Captivating, shocking, immersive, evocative: This work unveils a sinister truth buried under layers within the electrifying political landscape of the Penn State scandal. This gripping narrative posits a startling new hypothesis, painting sideline politicians and crooks with dark humor and unexpected twists.
Coach Joe Paterno’s world crumbles with his shocking dismissal from Penn State and a terminal cancer diagnosis. Through Mike McQueary’s meteoric rise from ball boy to star quarterback and assistant coach, the story unravels the audacious events that marred the prestigious institution. McQueary witnesses a horrific assault in the showers of the Penn State Athletic Facilities in 2005. The subsequent cover-up embroils him in political intrigue, showing how he navigates treacherous waters where more powerful men falter.
The narrative satirically portrays key figures like Graham Spanier, Tim Curley, Gary Schultz, and Jerry Sandusky within a deeply flawed system. It exposes corrupt dynamics and perfidious games with dark, ironic humor, presenting a shocking new theory about why Ray Gricar disappeared.
"The Cover-Up" blends emotional intensity with humor, depicting State College in the apocalyptic aftermath of the indictment and ensuing trial. It condemns McQueary’s inaction while unveiling a conspiracy, challenging readers to confront uncomfortable truths about power, corruption, and complicity.
It was the type of cold November morning in Happy Valley where you just don’t want to leave the warmth of your bed. Snow covered the ground as did most of the winter. Icycles hung from tree branches and alcoves of the homes in the valley. A treeline rose up suddenly into the ground, surrounding a practice field that had grass covered in drifts of light snow. They slowly jog the loop around the field, their breast fogging in the freezing air.
The majestic pines and mountainsides blurred around him as he tiredly pressed on. The wind had kept blowing and he had kept being blinded by a swirling white blizzard, mini whirls of snow flurries that spiraled up into the air. They groan and grunt noisily as they run drills in the frigid black darkness of the early morning hours. The sweat froze on their skin as soon as it seeped through their pores. Their knuckles reddened and ached with the blistering cold wind.
He had stood there and for the hundredth time thought about quitting. He was sweating from exertion and trembling. He did not have the right winter gear quite yet, or hadn’t have enough of it. Either way the blistering wind was drafty in his football uniform. Exhaustion ate away at his concentration. He searched himself to find his oritinal seed of determination, but had just felt like giving in. His teeth chattered in the bitter gusts of wind. When he finished practice he had showered and headed up an icy sidewalk to go to high school.
The winters were the most brutal. Every morning at the crack of dawn he worked like that, sweating in the miserable cold pitch blackness long before the sun came up. Some mornings the air stopped feeling so cold and he just froze, and the frost made the freezing feel like a burn. It caused tears to run uncontrollably from his eyes as winds whipped and furled around him. He sloshed through big snow drifts that blew across the practice field. All of those winters had felt so endlessly dark and intense. The weeks and years and months had gone by like haze, snowy cyclones spinning round and round in a circular glass dome.
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Backstabbing News Media: When Michael Jacob McQueary was born on Oct. 10, 1974, in Durham, N.C., his buoyant father called Notre Dame’s football office with a message for coach Ara Parseghian: The future starting quarterback for the Fighting Irish just arrived.
A standout high school quarterback, McQueary intended to go to South Bend, just as his father had envisioned. But he was lightly recruited, and it was a surprise when Paterno visited Big Red in the family living room on a Sunday in 1993. After making his pitch about his “success with honor” credo, Paterno asked Mike if he had any questions. No, he said, and signed the letter of intent on the spot.
At Penn State, McQueary was patient, waiting his turn for three seasons behind Kerry Collins and Wally Richardson. Buddies dubbed him Mr. State College because he projected a squeaky-clean image. But some who knew him then insist it was a facade. “He always kept up this appearance of the star quarterback, the model guy,” says a close friend from those days. “But he was far from it.”
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Memorial Field is iconic in Happy Valley. It lacks the grandeur and magnificence of Beaver Stadium, but it had more history. More character. Built in 1837 from limestone quaried locally, it sits in the center of State College off of Fairmount Avenue. Its walls are sunken deep into the ground, it is imposing like a gladiators field. His heart would always pound at the sight of it before a Saturday game. He hadn’t remembered being happy much in high school, he had just been under such intense pressure and demands. He had drifted through it.
