Penn State to Renovate Lasch Building Shower Where Sandusky Abused Boys

Penn State plans to renovate the shower area where Jerry Sandusky sexually abused young boys.

A university spokesman confirmed the decision to remodel the Lasch Football Building shower and area locker room was made by the athletic department back in November, soon after Sandusky was arrested and charged with 40 counts in a child sex abuse case.

There’s no timeframe for the renovation, the school said, because it wouldn’t get under way until all legal proceedings connected with the Sandusky scandal are complete.

Sandusky, a former defensive coordinator for Penn State, was convicted on 45 counts in his case last month and awaits a de-facto life sentence from his jail cell in the Centre County Correctional Facility.

Penn State, meanwhile, is still grappling with how to honor other campus imagery related to the scandal, including the bronze statue of former football coach Joe Paterno, which sits outside Beaver Stadium.

Calls for the statue to be torn down have intensified since Thursday’s release of an independent investigative report into the Penn State scandal.

The investigation, headed by former FBI director Louis Freeh, found three top university officials, as well as Paterno, made an active effort to conceal allegations of Sandusky’s abuse out of fear of bad publicity and tarnishing the image of the university.

One incident in the Lasch shower, a 2001 report by then-graduate assistant Mike McQueary, ended up bringing down all four men. That allegation led to the dismissals of Paterno and former president Graham Spanier and perjury charges for athletic director Tim Curley and retired vice president of business and finance Gary Schultz.