John Ziegler Interviews Bob Costas Who Admits Joe Paterno ‘Not a Villian’

In a bonus installment of the “With the Benefit of Hindsight” podcast, the host John Ziegler provided an update on the Penn State–Paterno–Sandusky case. The occasion was prompted by a recent interview conducted with veteran NBC sportscaster Bob Costas.

Costas had previously appeared on “With the Benefit of Hindsight”, offering brief commentary on the Sandusky case. That earlier interview helped contextualize Costas’s now-famous on-air questioning of Sandusky, who was caught off guard in a nationally televised exchange.

Ziegler said, “For further context as to why this interview is worthy of a special episode of The Benefit of Hindsight, you first need to remember Bob’s unique role in this story. His Emmy-winning interview with Sandusky is, to this day, the episode most people who haven’t followed the case closely point to for why they are certain Jerry Sandusky is guilty of being a serial sexual abuser of children.”

 If you’re not already a subscriber to the Death of Journalism podcast, you can become one so that you can listen to the entire interview.

Excerpts from Ziegler’s interview with Bob Costas:

John Ziegler:  …Can you see any more clearly now, all these years later, the scenario that I have been claiming happened here, that a perfect storm of unique circumstances and the massive distraction of Joe Paterno caused the sports in the news media to badly blow a story, the details of which made the modern media very vulnerable to rushing the judgment and then not being able to reverse itself?…

Bob Costas: Well I guess any story theoretically can be misinterpreted or lazily presented, or have aspects of it overlooked in theory…

I was briefly at the center of it because I did the interview on Rock Center with Sandusky where he all but buried himself. I think every question I asked was appropriate, and I think the audience concluded overwhelmingly that this is a guilty man based on his responses.

At the very very least what he did, if he wanted to give him the extreme benefit of the doubt, what he himself acknowledges doing was completely unacceptable in the twenty first century, and probably unacceptable when you really think about it. In nineteen fifty-five. You know, I heard people say, well, he’s a Maybury guy, lived in a bubble, he doesn’t know the modern world. He has a nineteen fifties sensibility.

Well, I went to high school in the nineteen sixties and after gym class, the gym teacher didn’t shower with the boys in the gym class. You know, the baseball and basketball coach didn’t touch our legs. What the hell is that? You know?

John Ziegler: So, Bob, I’ve never defended how stupid Sandusky was, although I do think that that was greatly exaggerated based upon what we know now. And look, I understand you’re in a uniquely awkward position here because your interview with Sandusky was fantastic from a journalistic standpoint.

….But my frustration is I have an enormous amount of respect for your intellect and your fairness, and I am positive Bob, that if you knew everything that I know, you would have at very least grave, grave concerns about this overall case, and it’s frustrating to me that it appears as if you don’t even see the path that I’m I’m painting here, where the Paterno aspect of this story was so distracting.

… That this was a unique set of circumstances, that Joe Paterno is where all the focus went. And after your interview everyone just presumed we knew the Sandusky element of the story because he screwed up, and because you did a great interview, and because he’s a weird dude in my opinion. But …I am positive that if you knew all the circumstances here, you would have at the very least, a very concerned view about what really transpired.

Bob Costas: … I haven’t followed this as closely as you have and dug into it the way you have. So it would be irresponsible for me to say I agree with you, I disagree with you….

But here is where I do agree with you. … Let’s say that these allegations came at a different university, same allegations….. But the coach is not a paragon of virtue. The coach is not ‘Saint’ Joe Paterno, and the university is not the win with honor Penn State, where it was widely assumed that this was as close to a model of the proper marriage between academics and athletics, big time athletics as you’d ever find, that was really the area of fascination.

The focus quickly switched to Paterno, and there became a narrative largely, not completely, but largely unquestioned. Well, “here was Joe Paterno’s motive. He knew either all this or the basic outlines of it, and in order not to bring any negative publicity toward him and his football program, he helped to cover it up. He was aware, at least in general terms, and he helped to cover it up.”…

I’m not saying I believe that, but let’s say, for the sake of argument, that was the position.

Joe Paterno was not stupid. What would be the motivation when these charges began to come to light? There were dribs and drabs over time, but when they were reaching critical mass in the early two thousands, what would be the motivation to say, You know what? I am going to risk everything by being involved in, if true, some sort of conspiracy to cover up horrific crimes against children.

Whereas if some version of this story came out right now, Jerry Sandusky, no longer on my coaching staff. By many accounts never a close friend, even though he was a very good defensive coordinator, maybe it’s a week of publicity, most of it in State College, not becoming a national story.

