With one my old friend’s favorite phrases ringing in my head — power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely — St. Joe took the fall on Wednesday night.

Sorry for the blather, but Penn State and Joe Paterno used to be my job. I was the traveling beat writer for the York Daily Record for the two seasons (1987 and ‘88) after the Nittany Lions’ second national championship. The 1988 season was particularly noteworthy because it was Paterno’s first losing season; he had just four others in 46 seasons.

That’s only a handful of years — all right, handful and a half — shorter than I’ve been alive.

The beat was not easy. Practices were closed, even to reporters. Dressing rooms were closed. Access was limited. Standard complaints of the profession these days. But this was a quarter century ago.

Since I do this for a living, I can’t help but wonder: Might the presence, or possibility of the presence of a beat writer milling about, have prevented Jerry Sandusky from doing what he is alleged to have done in the Penn State building?

I’ve not slept well pondering that answer. And, frankly, neither should you.

Please allow me to explain. St. Joe is a viewed by some as a nickname of derision for Paterno. And, most of the time, it was totally undeserved. But the coach I got to know on the beat was not the coach the public thought it knew. Don’t get me wrong, this is a man who has done more than his share of good in this world.

Much of his public image is the real deal, but he is after all a football coach. He wasn’t above telling a falsehood, especially if he thought it was to his competitive advantage.

And he grew increasingly paranoid after rightly feeling burned after a reception he hosted at his house by the comment spurning retirement, “leaving college football to the Jackie Sherrills and Barry Switzers of the world.’’ The supposedly off-the-record comment, about the two now-former outlaw coaches, was perhaps the first mark against his carefully crafted image.

And, with the media policies set in a place called Happy Valley, Paterno was well insulated until game day. State College is in the middle of nowhere, 90 miles from Harrisburg, the closest city. My commute on home game days was 125 miles, one way.

Put it all together and it adds up to message management heaven.

Beaver Stadium held about 72,000 back then, if memory serves. Penn State used to say it made about $1 million per home game; Paterno used that figure to talk about having to get seven home games per year. Football supported the other sports; basketball wasn’t a money-maker (and it really wasn’t then).

Add roughly 30,000 to that figure and that’s what the place holds now. It adds up to a lot of reasons to protect the institution.

Was the cocoon that is State College the perfect place for a crime and cover-up that took down a legend?

Was I and others after me too lax?

Blaming the media has been the shoot-the-messenger answer for so many things, we tend to build up a pretty tough skin. But this sickening episode, this is different, at least it is for me. I have five kids, and most of them have played sports, two of them (so far) in college.

I’m trained to write what I hear, see, know and learn, but I’ve also played the game of go-along, get-along. When a championship team one of my kids played on was embroiled in an alcohol incident, which became a public issue, I wasn’t telling everything I knew. I wasn’t saying much of anything.

But there is law in the Penn State case. Specific law that says the incident must be reported. How that was done and the details will at least in part determine Paterno’s legacy.

But there also is Penn State in the Penn State case, its legendary football coach who also is a mega-benefactor and fundraiser, and his formerly beloved assistant.

We in the media thump our chests a lot — afflict the powerful and empower the afflicted. But our jobs are to ask the questions you would ask and get the answers to questions you wouldn’t know to ask.

So did we as media and media consumers fumble here? For the sake of those boys, it is a question we all must answer.

After all, this could happen anywhere.

We hear a lot these days — in a lot of different arenas — about transparency. Longtime assistant Tom Bradley, who was just starting out when I was on the beat, will coach the Penn State team for the rest of the season.

My unsolicited advice: Open things up, and I’m not talking about the passing game.

In this Dec. 6, 1973 file photo, Penn State football coach Joe Paterno, right, looks at the Lambert trophy in New York, along with Penn State’s Robert J. Scannell, Dean of the College of Health, Physical Education and Recreation, and Edward M. Czekaj, director of Athletics. Paterno say he plans to retire at the end of the season, his long and illustrious career brought down because he failed to do all he could about an allegation of child sex abuse against a former assistant. Photo by THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Dave Pickoff

In this Jan. 2, 1987 file photo, Penn State coach Joe Paterno is carried after defeating Miami, 14-10, in the Fiesta Bowl, to win the national championship, in Tempe, Ariz. Paterno say he plans to retire at the end of the season, his long and illustrious Photo by THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

JIM GERBERICH

In this Jan. 1, 1983 file photo, Penn State football coach Joe Paterno celebrates as he is carried off the field after a 27-23 victory against Georgia in the Sugar Bowl, to claim the national championship, at the Superdome in New Orleans. Paterno say he Photo by THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

FILE