Book Review: "Game Over" by Bill Moushey and Bob Dvorchak

I just finished reading this very excellent book by former Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reporters Bill Moushey and Bob Dvorchak.  This was the first of what will no doubt be many, many books to be written about the Jerry Sandusky scandal at Penn State its aftermath.  Moushey and Dvorchak began work on this book almost as soon as Sandusky was arrested, and it was published in the Spring of this year, before the trial that convicted Sandusky, before the Freeh Report, and before the NCAA and Big Ten sanctions were handed down.  As a result of that timing, if you read this book now, as I did, you may not find anything that has not already been made public knowledge as a result of those very public on-the-record events, but that is the value in reading this book now, I think. 

The research and the reporting done by Moushey and Dvorchak on such a short deadline is astounding.  When the book was published, it was assailed by many of the Penn State loyalists, and its chief critics were, not surprisingly, the Paterno Family, none of whom, it should be noted, were willing to be interviewed for the book, despite requests from the authors.  At the time, the authors merely stated that they stood by their reporting as documented in the book.  Both the trial and conviction of Sandusky and the findings in the Freeh report validate everything that Moushey and Dvorchak had written,  Nothing in "Game Over" has been proven to be false or inaccurate.

I had the pleasure of meeting Bob Dvorchak recently, and it was fascinating hearing him talk about the writing of the book.  A paperback edition is scheduled to be released soon, and while Bob didn't mention it, I imagine that there will be an "Afterword" to that edition.  I will be most anxious to read that as well.

I will leave you with a quote from Bob Dvorchak that I though most interesting, and I hope that he will not mind me quoting him.  We asked about the position that Franco Harris (who also declined several requests to be interviewed for the book) has taken as Joe Paterno's most vigorous public defender.  One of us said that, well, I guess everyone is entitled to their own opinion.  Yes, Dvorchak said, you are entitled to your own opinion, but you are not entitled to your own set of facts.

I thought it an interesting statement that can be applied in all walks of life.