Arrington recalls distant ‘Victim 4’
Former Penn State and NFL football star LaVar Arrington, in a blog post for The Washington Post on Tuesday, said he wished he had paid more attention years ago to the pain of a young fan who has accused former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky of sexual assault. Arrington wrote that the boy, the alleged “Victim 4” in the Sandusky case who testified Monday, “always seemed mad or kind of distant.”
In his testimony, Victim 4 said Sandusky let him wear Arrington’s No. 11 Penn State jersey and gave him a Sports Illustrated magazine cover that had been autographed by Arrington.
Because the boy was part of Sandusky’s charity, the Second Mile, Arrington says he thought the boy’s distant attitude could be attributed to a troubled childhood.
“I guess with everything that I had going on, it certainly wasn’t a priority for me to try to figure him out,” Arrington wrote. “I saw him at the 1999 Alamo Bowl game and shared a couple laughs. I left school for the draft, and that was that.
“I can’t believe after all these years I’d feel so bad about a kid that I hadn’t thought about since I left school. But of course I do. Hindsight brings so much more clarity. But at the time I thought we were his place of refuge from what he was going through at home or in school. As much as I saw and talked with him, I felt, in my own way, I was making a difference in his life.”