STATE COLLEGE, PA – NOVEMBER 09: Penn State University head football coach Joe Paterno watches his team during practice on November 9, 2011 in State College, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Rob Carr/Getty Images)

Some very jarring news has emerged in regards to the Jerry Sandusky child abuse scandal on Thursday. The news comes in light of a line in a court order on a related insurance coverage case currently involving Penn State.

According to the court filing, the line states that one of Penn State’s insurers claimed that a child had reportedly approached Penn State head coach Joe Paterno in 1976 and told him that he was sexually molested by Sandusky.

This court order also goes into further detail in regards to the Sandusky allegations, which tie back into the ongoing insurance case at Penn State:

The order also cites separate references in 1987 and 1988 in which unnamed assistant coaches witnessed inappropriate contact between Sandusky and unidentified children, and a 1988 case that was supposedly referred to Penn State’s athletic director at the time.

All, the opinion states, are described in victims’ depositions taken as part of the case, but that, according to a PennLive review of the case file, are apparently under seal.

“There is no evidence that reports of these incidents ever went further up the chain of command at PSU,” Judge Gary Glazer wrote, in determining that because Penn State’s executive officers weren’t aware of the allegations, he would not bar those claims from insurance coverage.

The insurance case involves big money for Penn State – other sections of Glazer’s order find that the university cannot claim coverage for Sandusky settlements for abuses started between 1992 and 1999.”

This latest allegation surrounding the late Paterno is huge, especially given the controversy surrounding exactly how much the late head coach knew about Sandusky’s allegations and his actions to the contrary, given the decades both spent together at the program. Many staunch supporters of Paterno have argued that the coach was deceived by Sandusky for years and that there has not been any evidence of the legendary head coach covering up his colleague’s actions .Prior to his death in 2012, Paterno was not charged with any crimes.

The emergence of this latest news that Paterno may have been approached about the events sooner than initially thought is a huge bombshell for Penn State, especially as it still continues to recover and pick up the pieces from the ramifications brought about by the sex abuse scandal. 

[PennLive.com]

About Colby Lanham

Colby Lanham is a graduate of Clemson University who, in addition to writing for The Comeback, has written for SI's Campus Rush, Bleacher Report, and Clemson Athletics. He is an alumni of the 2015 Sports Journalism Institute, where he also worked as an editorial intern for MLB.com. He has interests in football, basketball, and various forms of pop culture.