STATE COLLEGE, Pennsylvania (Reuters) ? Penn State students pledged to show support for victims of a child sex abuse scandal at the last home football game of the season on Saturday as a mother of one boy involved said she feared there were many more victims than the eight reported so far.
The mood on campus Friday was calm, but authorities were planning to boost security after what police described as a "riotous mob" of students two days ago protested the firing of coach Joe Paterno, a revered U.S. sports figure.
"We did discuss it (canceling the game)," university board of trustees member Linda Strumpf told Reuters. "We felt very strongly that to penalize the players and the fans and the band ... was just the wrong thing to do."
Paterno, 84, was dismissed by the university after it was revealed that he was told in 2002 that his former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky had engaged in sexually inappropriate behavior with a young boy in a campus locker room. While Paterno told his boss, he did not call the police.
"The people that hid this need to pay for their actions. They allowed this to happen to a lot of kids," the mother of another alleged Sandusky victim told ABC's "Good Morning America" Friday.
The mother, whose son is identified as Victim 1 in court papers, said there were "so many years that he had access to these children, and I don't believe that it stops at eight."
She said her son described Sandusky as a "weirdo."
Sandusky was charged Saturday with sexually abusing eight young boys over more than a decade and former Penn State athletic director Tim Curley and former finance official Gary Schultz, were charged with failing to report an incident.
Sandusky, Curley and Schultz have all denied the charges. Paterno met his legal obligation by reporting the abuse allegation to Curley, legal experts said.
"SIGNIFICANT POLICE PRESENCE"
Penn State's board of trustees Friday appointed Kenneth Frazier, the chief executive of drugmaker Merck & Co. and a Penn State alum, to head a special committee to investigate the events that lead up to the charges against Sandusky.
"We are going to do everything we can to restore the public's faith," Frazier told reporters.
The scandal has rocked the campus of about 45,000 students in the central Pennsylvania town of State College, the flagship of about two dozen Penn State campuses across the state.
Instead of the usual pre-game rally Friday night, students are planning to hold a candle-light vigil for the alleged sex abuse victims and fans going to the final home game are being urged to wear blue -- the color associated with a "stop child abuse" campaign -- rather than traditional white.
"We have to raise child abuse awareness. No one wanted to see Joe Paterno fired. We want to see some good come out of this," said Jeff Lowe, 20, from Austin, Texas, who had a blue ribbon pinned to his shirt.
Lowe was among hundreds of Penn State fans camped out in advance of Saturday's game against the University of Nebraska to get good seats. The traditional sea of tents that springs up before each home game has long been dubbed "Paternoville."
Penn State undergraduate student body president TJ Hurd said he did not expect violence at the game. "Security's obviously been ramped up in the past few days. I don't feel like we're in any danger at all," he told Reuters.
Interim Penn State head coach Tom Bradley said he was not concerned about player safety, but the athletic department said Mike McQueary, one of the team's coaches who testified he saw Sandusky's alleged rape of a child in 2002 and reported it to university officials, would not attend the game.
The university said "multiple threats" had been made against McQueary. Many Penn State fans have said it is unfair that Paterno was fired and that McQueary, who also did not report alleged sexual abuse to police, was not.
Captain John Gardner of the State College Police Department, said there was "going to be a significant police presence at (Penn State's) Beaver Stadium" for the game.
TEXAS INVESTIGATION
The mother of Victim 1 who spoke out Friday said her son was 11 years old when he met Sandusky in 2005 through the former assistant coach's Second Mile program for at-risk boys.
She said her son had feared speaking out against Sandusky, telling her: "I didn't know what to do ... you just can't tell Jerry no." But she said he is "doing OK" and felt a sense of relief when Sandusky was charged.
Prosecutors said Sandusky met all his alleged victims through the nonprofit Second Mile program, which has said it cut ties with him in 2008. Sandusky coached for more than two decades at Penn State before retiring in 1999 and was once considered a likely successor to Paterno. After his retirement he still had access to Penn State facilities.
A ninth possible victim, now in his 20s, has since come forward, according to the Patriot-News in Harrisburg, and Pennsylvania police have set up a telephone hotline to receive information about the sexual abuse allegations.
Prosecutors in Texas also opened an investigation on Thursday into Sandusky after grand jury testimony in Pennsylvania indicated that he may have abused a young boy when Penn State was in San Antonio for the 1999 Alamo Bowl.
Nebraska fan Stephen Brindley, 31, of Phoenix, canceled plans to travel to the game. "I just don't feel like supporting Penn State University. I don't think the university handled the situation in the right way," he said.
College football is popular in the United States, drawing massive television audiences every Saturday in the late summer and autumn and filling huge stadiums. Penn State's Beaver Stadium, which seats about 106,000, is one of the largest.
Teams generate millions of dollars in revenue and successful ones raise the profile of their universities. That, in turn, helps fundraising -- such as the $2 billion capital campaign now under way at Penn State.
(Additional reporting by Mark Shade in Harrisburg, Ros Krasny in Boston and Dave Warner in Philadelphia; Writing by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Jackie Frank)
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