. >> july 2000, reporter brian schultz is dispatched to new providence, iowa, to cover the installationf a new water tower. >> that looks pretty good, don't it? >> it does. >> getting the water tower was a point of pride for new providence. something they'd been trying to get done for quite a while. so it was quite a big deal. >> new providence raises enough money to purchase its very first tower. the remote town of a little more than 200 people is all abuzz. >> anyone who was at home at the time, they were going to go out and see this happen. >> as local residents gather in the streets, a 150-foot crane rises and successfully lifts the four steel legs into position. >> there were some gentlemen on top of the tank that were attaching these straps to a central point that the crane would lift up. there were a few gentlemen on the ground that were kind of directing them. and there was a gentleman on top of the crane that was waiting for all this to happen. i remember even at the time i was pretty impressed with how cautious they were being. >> we're going for liftoff. >> with two workers p

>> reporter: brian, tonight a family spokesman issues a statement saying that joe paterno wasn't perfect. he made mistakes. and he regretted them. meanwhile, lawyers for curley and schultz criticized the freeh report, calling it a lopsided document based on an unfounded -- based on an incomplete record. brian? >> state college, pa, tonight, thanks. >>> bob costas of nbc sports is already at our olympic headquarters in london preparing to host the olympic coverage on nbc. bob, the big question, i guess, is, what does this do to penn state, the program, the school, the brand, the aura of the nittany lions? >> well, the aura, the reputation, that's already been badly tarnished. i think even the most staunch loyalists realize something that can't be rationalized away occurred here. and then outside penn state, the reputation of the university has taken a very, very serious hit. the ncaa has a term that it sometimes uses when punishing schools for violations in their athletic departments, lack of institutional control. if this doesn't mean the definition of lack of institutional control, nothing does. now the ncaa says it will step up its own investigation. so, in addition t

>> brian, i just want to highlight, one of the internal e-mails that was released actually within this report, let me read this to you here. this is an e-mail chain with vice president gary schultzout that investigation into the abuse of a boy in a school locker room. curley wrote, quote, anything new in this department, coach is anxious to know where it stands, end quote. investigators say the coach referred to here is, in fact, joe paterno. again, this was in 1998. paterno told a grand jury he didn't know anything, you know, about that incident there and he didn't hear about, he says, any allegations until 2001. but just in that exchange, brian, is that enough of a smoking gun in your opinion? >> well, it's a smoking gun, because it shows that joe paterno's anxious. where do things stand? back in 1998, paterno knows about the incident in 1998. all the top administration knows about it in 1998. this litany of e-mails clearly shows that the top administration and joe paterno were more concerned about the football program, the image of penn state, the money that's generated through the football program. they were trying to preserve that at the expense of protecting children. that