The rocks that line the turf of Memorial Stadium sparkle with streaks of crystal in the limestone, glittering like little diamonds. The rocks sparckle in the floodlights that light up field, glittering and glimmering with the birth and deaths of a thousand little boy Nittany Lion dreams. Everyone wanted to play for Joe Paterno. They say football in Georgia or Texas is a religion, in Penn State its a radicalism cult. Every Saturday in the fall the field comes alive, scintillating and sparkling and glowing with their boyish raw hopes and dreams. The majority of them would never play for Joe. Why did he think he would be any different.
The cheers and chants reverberate loudly due to the sunken stone architecture of the stadium. Its an intimate structure and seating is limited. The cheers and chants reverberate up through the chilly fall afternoon air. The High School Mascot sprints onto the field, aptly named a Little Lion because they all hoped to someday become big lions, Nittany Lions specifically. The Little Lion looks like the Nittany Lion except he wears a different colored T’shirt.
Not many people knew this but the colors of Penn State had once been pink and black. The elements of the whether had faded the colors until they turned the color of blue and white, and the Nittany Lion leadership had decided those were much better colors. So the high school had adapted a slight variation of maroon and a bluish or blackish color gray. Everything around them was framed for thier collective destiny. 90% of the graduating class would go to Penn State. They were groomed for that rigorous education early, and there were efforts to indoctrinate them from a very young age.
The little lion flips and turns cartwheels on the field. The stadium glows like a ember set there in the deep recesses of the the center of the valley, it sparkles under the pulsating light of a strange yellow moon. Mike was playing his first high school game. He looked out nervously at the crowd. He recalled never remember ever seeing lights that looked so bright before, his heart had been racing furiously. The pressure was tremendous to perform.
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Backstabbing News Media: Good evening Little Lion fans, welcome back to this fourth quarter of this electrifying game here at Memorial Stadium. The score is tied up as we enter the fourth quarter in a neck and neck game with one of State High’s biggest rivalries in the state. The real show tonight is the quarterback Mike McQueary, a freshmen athlete, who has made several notable plays in this game.
McQueary surveys the defense. He sees the blitz coming, but he is quick as a flash. Johnson swinging out to the flat, he’s open, he’s open. Mike McQueary throws, Johnson catches it and off he goes. He’s at the 30, my god he is at the 20, and now the ten! Another touch down for the Little Lions! What a play!
This game has been driven by McQueary’s quick thinking. He saw the pressure, and did the rest. The defense did not stand a chance on that one. The Little Lions are firing on all cylinders tonight. Who is this freshmen Mike McQueary? Where in the heck did this player come from? He’s just a freshmen I think! Wow look at him go, he can not only throw but look how quick he is. Very interesting, there is one to watch.
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If he could go back in time to talk to himself in high school, Mike would tell that kid not to worry so much. He would assure him that all his dreams would eventually come true. He would tell himself not to beat himself up so much and to just take it easy and enjoy the ride. But he was so stressed out, the only thing in life he wanted to do was play for Joe. But everyone around him also wanted that, and most of them would not get it. Who the hell did he think he was to think he was special or different? It was the uncertainty that got to him. It caused him a great deal of stress, he had just wanted it so very badly.
Unlike so many other athletes, McQueary’s little boy football dreams would not die at Memorial Stadium, and he would go onto play for Penn State. In fact, he had been offered scholarships at other universities. His loyalty and love of Joe Paterno burned steadily in his heart. He had felt it even then that their lives would for ever become entangled, destined to intersect. He never forgot the first time he put on Nittany Lion field and stepped onto the turf grass of Beaver Stadium. He had wiped the tears away from his eyes under his helmet, embarrassed by the unexpected emotion he had felt. He looked at where he was as he stood in the stadium tunnel and just wanted to kiss the grass. He had been so utterly grateful for everything. He knew how lucky he was and he had never for a minute forgot it.
“What does that feel like?”
“What?”
“What does that feel like to stand there with 80,000 fans screaming at the edge of that dark tunnel.”
“Nothing in the world can compare,” he had gushed to his brother. “Its such a rush I can’t even describe it.”
“You always were such a nervous kid.”
“I didn’t sleep before that game I was so scared.” He hadn’t slept at all Friday night, and worrying the lack of sleep would have detrimental effects on his game only served to keep him up later.
