In more ways than one, Soviet immigrant Emmanuil Kaidanov is the Joe Paterno of collegiate fencing. Now you can call him that for another reason.

Like Paterno, Kaidanov, 73, served a long and brilliant coaching career at Penn State, winning a dozen NCAA team championships over three decades.

Like Paterno, “Coach K” was admired and respected by the young men (and women) he coached as well as the university and the community.

And like Paterno, he was dumped unceremoniously, his achievements tarnished, over a subordinate's misjudgment.

Penn State fired Kaidanov last month after his administrative assistant reported the possibility of wrongful conduct.

The allegation — that a fencing team member had marijuana — turned out to be completely untrue, but Kaidanov got in hot water after he confronted the assistant over the supposedly confidential tip. His action was considered retaliation under a three-year-old policy put in place to protect employees who report suspicions of misconduct.

But don't blame Kaidanov's assistant, who did exactly as she was instructed to do, even if her allegation had no merit. Rather, blame Jerry Sandusky, former assistant football coach and convicted child molester, whose savage preying on boys and young men also led to Paterno's fall.

The Sandusky scandal precipitated the new Penn State policy after it was revealed Paterno knew about Sandusky but failed to act. Even more boys and young men were victimized and emotionally scarred because of Paterno's silence.

But Kaidanov's overzealous protection of his fencing program bears little resemblance to Paterno's neglect. Kaidanov was passionately pursuing what he considered fairness for his athletes, while Paterno knowingly helped conceal a crime.

A zero-tolerance punishment wasn't in place for Paterno, and now that a policy is in place, it doesn't fit Coach K's case.

Here's another recent zero-tolerance injustice: Fox Chapel High School student David Schaffner III was at a home football game Friday when he realized he had a knife in his pocket. Schaffner, 16, turned it over to a security guard, explaining he'd forgotten he still had it from an earlier hunting trip — a sign prohibiting weapons reminded him of the knife, so he wanted to do the responsible thing and turn it in.

Moments later, Schaffner said, the principal grabbed him, threw him off school property and suspended him from school for 10 days. The teen's lawyer points out his client was punished for being honest.

In both cases, an individual took reasonable steps to correct a perceived wrong.

No one was in imminent danger — except a beloved fencing coach whose career and reputation are ruined and a student who believed he'd acted responsibly and got punished anyway.

In both of these cases, common sense and discretion might have better served the incident than a zero-tolerance policy.