Abby Drey: What it was like to cover the first week of the Penn State child sex abuse scandal

I was 8 months into my career as a photographer at the Centre Daily Times on a chilly Friday night in November when I was sent to the district magistrate’s office on West College Avenue before a high school football game. My assignment: Get a photo of Second Mile founder and former Penn State football assistant coach Jerry Sandusky if he was arrested.

I didn’t know what he looked like, and I didn’t have a smartphone. There was a small group of us in the parking lot, myself and a local TV person or two, and I tried to have someone describe him to me.

But the arrest didn’t happen that night. It happened the next morning, Nov. 5, 2011, when I was at Penns Cave on an assignment and unable to make it back to town in time. A recent PSU graduate and State College native, Andy Colwell, captured the photo that broke the news.

Sandusky was charged with child sex abuse after a grand jury investigation.

National media flocked to Centre County and so many events from that week stick with me. There were hours of waiting outside of Old Main, in Lemont near Sandusky’s home or on the curb across from Joe Paterno’s house, not sure what would happen next.

On Tuesday morning Paterno’s weekly football press conference was canceled as reporters and camera crews swarmed outside of Beaver Stadium. The trustees acknowledged they were meeting and rumors of Paterno being fired were swirling. It was my day off but I knew the other photographers could use a hand, since it was also Election Day. I was asked to go to Paterno’s house when he’d return home from practice to a mob of students showing their support for him.

Some of the supporters believed the media was blowing the situation out of proportion and tried to block the media from accessing the yard.

After arriving home with a police officer by his side, Paterno went into his house. He waved out of the window to chants from the crowd and came back outside, just in socks. The coach was surrounded by TV cameras and recorders as he thanked the fans but reminded everyone to say a prayer for the victims.

AP

The late Penn State Coach Joe Paterno and his wife, Sue Paterno, stand on their porch Nov. 9, 2011, thanking supporters gathered outside their home in State College.

On Wednesday afternoon I captured Paterno on the practice field, not knowing it’d be the last hours of his 46 years as head coach of the Nittany Lions.

That night I elbowed my way into a room at the Penn Stater among local and national media for a Penn State Board of Trustees press conference. The amount of microphones piled on the front table practically blocked the faces of Steve Garban and John Surma as photographers crawled around on the floor trying to get a good angle. The rest of the trustees sat on risers behind that front table, silent with sullen faces.

Surma read a statement from the board, “It is in the best interests of the university to have a change of leadership, to deal with the difficult issue we are facing. The board of trustees and Graham Spanier have decided effectively immediately, Dr. Spanier (will) no longer be president of the university.”

He continued, “In addition, Joe Paterno is no longer the head football coach effective immediately.”

What came next was a wave of gasps across the room, followed by bursts of camera shutters and journalists yelling questions toward the trustees.

The night turned into chaos, as students rioted downtown. We had a different workflow then, and I was needed to edit the photos from the press conference for the next day’s print edition. Two of our photographers went downtown, one to do photos, the other to capture video.

Friday evening a vigil was held for victims of child sex abuse, a quiet demonstration compared to the previous nights. The stairs and lawn of Old Main glowed with candles from the hundreds of students, faculty, community members and fans that attended.

Saturday’s football game had an eerie feeling — not your normal Beaver Stadium excitement, with a somber crowd showing their support to victims. Nebraska running backs coach Ron Brown led both teams in a prayer before the coin toss.

That first week was just the beginning of the years of fallout from the Sandusky scandal. In the years that followed I covered the death of Joe Paterno, the NCAA sanctions against Penn State football, the removal of the Paterno statue, the long days at the Sandusky trial and the Friday evening verdict that sent him to prison. I continue to have assignments related to the scandal.

Much has changed in the past 10 years, both in our community and in the news industry. Photos from that time are stored on DVDs, and as I dug through them, the memories came flooding back. There were a lot of photos that never were published and hours of waiting for 20 seconds of photos. And it wasn’t the only thing we were tasked with covering that week — in addition to all the breaking news that happened, we were still going to sporting events and covering feature assignments.

The scandal is still brought up frequently, and how it has changed the Penn State community. That whirlwind week was the first national news story I covered. There have been others in the years since, along with other major news events, but nothing compares to that week and the impact it had on our community.