Penn State's scapegoat in Sandusky saga finally gets some redemption

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On Wednesday, Pennsylvania Judge Thomas G. Gavin awarded McQueary about $5 million, plus legal fees, in a whistleblower lawsuit against Penn State. It comes on the heels of a $7.3 million jury award in a defamation suit against the school last month.

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It was in August, 15 years after Mike McQueary walked in on Jerry Sandusky and a boy in a Penn State shower; an incident he failed to immediately end, but reported to his boss the next day.

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Coaching jobs either never materialized or were pulled at the last second by cautious administrators. He wasn’t aiming high either, these were low-level jobs, part-time positions at small schools – a four-month deal at Savannah State, a shot with Elizabeth City of Division II. He didn’t care. He’d take anything. It was the same for anything he tried: sales gigs, a job with a human resources company, an attempt at being a golf instructor. He even failed to land a sales clerk position at a local golf store. He tried everything. He got nothing. His name was toxic. The little money he’d made was doing yard work and odd jobs.

A “Help Wanted” sign hung in the local Rite-Aid, right down the street from where he grew up. Run the cash register. Maybe move up to shift manager. He applied. He was a college graduate who for over a decade thrived in the highly competitive field of college coaching, working long hours, juggling myriad responsibilities, making $140,000 per year.

“Did you get the job,” McQueary was asked on the stand during his recent whistleblower lawsuit against Penn State.

“No,” he said simply.

That was Mike McQueary’s reality. He was little more than a name to recoil at.

“I can’t get a job at Rite Aid, working a cash register?” McQueary testified. “… I mean, that’s humiliating. That’s humbling.”

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