There are many different ways people absolve themselves of responsibility.

“I couldn’t have known it would turn out like this.”

“I think I did enough.”

“I didn’t want to cause trouble.”

“I didn’t want to get involved.”

“It seemed like the right thing to do at the time.”

“I thought it would do more harm than good.”

“Well, hindsight is 20/20.”

When the mantle of responsibility is small, excuses seem more feasible. We’ve all taken the path of least resistance at some point.

However, there are moments when no excuse can recuse you from acting.

Moments when you stand in the gap between what is, and what should be.

Moments when you have the power to make a difference or take a stand.

It’s certainly not easy to bear responsibility. To say the hard thing. To deal with the consequences.

What if everything gets worse before it gets better? What if I hurt more than I help? What if I put myself out there, and no one listens? What if nothing changes?

Is it worth it?

I spent years in various positions at a summer camp, from serving as an assistant counselor at 15, to becoming the program director at 28. My level of responsibility for the children we welcomed and the staff I worked with was different in each role, but at the core of each position there was an ironclad understanding: whatever else we might do in a day, our priority was to keep the kids safe.

Safe in the water, safe on the rock wall, safe in the middle of a soccer game, safe on a hike through the woods. If we wanted to plan something or do something, the first question we had to answer was simple: would the kids be safe? And if the answer was ambiguous, or there wasn’t a way to guarantee their well-being, we wouldn’t do it.

When I became the director of the camp, I considered buying a t-shirt that said “NO” because I was so tired of giving that answer, day in, day out. I wanted everyone to have fun — but my responsibility to protect our campers had to win out. That line in the sand didn’t always make me popular. And tough things still happened, even when we took every precaution possible. But I could lie in bed every night fairly secure in the knowledge that I’d done what I could for our kids.

Several times in that span of years, I was obligated to report abuse.

We were trained to be aware of the signs of emotional, physical, or sexual interference, and to be ready to listen to kids who arrived with heavy burdens. We knew not to ask leading questions or to push for information if we suspected something, but more often than not, the secrets and pain would emerge without any sort of encouragement. At that point, we’d be required to report what we’d been told. Not to assume what had happened or to condemn anyone or to push for more information, but to report and follow through to the full extent the law allowed. If you suspected something was up and you failed to report it, you could end up in serious hot water.

But it wasn’t the legal obligation that made me take that difficult step, over and over; it was my inherent belief that I was responsible for those children. I was entrusted with their care. To ignore that something had, and might continue to hurt them was not an option.

When I told kids it was my responsibility to tell someone who could help them, most of them would cry — sometimes out of relief, sometimes out of anger, and sometimes out of fear. I hated those moments, because it felt like I was hurting them again. And as is often the case with hidden truth bubbling to the surface, it was going to get worse before it got better.

I was yelled at.

I was threatened.

I was called a liar.

I was told that I’d ruined a life.

But as long as I reported only what I’d seen and been told — no extrapolation, no assumptions, no rushing to judgment, no witch hunts, no gossiping or breaking of trust — I could live with the response. From there, the law dictated we had to leave it in the hands of the authorities, to avoid posing additional risk to the child, or their family, or my staff. We did everything up to the point we could do no more, and followed up in any way we could from there.

Sometimes that was the hardest part. Always that was the hardest part.

To hit the wall of “all I could do.”

“All I could do” still haunts me sometimes.

That’s why I can’t understand what’s happening at Penn State right now.

I don’t understand why anyone wouldn’t have done more if there was more to do.

When you weren’t handcuffed by rules.

When you held a position of authority that gave you the power to follow through — and the responsibility, morally and ethically.

Former Penn State Nittany Lions coach Joe Paterno “fulfilled his legal obligation”, according to counsel, because he told Tim Curley what he’d been told.

His former close co-worker and friend of more than three decades, Jerry Sandusky, was suspected of doing — witnessed doing — something beyond horrifying, repeatedly, over the course of several years, to those most vulnerable among us… and he “fulfilled his legal obligation.”

The locker room Joe gave pep talks in for years — where wins were celebrated, where losses were mourned, where character was refined, where standards were set– was potentially the site of incomprehensible evil… and he “fulfilled his legal obligation.”

There were questions to be asked, reports to follow up on, and kids who might need help. But Joe — a father of five children who attended Penn State, a grandfather of seventeen, and a coach and mentor to hundreds and thousands more young people — had “fulfilled his legal obligation,” so that would be the end of it.

Until it wasn’t. And it won’t be.

So to Mr. Paterno and those fans and students who support his choice — if you can call a riot “supportive” — I leave you with five things that are true:

Children are more important than football. Adults are responsible to know this.

Children are more important than not making waves or putting a dent in a friendship. Adults are responsible to know this.

Children are more important than your reputation or your ranking. Adults are responsible to know this.

Children deserve protection and safety, and to be made a priority. Adults are responsible to know this.

If you choose to believe and act otherwise, you bear responsibility for your choice.

And for that, there is no absolution.