The allegations against former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky are disgusting. The former defensive coordinator is charged with 40 counts of sexual abuse of young boys over a 15-year period. Numerous witnesses have come forward, and it appears likely that Sandusky is guilty of committing the alleged acts.

After the grand jury indicted Sandusky, the public's attention quickly turned to head coach Joe Paterno, affectionately known by the Penn State student body as Joe Pa. Paterno was the face of Penn State football, and arguably the entire university, serving on the coaching staff for 62 years and as the head coach for 46. While Paterno definitely deserves some blame for letting the alleged atrocities occur under his regime, he deserves more respect from Penn State and should not have been as unceremoniously canned, as he was on Nov. 8.

Paterno came under fire after it was revealed that then-graduate assistant Mike McQueary told Paterno that he had witnessed Sandusky performing a sexual act with a young boy in the locker room showers. Paterno alerted Athletic Director Tim Curley, who is now on administrative leave, but never followed up with Curley when charges weren't issued and never went to the police about the incident.

The argument for why Paterno deserved to be fired is thus a compelling one. Not only did the alleged sexual abuse occur under his nose, but he was also made aware of the situation. When told that some sort of sexual misconduct had occurred, Paterno should have gone to the police in addition to his superior. This isn't akin to the case of an employee telling his boss that he'd seen a coworker swiping money from the register rather than reporting the robbery to the cops. Any report of sexual abuse should have immediately been brought to the attention of the Penn State University Police. But on closer examination, the story isn't as black and white as it first appears. For whatever reason, McQueary chose not to tell Paterno the explicit details of what he saw. According to the grand jury report, Paterno told his superior that McQueary had approached him saying that he had seen Sandusky "doing something of a sexual nature to a young boy." What McQueary first told his superior he witnessed is an extremely serious accusation, but it's a far cry from sodomy. However, Paterno was never fully made aware of the extent of the abuse McQueary had witnessed.

In a Nov. 6 public statement, Paterno said that McQueary "at no time related to me the very specific actions contained in the grand jury report," adding that McQueary just said that he'd seen "something inapropriate." Regardless of what you're heard or believe, it is clear that Paterno did not know the whole story. After the story broke, the cries for Paterno's head came immediately, and the coach announced that he would retire at the end of the season. But rather than accept his resignation, the Penn State Board of Trustees decided to fire him immediately.

The question is, why? Penn State chose to fire Paterno in an attempt to contain the scandal, but was it really necessary? If Paterno needed to go, why didn't the board fire McQueary as well? McQueary made the same decision as Joe Pa in choosing to go to his superior rather than the police.

Looking at it objectively, the school chose to dismiss its most famous employee for not reporting an alleged crime to the police despite not being sure how much he actually knew about the incident.

At the end of the day, when a scandal like this happens, the man at the top has to take the blame. It was under Paterno's watch that these atrocities allegedly occurred, and he needed to take the fall. But why did he need to be removed in the way that he did?

If resigning at the end of the year wasn't enough, couldn't he have been asked to immediately step down instead? Paterno made a mistake, and he's admitted it, calling the situation "one of the great sorrows of my life," and adding that "with the benefit of hindsight, I wish I had done more." In the end, it was a huge mistake on Paterno's part, and the situation will no doubt haunt him for the rest of his life. But after more than six decades of service, he should have been able to leave of his own accord.