Paterno speaks: I didn't know what to do

Longtime Penn State football coach Joe Paterno, fired in the fallout from child sex abuse allegations against former assistant Jerry Sandusky, says he was unsure how to handle the first report about Sandusky that reached him in 2002.

"I didn't know exactly how to handle it, and I was afraid to do something that might jeopardize what the university procedure was," Paterno told The Washington Post in his first extensive public comments since being dismissed by the university in November.

"So I backed away and turned it over to some other people, people I thought would have a little more expertise than I did. It didn't work out that way."

He was referring to a report he received from assistant coach Mike McQueary, who said he had seen Sandusky abusing a boy in a locker-room shower.

Paterno said McQueary did not provide him with specific details about what he saw.

"You know, he didn't want to get specific. And to be frank with you, I don't know that it would have done any good, because I never heard of, of, rape and a man," he said.

Paterno's decision to tell college officials and not police about the 2002 incident was the basis for his dismissal by the Penn State board of trustees on Nov. 9. Also fired was university president Graham Spanier.

The former coach, who faces no charges, spoke in an interview with Washington Post sports columnist Sally Jenkins published on the paper's website Saturday afternoon.

Paterno, 85, was admitted to a hospital in State College, Pa., on Friday because of minor complications from his treatment for lung cancer, which was diagnosed two month ago.

Jenkins interviewed Paterno at his home this week. A family spokesman said Saturday that his condition had improved.

Paterno told the Post he initially was reluctant to speak. "I wanted everybody to settle down," he said.

Sandusky faces 52 charges stemming from accusations by 10 men who say he molested them as juveniles over a 15-year period. Sandusky, 67, has pleaded not guilty to the charges, and no date has been set for his trial. He is under house arrest.

If he is found guilty, "I'm sick about it," Paterno said.

Sandusky 'greatly dismayed' The lawyer for Sandusky says the former Penn State assistant coach is "greatly dismayed" by the way the school's board fired Paterno, his longtime boss.

Attorney Joe Amendola, responding to The Washington Post interview with Paterno, said in a statement to The Associated Press Saturday that Sandusky and his wife were upset by the "knee-jerk reaction" the school took against Paterno.

-- AP