“You still think about Penn State football,” his brother wandered.
They lay in the grass and looked up at the sky one fourth of July at their parents house.
“Of course I do,” he replied, “That feeling of walking out and seeing and hearing the crowd still makes the hairs on my neck stand on end. I felt like I was king of the world back then.”
With a nod from Joe Paterno, the athletes burst through the tunel like a sea of blue and white, a giant tidal wave. When your down on the field the noise is deafening. The ground vibrates underneath their feet like some earthquake, as the fans stomp their feet and grow noisier as the team runs out into the field.
That first time he had felt a whirlwind of emotions. First he had cried, then he was nervous again, then he felt this aching desire just to play the game. And when that had finally come over him, he began to relax. Suddenly all the madness and chaos of the crowds and bands and noise faded away. When he stepped onto Joe’s field, he was at peace. He only heard air and saw the glow of the stadium lights. For the first time, he had developed a love of the game. Something about Joe made him a little less anxious and more confident, and his love of football grew in those years. Time was a law that didn’t exist when he played for Joe, and he would lose himself. Time would stop entirely, and then he would look up and it would be the end of the fourth quarter. He always had wanted to keep going. He had developed a deep attachment to the sports, a pure selfish love of the game.
It was electrifying.
There was a lot of noise and on field communication involved in football, coordinating plays and removing and placing players in the line up. When there are 100,000 fans yelling and both the school bands are having a cometition at who can play the loudest music, you have to get creative with hand signals or what we would call a “silent count” before snapping the ball into the start of the play. Of course modern technology had solved this problem with in helmet microphones and headphones so the coaches could communicate with the players.
But Paterno was a traditionalist and refused to use them, still refusing when the entre team adapted the technology. Joe Paterno would just point at someone wearing head phones and then bark instructions, demanding to know what they said. They had been trying to get him to wear the headphones for years, suspecting he might like the transparency of hearing everything. But he had staunchly refused.
Mike blossomed as an athlete in those years and had high hopes of going further. He was a subpar student and his father was a physician who always reminded him of his academic inadequacy. He was a B or C student. He tried, he just wasn’t book smart. He was people smart and athlectically gifted. He needed to excel at one thing in his life if he were never going to be a doctor as his father had always dreamed. He needed to just be good at football.
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Backstabbing News Media: Before the 1997 season, Paterno picked McQueary to be his starter and named the senior a team captain. Big Red played the part to perfection. He insisted on being one of the last players to run out of the tunnel, exhibiting the humility and team-first approach that Paterno preached and admired.
The Nittany Lions were No. 1 in the AP preseason poll but finished 9-3. When the NCAA vacated PSU’s wins from 2011 back to 1998, Paterno’s last official W became one quarterbacked by Big Red, who was one of five finalists for the Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award. But he wasn’t taken in the 1998 NFL draft and spent a frustrating year shuttling between dead-end gigs for the Raiders and the Scottish Claymores of NFL Europe.
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He had wanted so badly to be drafted and on several occasions he almost had been chosen by the NFL, but he had always found just inches short. He had fumbled around playing for the minor leagues, but found he lacked the drive without Paterno screaming in his ear and he lacked the discipline and had partied the entire summer in Europe. For being an aspiring professionally athlete, he had become quite out of shape. He was also struggling and uncertain what he was going to do with the rest of his life. He hadn’t looked beyond the practice fields much and didn’t believe he was good at anything except football. That was the narrative that was spun by his father his whole life and the one that he had believed.
Things were coming to a head at Thanksgiving. He was in Heathrow Airport in London hungover taking a flight to Philly. He felt a dread in his heart knowing his father would be critical that he had been a professional athlete who had grown slightly out of shape. He would apply pressure on Mike and criticize relentlessly. That last year he had started with good intentions of focusing on devoping his talent on the semi pro teams in a hopes of being recruited by the NFL. He was a kid distracted by European women and exotic places. It had been a year of messing around without structure or discipline, funded by his father bank account. His game overall had grown poor. His attention was diverted by the free drinks in every European country they toured. Women were readily eager and available, and he had been quite distracted by them too.
