Rarely do the happenings within a university’s football program touch the nation’s conscience the way they have at Penn State University.

The release two weeks ago of the Louis Freeh Report, detailing Coach Joe Paterno’s and university administrators’ ineptitude and inaction against convicted child molester Jerry Sandusky for more than a decade was shocking, especially to those who considered Paterno to be the gold standard among college football coaches.

Sandusky, a former assistant coach at Penn State until 1998, used his influence at the university to gain access to the football program’s facilities where he on several occasions sexually molested children.

Sandusky is the ultimate villain of this horrific tragedy, but the apparent reluctance of Paterno, President Graham Spanier, Vice President Gary Schultz and Athletic Director Timothy Curley to aggressively pursue reports of Sandusky’s actions for so long leaves decent people shaking their heads in bewilderment.

How could men of such accomplishment and intelligence sleep at night knowing that a child molester was active on their campus?

“There were more red flags here than you could count over a long period of time,” Freeh, the former FBI director, said in his report, which concluded an eight-month investigation.

Paterno, revered nationally for his generosity and ethics, and college football’s most successful coach until the scandal broke last November, died in January.

His reputation will be forever tarnished for his inaction against Sandusky, a good friend.

Schultz and Curley face criminal charges, and Spanier have since resigned.

The NCAA on Monday, in an unprecedented action, fined Penn State $60 million, placed the football program on five years probation, banned it from bowl appearances for four years and reduced available scholarships from 25 to 15 per year for the next four years, effectively crippling what has traditionally been one of the nation’s premier college football programs.

The NCAA also stripped the football program of all victories since 1998, reducing Paterno’s win total at PSU from 409 to 298.

A statue honoring Paterno, a coach at Penn State for 61 years, was taken down.

Former Penn State players, understandably, have difficulty accepting that their coach would have willingly allowed Sandusky to do his heinous deeds. Many believe the Freeh Report to be flawed and hope that Paterno’s name will be cleared.

What we all can take from this terrible event is that our vigilance must never waver where the safety of children is involved.

No hint of any type of child abuse should ever be ignored and must be immediately reported to authorities.

That seems so logical, yet too many young lives have been shattered because we often do not heed the warning signs.