A place for the discussion of all things not closely related to the sport and its competitive side. (Locked down several times a year during the major championships)
Conor Dary wrote:The real problem with Penn State is having someone there so loooong, in a powerful position that he became godlike.
I think it's something even more nefarious - Paterno, the Prez and the AD knew that the school and the PSU program were 'bigger' than they themselves, and didn't want to be the ones to bring them both down into the garbage heap. They were not just covering their own butts, they were trying to 'protect' Happy Valley and the Nittany Lions. Ironically, now both are synonymous with corruption.
There would have been no butts to cover if Paterno had acted promptly when he first became aware of Sandusky's criminality. All he had to do is call Sandusky into his office and tell him that as a friend, he's giving him 24 hours to turn himself into the police, otherwise he'll notify the authorities himself. Giving him a day to get his affairs in order should have been the most their friendship should have gotten him. The bottom line is that it's seldom easy to do the right thing, especially when a 50-year relationship us involved. The path of righteousness can be so clear and right in front of us, but yet seem so far away.
jazzcyclist wrote:All he had to do is call Sandusky into his office and tell him that as a friend, he's giving him 24 hours to turn himself into the police, otherwise he'll notify the authorities himself.
I think you just made my point. That would have everyone's butt, but not the school's. There would have been a major flare-up then and there. They 'thought' they were protecting the institution.
jazzcyclist wrote: The bottom line is that it's seldom easy to do the right thing, especially when a 50-year relationship us involved. The path of righteousness can be so clear and right in front of us, but yet seem so far away.
That is why turnover on a regular basis is a good thing. Whether a financial institution or a college football program.
#2 Human beings are almost all pretty despicable, but we just like to believe we aren't, because we're rarely put to the test in reality.
Actually I feel quite sorry for you with an attitude like that. I have lived in different of parts the world and in this country, use to hitchhike constantly in the 1970's, and have pretty much the opposite feeling. Sure there are shitheads, but almost all people are despicable? Sounds like a rather hellish world.
The real problem with Penn State is having someone there so loooong, in a powerful position that he became godlike. If Paterno had retired at 65, there would have been another coach, back 1998, who would not have had the connection to Sandusky like Paterno did, and I believe, would have done something about it. But there was no check or balances in this situation. Mandatory retirement ages might be something for the NCAA to think about.
The coach in 1998 might have been Sandusky. It's possible that could have been an even worse scenario.
I do think it was a bunch of scenarios...poor performance, age, perceived or real threats to his job, that caused Paterno to avoid dealing with the issue properly. His mistake, other than reporting Sandusky immediately, was not getting rid of him completely from anything to do with Penn State.
What's really a shame is seeing the family continue to justify...in my opinion they should be saying as little as possible at this point, Matt Millen try and point the finger elsewhere and guys such as Mark Robinson complain about "outside reviews".
The Big Ten Network added to the disgrace yesterday, by pretty much ignoring the whole story.
Such swift, universal rebukes of Paterno only made the Big Ten Network look sillier for not interrupting programming as CNN, MSNBC and ESPN did to televise Freeh's news conference. What a sad irony to have a scandal defined by looking the other way punctuated by BTN not letting us watch its conclusion.
I get the groupthink in State College, Pa., where the Penn State student center switched to a local cable-access channel. I don't accept BTN's explanation that it "is not and was never intended to be a news organization.'' It was a news organization last November when Ohio State introduced Urban Meyer and his $24 million contract but not for a news conference confirming football became too big at Penn State?
Conor Dary wrote:[..... "That Paterno statue needs to come down Baghdad style today! #PSU"..../
Dave Ross of CBS Radio this afternoon, rejecting calls to remove the statue: "Leave it there as a memorial, pointing out that it did as much as Paterno did to stop the abuse."
jazzcyclist wrote:All he had to do is call Sandusky into his office and tell him that as a friend, he's giving him 24 hours to turn himself into the police, otherwise he'll notify the authorities himself.
I think you just made my point. That would have everyone's butt, but not the school's. There would have been a major flare-up then and there. They 'thought' they were protecting the institution.