The money the semi pro league played players as a monthly stipend was hardly enough to live on, particularly if your going out every night. He lost himself for a little bit in Europe. For once in his life he had cut loose, relaxing a bit. By the end of the year he knew his NFL dreams would never come to fruition. His father had picked him up from the airport and surveyed his son with criticism. Mike had hung his head, he knew he could’ve worked harder for the NFL.
“Yes the program with the semi leagues was not as structured as Penn State,” he had said abruptly as they drove in a cold silence. “Its hard to find places to practice when you tour the way we toured. The off season should give me plenty of time to get into fighting shape. Really we are talking about-
“I think you’re done,” his father interjected. “You failed. You are just blowing through my money galleventing a fool through Europe.”
“You know I busted my ass through high school and college and needed the time, I had a hell of a time and I appreciate you.”
“What the fuck are you going to do with your life?”
“I want to try another season,” he declared. “If I can just hit the NFL, I’ll never worry about money again.”
“You need a job.”
“This is my job,” Mike had said defensively. He had known in his heart it was over but stubbornly had not wanted to admit it. He didn’t know what the hell he was going to do with his life.
“I”m not funding your partying lifestyle any longer. Its time to grow up and be a man. Do something with your life.”
“Do what?”
“I don’t know, I doubt you could get into another grad school. I thnk Penn State would take you but your grades are shit. So no one else is going to accept you. You don’t have the prerequisites for medical school. Hell, I don’t know what you could.”
John McQueary was a man who was accustomed to ordering people around and having people meticulously follow his every command. Surgeons can be quite demanding and controlling characters. He never trusted his son to do anything right. He had finally decided that Mike should attend more school and live at home. Perhaps he could do a bridge program to medical school, he had thought hopefully. But he knew his son would likely not cut it academically and it be crap shoot to see if he would even be accepted.
“I knew you weren’t going to do a damn thing with your life,” his father said, surveying Mike’s Penn State transcripts.
“A 2.7?”
“I mean I failed algebra,” Mike pointed out. “Its that one class that’s bringing me down.”
“Considering your undergraduate education, you are on a fast track to nowhere. If you aren’t accepted into the the program at Penn State athletics we ought to look at construction.”
“I don’t mind that,” Mike had replied.
“I do! What did I pay all this money for your education so you can be a common laborer.”
“It’s Penn State. They are going to accept me. They would accept me with D’s. I’m Mike McQueary.” Mike had confidently replied. Of course he had been right. Nepotism was deeply rooted into the Penn State culture, and now that he had played quarterback for Joe he could do no wrong.
“Don’t squander this opportunity,” his father had said.
“Why would you think that?”
“You fail at everything in life,” his father had shot back bitterly.
The Ganters were close friends with the McQueary’s and the two families had boys around the same age that both played football for Joe. Fran Ganter was an assistant coach for Joe. He had coached Mike for many years and he was quite close with Big Red. Fran Ganter’s position at Penn State had of course crossed his father’s mind.
He had heard Chris Ganter had been applying to medical schools, and he was bitter with Mike over his grades. It was an undergraduate GPA he couldn’t go back and change. His father looked at him and just named every shortcoming he ever had.
For weeks and months Mike had attended school, miserably taking classes and living at home. He was desperately focused on maintaining above a 3.0 just to keep the peace at home. He was so terrible at school. He hated it. He wasn’t sure quite how his father had orchestrated it.
Despite being a man of science, his father had alway been a socially astute man. Mobile. Networked. He had a social intelligence that was close to political at moments. He had not sure how he had approached Fran, but he had gotten a surprising call from Fran.
“Why don’t you just come work for Penn State athletics?” He had asked. “Your father mentioned you needed a direction. I think you should come with Joe.”
“I hadn’t even begun to think that was an option,” Mike responded.
Suddenly a week later he was sitting in Joe Paternoster’s office. The old man had not seen him in two years. He got out of his desk and came across the room and gave a hug.
“How you doing Big Red?”
“I didn’t make the NFL.”
Joe shrugged, “Doesn’t mean your a failure at life. Let me ask you something, did you have a good time.”
“It was the best time of my life.”
“Well there you have it,” Joe had assured him.
His job for Joe wasn’t glamorous initially. Joe made people start at the bottom. He was picking up balls on the field, cleaning gear, refilling gaterade buckets, cleaning the trash out the locker rooms after practice. But being back around Joe and back in the football world had brought a happy change in his life.
