Rick Pedone
Sports Editor

Michael Timpson describes what has happened at Penn State University as “heart wrenching” and “unfortunate,” but the former Nittany Lions receiver wishes that his coach, Joe Paterno, was here to defend himself against the allegations that Paterno was part of an administrative conspiracy that covered up for convicted child molester Jerry Sandusky, the former PSU linebackers coach.

“You especially feel the anguish that the victims are going through. Nothing is more important than that,” Timpson, the former Poinciana High coach, said Monday after the NCAA’s penalties against Penn State were announced.

“I don’t care about taking down a statue, I could care less about taking away scholarships and wins,” Timpson said. “That stuff pales in importance to what happened to those young men.”

Yet, Timpson believes that Paterno’s legacy has been prematurely tarnished because, he said, the Freeh Report, an eight-month investigation into charges that Sandusky molested children on the Penn State campus for more than a decade while Paterno and PSU administrators did nothing to stop him, is being regarded as the final judgment of the tragic events.

“Everyone is taking it as gospel,” Timpson said. “I just wish that we could hear from the main person (Paterno) who was involved.”

Paterno died in January, two months after he was fired by the PSU Board of Trustees.

Timpson said Paterno is being judged guilty based on the Freeh Report, which was compiled after investigators interviewed hundreds of individuals about Sandusky’s actions.

“He (Paterno) didn’t rape young boys,” Timpson said. “What’s contained in that report, the things about him being involved with that, I don’t believe that to be true. I’m not in denial. I’m just staying that I don’t believe it to be true. Whoever did these things needs to pay their dues.”

Timpson said the allegations that Paterno was part of a conspiracy to cover for a child abuser goes against everything he remembers from his time as a Nittany Lions football player.

“I never saw or heard of anything like this with Sandusky during my time there from 1985 to '88. For the man I entrusted my life to for that time, it’s hard for me to believe these things. I go back to what (Paterno) said, that he wishes he had done more,” Timpson said.

The NCAA fined Penn State $60 million, reduced its scholarships to 15 per year and banned the team from making bowl appearances or sharing in Big Ten bowl proceeds for the next four years. The NCAA also expunged all of the team’s victories from 1998 to 2011.

“It’s going to be awfully difficult,” for the university’s football program to overcome those sanctions, Timpson said. “The part to me about this that is really shameful, and again I’m not talking about the true victims and that is those young men who suffered, is that it’s like (Paterno’s) legacy is dead based on this one report. I wish he was here to defend himself.”

Timpson said that Paterno’s legend might have grown too big while he was at Penn State, but he said that is common in college football.

“All the coaches are too big, because the game itself is big,” he said. “Nick Saban has a statue at Alabama, doesn’t he? Think of all the great presidents at these universities. Do they all have statues? No, but the coaches do. It’s just the way it is in our culture today.”

Timpson, a former NFL receiver who coached one season at Poinciana in 2010, spent the 2011 season as an assistant coach at Orlando Freedom High. He said that he was stepping back from coaching for at least this season.

“I have to see how I feel about it right now,” he said. “I’ve seen some things both in college and high school that are disturbing to me, and I have to decide if I want to get back in that venue and participate again. I know I can’t do that as an assistant, because I can’t make the changes that need to be made.”