In 2006, on the eve of the Orange Bowl, Paterno had this to say about a Florida State linebacker named A. J. Nicholson who had been accused of sexually assaulting a woman: “There’s so many people gravitating to these kids. He may not have even known what he was getting into, Nicholson. They knock on the door; somebody may knock on the door; a cute girl knocks on the door. What do you do?”…
In late 2002, Penn State cornerback Anwar Phillips was accused by a classmate of sexual assault, and the university suspended him for two semesters. But before his suspension began, the Nittany Lions were to play Auburn in the middle of January in the Capital One Bowl. Paterno put Phillips in uniform.
And Paterno apparently had support from above. In his 2005 book about Paterno, The Lion in Autumn, sportswriter Frank Fitzpatrick described the uproar that followed. Athletics director Tim Curley, who has been charged with failing to report a crime and perjuring himself in front of the grand jury, insisted in 2003 that it had been “appropriate” for Phillips to play; university administrators said that a miscommunication was to blame.
Paterno refused to say whether he even knew Phillips had been accused or suspended. “What happened, happened. I have very little control over it,” he said that spring, according to Fitzpatrick.
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