The promotion had come because of the head phones specifically.
Joe was having a conniption fit. “Everyone’s communicating with everyone else on the field and nobody tells me anything. I should have never let those head phones in anyways.”
It had been Ranters idea to get him a sort of courier. Someone who could wear the headphones Joe refused to wear and communicate with Joe.
“I like that,” Joe had declared. “You! Big Red. Get over here and put these on.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“I want you to tell me whatever they are saying,” Joe ordered. “I don’t know what is going on anymore with damned technology.”
“These are easy to work,” Mike assured him. “I’ll help you.”
“Nope,” said Ganter, “Don’t even try it. We’ve been trying for four years to get him to wear those. He won’t do it.”
“I won’t be able to hear myself think with that bull covering my ears,” Paterno lamented in frustration.
It was a simple enough job. Mike listened to what was going on, Joe told him what to say back and he said it. But the position also required he stay within feet of Joe at all times. Over the last month, Joe had grown quite comfortable and enjoyed that nervous red headed kid scurrying about his feet following him. He had a nice presence, very respectful. Of course initially they had suffered a few hiccups as things kept getting lost in translation. But eventually Joe Paterno’s on field communication had improved nicely and he had felt like he had been more in control.
Mike had been early every day, which Joe really liked. It was game day and the stadium was already alive with activity preparing for the afternoon game. Mike stood yawning and flipping through the plays on his clipboard. He was bad at studying but he could memorize 400 football plays.
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Backstabbing News Media: Then Paterno offered him a job. Again, McQueary instantly accepted. He did odd chores in the football office for a year before moving up to graduate assistant. On the sideline, McQueary, wearing a black headset, served as the conduit between Paterno, who refused to wear a headset, and the offensive coaches in the press box. To fans, it appeared
McQueary took the brunt of Paterno’s cartoonish, profanity-laced fury, when in reality it meant the coach trusted him and was preparing him for the next rung up the ladder.
McQueary had a similar approach to players. Their first impression of the young assistant was that he was demanding, hardheaded and, at times, a short-fused bully. But McQueary implored them to confide their life problems, and in most cases, Big Red’s combination of curiosity and concern won them over.
In 2004 Paterno promoted him to receivers coach and recruiting coordinator.
McQueary knew that his boss was a stickler for the rules. (Paterno once scolded his young son, Jay, for using a PSU pencil to do homework, saying it was PSU property.) So if McQueary saw anything suspect, like when an alumnus found a roundabout way to secure a sideline pass, he’d report the incident directly to Paterno, whom he always considered a second father.
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“Hey you! You!” he heard a voice cry out from the stands behind him, “You there Mike McQueary.” It was early for fans to arrive and he had been quite confused by the voice coming from the stand. He looked up to see Jerry Sandusky. Jerry had never coached Mike directly, he had been retired by that point of time. But he arrogantly liked to make demands of Mike, and overall Mike had found the man strange and condescending. But everyone found aspects of Jerry to be strange even before they knew he was a pedophile.
“Would you mind autographing this football?” Jerry Sandusky asked. He opened hte gate and walked onto the practice field. Mike knew Joe wouldn’t like that. He didn’t want anyone on the field before he ordered it, particularly people who weren’t athletes. This of course, Jerry had known. He had after all worked for Joe for 35 years. He knew that was a pet peeve, Jerry just didn’t care what Joe thought. He had spent 35 years worrying what Joe thought and then Joe had kind of sold him down the river. Jerry was resentful because he always thought he would take on the role of Joe Paterno. He figured in 35 years he was entitled to it, but for some mysterious reason Mike would not find out for many years later, Joe had changed course and Sandusky had suddenly retired.
Jerry and the little boy strode across the field. The little boy carried a bright red balloon which blew about him wildly in the wind. He giggled looking at it. He had been very excited. He had never spent time alone with Jerry, and he felt special to have Jerry’s full attention and be on the real life Nittany Lion football field. He hadn’t seen anything this exciting in his life as of yet. Like most of Jerry’s charity cases, he had come from poverty.
“Joe’s not going to like this. You being on the field.”
“Just sign the football,” Jerry said dismissively. “We can’t find any players, you’re going to have to do.”
“You mean he’s not a Nittany Lion?” asked the kid.
