand by Amendola to describe the grueling 15- to 17-hour days that a college football coach works with no time for breaks.
Sandusky?s ?great reputation? meant he was asked to travel even more than usual to camps and to speaking events, Anderson said.
It was common for him to include boys in those football activities, and he saw them on occasion showering together on campus, Anderson said.
It?s something Anderson himself testified he did in the coach?s locker room where so many assaults by Sandusky are alleged to have happened.
?You showered with young boys?? prosecutor McGettigan asked.
?Yes, I still do it,? Anderson answered.
?Eleven-year-olds??
?Yes.?
?Who you didn?t know??
?Yes. There are regularly young boys at the YMCA showering at the same time there are older people showering.?
?Do you hug them in the shower??
Anderson smiled.
?No.?
If necessary ? if there were a need for emotional support ? Anderson said he would have done things that Sandusky did, too, such as share a hotel room with a boy, he testified.
Anderson also acknowledged to McGettigan that Sandusky is very smart and capable of understanding complex issues ? such as why a boy and his mother might have told police in 1998 they were uncomfortable that Sandusky allegedly hugged him naked in a shower.
Sandusky is accused of continuing that behavior for years after he was cleared in the 1998 criminal investigation.
?[Is he] capable of knowing what?s appropriate or inappropriate?? McGettigan asked.
?Yes,? Anderson said.
?If someone told him something was really inappropriate in 1998, do you think he would forget that the next day??
?No.?
?The next year??
?No.?
