Page 57 - Malcolm Gladwell - Talking to Strangers

“If Sandusky did not have such a human side, there would be a temptation around [Penn State] to
canonize him,” a writer for Sports Illustrated said, upon Sandusky’s retirement from the Penn State
football-coaching staff. Here, from the same era, is part of an article from the Philadelphia Inquirer:
In more than one motel hallway, whenever you encountered him and offered what sounded like
even the vaguest sort of compliment, he would blush and an engaging, lopsided grin of modesty
would wrap its way around his face. He isn’t in this business for recognition. His defense plays
out in front of millions. But when he opens the door and invites in another stray, there is no
audience. The ennobling measure of the man is that he has chosen the work that is done without
public notice.
The first questions about Sandusky’s conduct emerged in 1998. A Second Mile boy came home
from a day with Sandusky, and his mother saw that he had wet hair. The boy said he had worked out
with Sandusky, and then the two had taken a shower in the locker room. The boy said that Sandusky
had wrapped his arms around him and said, “I’m gonna squeeze your guts out.” Then he lifted him
up to “get the soap out of his hair,” with the boy’s feet touching Sandusky’s thigh. 4
The mother told her son’s psychologist, Alycia Chambers, about what happened. But she was
unsure what to make of the incident. “Am I overreacting?” she asked Chambers. Her son,
meanwhile, saw nothing amiss. He described himself as the “luckiest boy in the world” because
when he was with Sandusky he got to sit on the sidelines at Penn State football games.
The case was closed.
The next reported incident happened ten years later, involving a boy named Aaron Fisher, who
had been in the Second Mile program since fourth grade. He came from a troubled home. He had
gotten to know Sandusky well, and spent multiple nights at Sandusky’s home. His mother thought
of Sandusky as “some sort of angel.” But in November 2008, when he was fifteen, Fisher mentioned
to his mother that he felt uneasy about some of Sandusky’s behavior. Sandusky would hold him
tightly and crack his back. He would wrestle with him in a way that felt odd.
Fisher was referred to a child psychologist named Mike Gillum, a believer in the idea that
victims of sexual abuse sometimes bury their experiences so deep that they can be retrieved only
with great care and patience. He was convinced that Sandusky had sexually abused Fisher, but that
Fisher couldn’t remember it. Fisher met with his therapist repeatedly, sometimes daily, for months,
with Gillum encouraging and coaxing Fisher. As one of the police investigators involved in the case
would say later, “It took months to get the first kid [to talk] after it was brought to our attention.
First it was, ‘Yeah, he would rub my shoulders,’ then it just took repetition and repetition, and
finally we got to the point where he would tell us what happened.” By March 2009, Fisher would
nod in answer to the question of whether he had had oral sex with Sandusky. By June, he would
finally answer, “Yes.”
Here we have two complaints against Sandusky in the span of decade. Neither, however, led to
Sandusky’s apprehension. Why? Once again, because of default to truth.
Did doubt and suspicions rise to the level where they could no longer be explained away in the
1998 case of the boy in the shower? Not at all. The boy’s psychiatrist wrote a report on the case
arguing that Sandusky’s behavior met the definition of a “likely pedophile’s pattern of building trust
and gradual introduction of physical touch, within a context of a ‘loving,’ ‘special’ relationship.”
Note the word likely. Then a caseworker assigned to the incident by the Department of Public
Welfare in Harrisburg investigated, and he was even less certain. He thought the incident fell into a
“gray” area concerning “boundary issues.” The boy was then given a second evaluation by a
counselor named John Seasock, who concluded, “There seems to be no incident which could be
termed as sexual abuse, nor did there appear to be any sequential pattern of logic and behavior
which is usually consistent with adults who have difficulty with sexual abuse of children.” Seasock
didn’t see it at all. He said someone should talk to Sandusky about how to “stay out of such gray-
area situations in the future.”
The caseworker and a local police detective met with Sandusky. Sandusky told them he had
hugged the boy but that there “wasn’t anything sexual about it.” He admitted to showering with
other boys in the past. He said, “Honest to God, nothing happened.” And remember, the boy himself
also said nothing happened. So what do you do? You default to truth.