I think his reputation is tarnished. It already was in my book as he stayed too long and the game passed him up. Great coach in his prime but staying too long and this scandal will hurt his legacy.
I think if I was notified of such a matter, I would watch the person like a hawk. Also, I would have reported it to the local authorities as well as the college chain of command. This would include the police and the Department of Jobs and Family Services which investigate incidents of child abuse. I would have sent staff out in buddy teams from that point on. No more Jerry on the loose, he would be accompanied by another staff. But I would do that to all staff to protect the children and also protect the staff from allegations.
I don't know if any of these steps were taken. If he missed any of them it was mishandled. Here is what wikipedia had, not that it makes it credible but if it is true, then it was badly handled.
According to the first indictment, in 2002 assistant coach Mike McQueary, then a Penn State graduate assistant,[41] said he walked in on Sandusky anally raping a ten-year-old boy. The next day, McQueary reported the incident to head coach Joe Paterno. (Later while testifying during the Sandusky trial, McQueary spoke about what he had relayed to Paterno: "I told him and I want to make sure I'm clear. I made sure he knew it was sexual and wrong. There was no doubt.")[42] Paterno told McQueary at the time, “You did what you had to do. It is my job now to figure out what we want to do.”[43] At the Preliminary Hearing for Tim Curley and Gary Shultz, McQueary testified that Paterno was "shocked and saddened, kind of slumped back on his chair." He said that Paterno told him: "I'm sorry you had to see that. It's terrible. And he said, I need to think and tell some people about what you saw and I'll let you know what...what we'll do next."[44] Paterno then informed Penn State athletic director Tim Curley. At the Preliminary Hearing, McQueary also testified that he "believed" Sandusky was having "some type of intercourse" with the boy. He said that this was based on "the positioning" of Sandusky and the boy, but that he never saw "insertion" or "penetration" and is not "100 percent sure" that intercourse was occurring.[45]
Curley and senior vice president for finance and business Gary Schultz (who oversaw the Penn State police department) called McQueary to a meeting a week and a half later.[46] During the meeting McQueary said that he relayed in "graphic detail" what he had witnessed in the locker-room showers at the Lasch Building. At the Preliminary Hearing of Curley and Shultz, McQueary testified that he would have given Curley and Shultz a "rough idea" of the body positions of the individuals in the shower, and would have described the activity as "extremely sexual and I thought some kind of intercourse was going on."[47]
The indictment accused Curley and Schultz not only of failing to tell the police, but also of falsely telling the grand jury that McQueary never informed them of the alleged sexual activity.[48]
The one which got him caught.
An investigation was initiated by the Pennsylvania attorney general’s office into sexual abuse allegations against Sandusky in 2008. The charges were initiated at Central Mountain High School, where a student made allegations of abuse against Sandusky.[35] The investigation reached a new level of urgency when it became apparent that the allegations were not an isolated set of incidents, but that Sandusky had a strategy to cull vulnerable boys (whom he would first approach when they were 8–12 years-old) through the Second Mile organization, targeting his potential victims at will (boys tended to be from homes without a father present), at which point Sandusky employed classic child grooming strategies (offering trips to football games, gifts — leading to incremental touching). This form of manipulation is generally the modus operandi of pedophiles as a ploy to build trust while invading personal boundaries — all part of instilling confusion, leading up to and part of the sexual abuse (Sandusky often initiated overtly sexual behavior in the locker room showers). "The testimony of one victim who said he was forced to put his hand on Sandusky’s erection when he was 8 to 10 years old particularly outraged investigators. 'The poor kid was too young to even understand what an erection was,' one said."[36
Note, it was not Penn State, that initiated this investigation, but rather a high school, Central Mountain High School this was the one that stopped Sandusky's acts of molestation. The NCAA should not be the sole investigator of a crime as they have a vested interest in the money involved.
It is a reality that jocks and coaches if they are good get a lot more leeway than normal folks. I got drunk in the service, broke a brick wall with a punch and ripped a door off it's hinges and I got off scott free because I was the Center of the Army Post basketball team, the Sergeant Major was my coach who was to discipline me, I got told never to do it again, which I did not. But I am sure if was not scoring 27 ppg, that I would have got thrown out of the service. This was small fry stuff, imagine a program like Penn State where they approach dietyhood in PA. It is not right, I later declined promotion in the service because I didn't think it was right to be promoted just because I could ball it up. I also, got to go home on leave once during a leave freeze during Desert Storm. My Commander told me if we won the tourney he would validate my leave, I scored 25 a game and I got to go home and get married but it was conditional. I imagine at Penn State and every college there is stuff like this going on.
While, I think they mishandled this on many levels, part of me thinks it is even less fair, that players got punished for something they did not do. I hate seeing a Coach like Calipari walk and the program punished. I 'd rather see a huge fine than to punish those who are left.