Let’s say he’s a completely immoral man. Does that calculus make sense? That calculus doesn’t make sense. … I may not be precise here, but there was some exchange involving Curly and Spanier, and it included the line, after speaking with Joe, we have decided thus and so. As if Joe was involved in creating this strategy. …

He’s in his eighties, he wants to concentrate on football. But I just don’t see him as someone who had such malignant character that presented with a clear picture. “Children are being victimized here and have been victimized for years and could be victimized again. What is your response, Joe? You, the most beloved and powerful person in State College, what is your response?”

“Oh, my response is I want to concentrate on the Notre Dame game on Saturday.” I find that impossible to believe. And I think that in the in the rush to be on the side of what was perceived then as virtue: A. they fire the guy (Paterno), B. they take down the statue.

I mean, you know, as if as if he is a pariah. That part of it, the Paterno part of it, I can’t say with authority exactly what all the particulars are. But do I believe that Joe Paterno was a villain in this? No? Do I believe he could have handled it better? Yes. Do I believe his motives were malignant and immoral? No, I do not.

John Ziegler: …And what you’re seemingly missing, which is very frustrating, is that this is one of those very rare cases where the alleged cover up was used to prove the crime. And so therefore, if the cover up falls apart… you have to look at the alleged crimes that were allegedly being covered up. And I’m positive … that if you had the opportunity to see everything that I have seen, you would be taking a different tact on this….

Bob Costas: … I have not followed the story closely over the last many years. I did my part. I hope I did it capably and honestly and fairly at the time. I read the Freeh Report, and I offered Louis Freeh a chance to come on in NBC with me. He declined.

But I did did have Wick Sollers (Paternos attorney) and Dan McGinn (Spokeperson for Paterno family), and the former Pennsylvania governor, Dick Thornberg, who … wrote the counter report to the Freeh Report. I had them on for an hour. Now this was concerning Paterno, rather than Sandusky.

John Ziegler: It was very good.

Bob Costas: I was doing my best to give them their say. So regarding Sandusky, here’s my question to you.

How do you explain the phone call with the mother of one of the alleged victims, in which Sandusky said, I wish I could change things, or I wish I were dead, something to that effect. …

John Ziegler: … The jury actually asked the judge whether or not we can still convict on the case of victim number six if we don’t believe that there was any actual sexual abuse? And the judge, this was during deliberations, said yes.

And Joe Amendola… knew at that moment that Jerry was getting convicted. He didn’t have the gumption of the courage to tell Jerry and Dottie that he was getting convicted, but he knew that if the jury was asking such a question, if you understand the full context of victim number six story.

By the way, (Zach Konstas) got almost no money from Penn State because he wasn’t willing to exaggerate or in my opinion, lie about his story because his allegation was that he was he took a shower as a young boy in a Penn State semi private, semi public facility and his mom got upset about it.

But if you understand the later context, the mom literally flagged Jerry down on his way to his last home football game against Michigan, begging him to allow her son, this is now after this whole episode happened, begging him to allow her son into the game, and Jerry was able to get him on the sideline.

This is the guy who had a relationship with Jerry for decades after this event happened, despite his mom, you know, not really being a fan of Jerry…

If Jerry said …  “I wish I were dead” because he felt so badly that he had put this family through the consternation of this allegation by doing something that they were perceiving as inappropriate. That he’s too stupid given his background growing up in a rendcomb and being extremely naive, and by, in my opinion, being a completely asexual person, that he just had no idea that what he was doing was inappropriate, and he felt badly about it. So he said, I wish I were dead. And that would actually fit one hundred percent with what I know to be of Jerry Sandusky.

…. If you are presuming that there is fire underneath this massive wall of smoke, you go, “well, there you go. That’s proof.” But it’s not proof when you understand the actual context of that relationship, who Jerry is, the lack of evidence, the testimony that then adult male victim number six gave it trial.

… The irony of the story that you’re referring to is I believe that that victim accuser was the most honest of all of them that went to trial. …

Penn State liked stories of massive, horrendous sexual abuse that occurred on Penn State’s campus, and Victim number six didn’t have one. Victim number six is a very religious man. He didn’t want a lie, and he got paid almost no money in this whole situation…..

Bob Costas: … Going back to twenty eleven, I was prepared to interview Jerry Sandusky, and I think a professional and as thorough as the short notice would permit fashion. I read and reread the grand jury presentment.

I spoke with experts on child sexual abuse and how predators operate, et cetera. Amendola was right there next to me, as you know, and chose not to interject at any point. I did post some questions directly to him, which were part of what aired on NBC, but he didn’t jump in and say I would advise my client not to answer that or try to reshape something that Jerry might have in theory expressed in an awkward way or a way that was detrimental to his cause. Amendola didn’t do any of that.

…. Okay, so we can say victim six, this, that, the other thing. I’m saying that the average person will say, “okay, but there’s a whole lot of smoke here, and where there’s that much smoke, there must be fire. And just because Al Capone was acquitted on X number of indictments, that doesn’t take away the ones that he was guilty of….”  I’m saying that this is what a reasonable person might say in response to what you just laid out about victim six.

