Nike drops Joe Paterno’s name from child care building

Published 12:00 am Thursday, July 12, 2012

Nike Inc. said Thursday that it would remove Joe Paterno’s name from its Washington County campus child care center.

Nike President Mark Parker said recent revelations in a Penn State University investigation into a sex abuse scandal involving assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky prompted the global athletic wear giant to take Paterno’s off the center.

“I have been deeply saddened by the news coming out of this investigation at Penn State,” said Parker, a 1977 Penn State graduate, in a statement posted on Nike’s website. “It is a terrible tragedy that children were unprotected from such abhorrent crimes. With the findings released today, I have decided to change the name of our child care center at our World Headquarters. My thoughts are with the victims and the Penn State community.”

The Paterno center provides child care to about 200 children up to five years old on the sprawling Nike World Campus near Beaverton.

A 267-page report by former FBI Director Louis Freeh released Thursday found that several top Penn State University officials, including revered football coach Paterno, failed to take action to stop the abuse of children by Sandusky.

On June 22, Sandusky, an assistant with the Penn State program for decades, was found guilty of 45 criminal charges related to child sexual abuse.

Freeh’s investigation began Nov. 21 and included more than 400 interviews and a search of thousands of emails and other data. The report found that four of the most powerful people at Penn State, including Paterno, failed to stop the child abuse and even concealed it for more than a decade. Most of their decisions were made to avoid “bad publicity,” Freeh concluded.