“Sure I am. I am a coach,” Mike explained. “Before I was a coach I was Nittany Lion.”
“What do you mean your a coach,” Jerry asked, his eyes narrowing. He had seen Joe and Big Red on the sidelines but had not heard about the promotion. He still thought Mike was a ball boy sludging buckets of gatorade around for 18 year olds. “He made you a coach?”
“Yep,” said Mike nervously looking at his watch. “You guys gotta get off the field. He is going to storm out here and have fit if he sees you.”
“You don’t get to order me around with your new promotion,” Jerry had said suddenly and looked defiantly at Mike.
MIke held his palm up in the air as if to surrender. He had been perplexed by the hostility in Jerry’s tone. He wasn’t sure if Jerry treated everyone like that or if it was just him, but he had always been abrasive. Condesncending would be a good way to describe it, Mike was unsure of what he had done offend the man.
“I would never dream of it Mr. San-
“Coach Sandusky. I have emeritus status.”
“I would never think of it Coach Sandusky.”
“Why did you retire anyways? You’re out here so much you could still work here.”
“I wanted to spend more time with the kids,” he said frowning. Mike had sensed there was more to the story but Jerry had been pesty and he did not want to push it, so he didn’t pry. Frankly he didn’t care.
“You do what you want, but if Joe comes out here I’m going to tell him I told you all to get off.”
The little boy’s red balloon had been ripped from his hands and he had suddenly began to cry. Jerry’s attention immediately refocused.
“Hey we’ll get you another one, Squirt.”
“I think they got a whole bunch of Penn State ones in the tunnel already that their blowing up. It’ll just be another color. Blue or white,” Mike had informed.
“Real Nittany Lions don’t cry,” Jerry told the boy.
“Never?”
“Sure they do,” Mike interrupted. “I see athletes cry all the time. You cry if you feel like it. Sometimes I cry.”
Jerry glared at him, and it had been almost territorial. As if Mike had spoken out of place or said something rude. He glared at Mike as if he were annoyed he even spoke to the kid.
“HEY! HEY! HEY WHAT ARE YOU TWO KNUCKLEHEADS DOING ON MY FIELD. THEY JUST TOUCHED UP THE PAINT! HEY!” Joe had caught a glimpse of them from the tunnel and of course had flown into a spat of irritation, crossing the field. Joe lost his temper a lot. People portray him like this saint. Joe would chew your ass out in a heart beat, and he had been coming for them. “BIG RED WHAT ARE YOU DOING LETTING PEOPLE ON THE FIELD? YOU KNOW BETTER THAN THAT~!!”
“Jerry also does,” Mike had replied.
“I’ve had enough of you today,” Jerry had snarled. The interaction had just been so strange. Mike didn’t understand the hostility. He had not known about the 1998 incident or the shady details surrounding Jerry’s sudden retirement. But that was happy valley culture for you, such matters were kept private. They didn’t talk about negative things, almost ever. The culture had always been to fake like everything was perfect when it never was.
But Mike had thought it funny there had been no retirement party. No parting statement or kind words from Joe Paterno to mark his retirement in the press. He had heard that Jerry had tried and failed to get a couple of jobs coaching in the NFL, but it hadn’t worked. Jerry looked good on paper but he was socially awkward and almost childlike in the way he communicated. Jerry was ultimately rejected from the NFL positions he had applied for and left with the Second Mile. In a bonehead move he decided he wanted to start a “Junior Varsity Penn State Team,” and had approached Old Main with a proposal. Old Main had pleasantly humored him, but it had been a stupid idea to begin with. Jerry’s presence around the field was almost the same as before he retired, he walked around that place like he owned it.
Mike watched Jerry with a confused expression. He wasn’t sure how or why he had offended that man but it gave him anxiety to think of it. In retrospect something about Jerry had always given him anxiety, almost like Mike could sense there was something sinister about it even before he had known. He picked the kid up and put him on his shoulders, and approached Joe largely ignoring him as Joe was yelling at Jerry for being on the field. Mike suddenly had recalled th local rumors circulating as he watched Jerry with the kid. He looked so paternal and dad like, all of those shady rumors could not have been true. Just look at him with those kids, nobody would let him around those kids if something like that were true. He didn’t think of it again, until he had seen it first hand.