Early on Tuesday evening, CBS' Armen Keteyian tweeted that Mike McQueary would be appearing on "CBS Evening News." He promoted the interview by saying that McQueary "breaks his silence and opens a window for me into his emotions."
According to a grand jury report, McQueary witnessed former Penn State football coach Jerry Sandusky sexually abusing a young boy in the shower at the Penn State locker facility in 2002. A graduate assitant at the time, McQueary reportedly informed head coach Joe Paterno of the incident the next morning.
McQueary had risen to be Penn State's wide receivers coach by the time the scandal broke earlier this month, but has since been placed on administrative leave. He has been under fire for failing to act to protect the child allegedly being abused by Sandusky during the '02 incident. He has also been criticized for not calling the police or notifying an authority figure at Penn State until the following day.
According to the Associated Press, McQueary emailed a friend to dispute the popular opinion that he did not act. Perhaps chastened by the dissemination of that private email, McQueary was not disclosing much of anything when Keteyian turned up at his door.
"This process has to play out," McQueary told Keteyian from his porch. "I just don't have anything else to say right now."
Asked by Keteyian how he was feeling, McQueary responded, "All over the place, just kind of shaken."
Prompted by Keteyian, he agreed that he felt "crazy" and "like a snow globe." It seemed that Keteyian was referring back to off-camera discussions when trying to elicit the snow globe remark. After the briefest of interviews concluded, Keteyian offered his assessment of the young coach.
"He's very rattled by this whole experience. Off camera, he was telling how concerned he was about his personal life, his personal safety."
On Monday, Sandusky participated in a telephone interview on NBC's "Rock Center" with Bob Costas. During that interview, Sandusky claimed that McQueary had witnessed only "horsing around" in the shower. During the program, Sandusky's lawyer claimed to have tracked down the alleged victim in that incident and that the alleged victim would ultimately refute the findings of the grand jury report.
Although CBS didn't manage to shed any further light on the issue, McQueary's account of that 2002 incident figures to be pivotal as this story develops.