John Ziegler: I totally get it. My big picture theory about what happened here is we have a perfect storm. We have the Joe Paterno aspect of this, distracting everybody away from the story involving Jerry Sandusky.

You have a man (Sandusky) who is very naive and very religious, who believes he knows he’s innocent, so innocent he doesn’t need a dream team. He hires a local buffoon named Joe Amendola, who gets enamored with the lights at thirty Rockefeller center and Bob Costas and hands over his client like a sacrificial lamb. And in my very strong opinion, believed because they thought they had the Mike McQuery accuser (Alan Myers) on their side. That was reported on your show that night.

… I mean… you have Bob Costas talking about how you have the Mike McQuery accuser on your side. That was lost completely because he handed you Jerry Sandusky.

When you have the distraction of Paterno and Penn State being perceived as pleading guilty by firing Paterno. My God you fired Joe Paterno before his last home football game. Any rational person would go, that’s pleading guilty. The Penn State is pleading guilty, and so therefore why would Penn State do this?

But you need to understand … there were certain board members that wanted to get rid of him and were concerned that he was going to last forever. They saw blood in the water and they struck. And once he is fired, Jerry Sandusky cannot get a fair trial. But Jerry Sandusky is so naive he doesn’t realize what he’s in.

He has no idea. And what has been transpiring underneath the surface here for about two years during this investigation, is that lawyers and therapists are seeing where this could go. They are seeing deep pockets at Penn State University. And what happens is they do a wide sweep of hundreds of former Second Mile kids who are now all adults, many of whom Bob, were sexually and physically abused (not from Sandusky), from broken homes, they’re unemployed, they’re in bad marriages.

They do this sweep …they only find six. After hundreds of interviews. They find six adult men. Four of whom were all friends Bob.

…  They’re all pictured together in Jerry Sandusky’s book. By the way, none of them had any concerns about being pictured in Jerry Sandusky’s book with their names, even though they were (supposedly)  sexually abused by this guy. And so what you have is the appearance of this mountain of evidence that all hinges on Mike McQuery, and the Mike McQuery episode is full of massive holes.

I think you would agree, Bob that without McQuery, the only the only witness in this entire case who’s not an accuser. Without Mike McQuery, you lose the Joe Paterno aspect of the story. And you have no witnesses. You have no pornography. You have no contemporaneous reports. …

You have no confession, no plea bargain. To this day, Jerry is appealing every chance he gets. He’s never been harmed in prison, his wife’s never divorced him. This is the most unique case of a serial pedophile in history, Bob….

We have an undercover sting operation, Bob on one of the major lawyers (Andrew Shubin) in the case, where we have the lawyer on tape changing a fake accuser’s story to conform to what Penn State would pay. This is the guy who represented the McQuery accuser, and many others.

Bob Costas: You know, I don’t want this to appear as if we are adversaries in this. You know more about the subsequent information that has come out. However, when you said there was only one eye witness, wasn’t there in the grand jury presentment there was a janitor who said that he witnessed something.

John Ziegler: … So the alleged janitor who supposedly saw this, never testified at trial. You know why he didn’t testify at trial? Because the prosecution said he had dementia. You know why they claimed he had dementia? Because they did an interview with him before the trial in which he was asked several times, did you see Jerry Sandusky? And he emphatically said, No. Each time.

In my very strong opinion, the prosecution, who wouldn’t have been interviewing him had they thought he had dementia, basically said, oh, so you have dementia because you clearly are not giving us the answers we want. So then they now got hearsay witnesses into the trial, who by the way, change their story. And they promised  two hearsay witnesses, they only produced one. One of them disappeared. There’s no date of that event, the location of it changed, there’s no accuser of that event.

And I cannot emphasize enough the alleged witness is on the record saying he never saw Jerry Sandusky.

Bob Costas: … So, based on what you just said, why wouldn’t there be attorneys wind up to say I want to represent you in an appeal?

John Ziegler: Well that has happened.

Bob Costas: This will bring fame and fortune to me, along with perhaps doing a good deed and taking taking up an unpopular cause. But the truth ultimately wins out.

If in fact that’s the truth, why wouldn’t there be a clamor for that to happen?

John Ziegler: Well, first of all, Jerry has appellate attorneys, but I think Bob, you would understand the answer to that. This case is so toxic, you know.

….At this point, everyone presumes he’s guilty, he’s a serial pedophile. You get no media coverage. Jerry Sandusky’s celebrity… was the worst type of celebrity. …. It is my belief that one of the key elements of the perfect storm was that Joe Paterno was a distraction, especially for the news media, and that no one ever vetted the case against Sandusky. The Sandusky portion of the story, in my opinion, ended with Bob’s interview for most of the public and almost all of the media.

To be continued