(January 27, 2012) Phil Knight, the founder and Chairman of Nike, has emerged following the death of Joe Paterno as the late Penn State coach’s great defender.

At a packed, televised memorial service, Knight eulogized Paterno and went on the attack against the media and Board of Trustees, firmly defending Joe Paterno's actions, or inactions, after learning that his assistant coach Jerry Sandusky may have been a child rapist.

Knight said,

"In the year in question he gave full disclosure to his superiors up the chain to head of campus police and president of the school. The matter was in the hands of a world class university and by a president with an outstanding national reputation. Whatever the details of the investigation are, this much is clear to me. There was a villain in this tragedy it lies in that investigation, not in Joe Paterno's response to it.