( CNN ) -- We are ... Penn State . I can not recount the thousands of times that I have proudly proclaimed that chant throughout the years . I belted it out as a Penn State cheerleader , later as a proud alum standing in Beaver Stadium among nearly 100,000 raucous fans , and more recently on Saturday afternoons sitting solo in my TV room watching my Nittany Lions roar in those classic no-name jerseys . Those words still give me goosebumps nearly 20 years after I left State College , Pennsylvania , lovingly called Happy Valley . Looking down from my perch on other colleges over the past decade , I 've watched major programs crumble as their dirty little secrets were revealed . And through all those college scandal headlines -- paying players , inflating SAT scores , falsifying classroom grades -- I have held Penn State up as a shining example of all that is good and right and pure about college sports . We are the good guys . We have Joe Paterno . We are ... Penn State . But today , I 'm putting my pompoms down . I 'm done covering up Happy Valley 's secrets . And it 's time for others in the program , starting with Coach Paterno , to do the same thing . And then , Joe has got to go , immediately . That is the only real alternative after the shocking allegations that Jerry Sandusky , 67 -- a former assistant coach who worked with the program for more than 30 years and who was viewed by many as Paterno 's heir before he retired in 1999 -- has been charged with multiple felonies in the alleged sexual abuse of eight boys during a 15-year period . Prosecutors now expect that more boys will come forward with abuse claims . Before this week , I 'd argued that Jo Pa should coach until he takes his last breath . He 'd earned it . This year , Penn State tied with Stanford for the top graduation success rate among teams ranked in the October 30 Bowl Championship Series and AP Top 25 rankings , according to the NCAA . During his 46-year tenure , Paterno has had 47 Academic All-Americans , with 37 earning first-team honors . I made excuses for Penn State in 2007 when the women 's basketball coach , Renee Portland , quit after the university was sued over her `` no lesbians on the team '' policy . Portland , who had coached at the university for 27 years , was accused of bullying and humiliating one of her young players because she believed the girl was a lesbian . Portland 's homophobic views were well-known on the team . Still , I reasoned that she was just a rogue coach , an anomaly at the school . Surely , her brand of bigotry was not the norm . Right ? And I even defended Penn State after my own ugly experience with discrimination , when an adviser for the cheerleading squad tried to force me to quit the team after I was elected by my peers as the first African-American captain . It was n't the only racial hatred I 'd experienced at the school . In the late '80s , it was routine to find the campus littered with leaflets from the local Ku Klux Klan telling us blacks to `` Go back to Africa . '' Sometimes the writer even drew a nice little noose on the fliers . But I stayed at the school , kept cheering on my Nittany Lions . I was proud to be there . Plus , I reasoned that my struggles there would prepare me for the real world . Now , I 've run out of excuses . According to a grand jury report , Paterno back in 2002 was informed by a grad assistant that he had seen former Penn State football coach Jerry Sandusky naked and forcing a boy who appeared to be about 10-years-old to have anal sex in the showers of the school 's sports complex . Paterno reportedly told his boss , Athletic Director Tim Curley , but it 's unclear whether the coach did anything further to follow up on the shocking report . And incredibly no one , Paterno or his superiors , reported this alleged incident to the authorities . Those of us who have been on campus find it a joke that Coach Paterno would now say that he reported the incident to his bosses . What bosses ? Everyone knows Paterno had as much or more power on that campus than anyone to make things happen , including the president . It 's absolutely unforgivable if Paterno did nothing but pass the information up the chain . In fact , even after this incident was reported , Sandusky still had the keys to the complex and free rein to bring boys he mentored at his nonprofit foundation , the Second Mile , to visit the campus and hang out around the sports facility . If these allegations are proven true , this scandal is far worse than anything that 's happened at other universities . Exploiting dozens and raping young boys could never compare to the minor infractions of boosters buying a car for a player or a player selling his autographed football jersey for a few bucks . Now , as I look back at my years at Penn State and realize that some of these alleged incidents were possibly taking place as I was a student there proudly waving my pompoms , I feel sick . We are ... Penn State . And we are ashamed . The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Roxanne Jones .
Jones is a proud Penn State alum , former Penn State cheerleader . Nittany Lions sports had squeaky-clean reputation ; Roxanne Jones defended it through thick or thin . Jones : Coach Jones must step down , it is inexcusable he did not tell authorities . If this is true , it is far worse than any infractions seen at other universities , she writes .