I respectfully disagree. Was Paterno motivated by personal loayalty or self-preservation, that is the question. Jim Boeheim and everyone else at Syracuse survived the Bernie Fine scandal. The difference is that after he was presented with irrefutable evidence (the audio tapes) that Fine was a sexual deviant, he dropped him like a hot potato. Had Paterno acted in a similar manner in 1998, he and everyone else at Penn State would have also survived. And remember, in 1998 Paterno was still at the height of his powers on the football field. He had won the 1995 Rose Bowl to cap off a perfect season and was on the precipice of another run at a national championship in 1999.
Conor Dary wrote:[..... "That Paterno statue needs to come down Baghdad style today! #PSU"..../
Dave Ross of CBS Radio this afternoon, rejecting calls to remove the statue: "Leave it there as a memorial, pointing out that it did as much as Paterno did to stop the abuse."
Best I heard was that they should turn it around so it can look the other way for 13 years.
Just putting my 5 cents in. This kind of looking the other way is not unusual within institutions. I think that "look at the example of the Catholic Church" is about as far as I can go on this forum!
In fact parents have been known to look the other way when the other parent is the perpetrator. Either for fear of the guilty party or not wanting to acknowledge abuse and the tearing apart of their family or exposure to shame. Siblings, even ones who have also been victimised, can often turn viciously against a sibling that raises the issue. So, the turning of two blind eyes is not unexpected.
One thing I'm glad of is that (as yet anyway) is that the investigation into Sandusky did not turn up a ring and no one else was implicated in anything else other than covering up the abuse.
I wouldn't call for a complete removal of the football programme, but I would like to see a 5 year ban of it as a penalty for Penn State. I doubt there's a mechanism for that, unfortunately.
jazzcyclist wrote:All he had to do is call Sandusky into his office and tell him that as a friend, he's giving him 24 hours to turn himself into the police, otherwise he'll notify the authorities himself.
I think you just made my point. That would have everyone's butt, but not the school's. There would have been a major flare-up then and there. They 'thought' they were protecting the institution.
I wouldn't call for a complete removal of the football programme, but I would like to see a 5 year ban of it as a penalty for Penn State. I doubt there's a mechanism for that, unfortunately.[/quote]
If Penn State wanted to demonstrate the bringing in of a new era of responsibility, they could self-impose sanctions similar to what USF basketball did in the 80's.
IanS_Liv wrote:I wouldn't call for a complete removal of the football programme, but I would like to see a 5 year ban of it as a penalty for Penn State. I doubt there's a mechanism for that, unfortunately.
How do you pay for all the other sports, including track and field, during this five-year period, send the bill to the Pennsylvania taxpayers?
The arrogance of Paterno and his family is really stunning. Even last year Paterno was still trying to grab more for himself. What a bunch of dicks.
In the end, the board of trustees — bombarded with hate mail and threatened with a defamation lawsuit by Mr. Paterno’s family — gave the family virtually everything it wanted, with a package worth roughly $5.5 million. Documents show that the board even tossed in some extras that the family demanded, like the use of specialized hydrotherapy massage equipment for Mr. Paterno’s wife at the university’s Lasch Building, where Mr. Sandusky had molested a number of his victims.
The details of Mr. Paterno and his family’s fight for money seem to deepen one of the lasting truths of the Sandusky scandal: the significant power that Mr. Paterno exerted on the state institution, its officials, its alumni and its purse strings.
Since Mr. Paterno’s death in January, Mr. Paterno’s family, lawyers and publicists have mounted an aggressive campaign to protect his legacy. The family and its lawyers have hammered the university’s board of trustees, accusing members of attempting to deflect blame onto a dying Mr. Paterno. This week, they angrily disputed the conclusions of an independent investigation that asserted Mr. Paterno and other top university officials protected a serial predator in order to “avoid the consequences of bad publicity” for the university, its football program and its coach’s reputation.
IanS_Liv wrote:I wouldn't call for a complete removal of the football programme, but I would like to see a 5 year ban of it as a penalty for Penn State. I doubt there's a mechanism for that, unfortunately.
How do you pay for all the other sports, including track and field, during this five-year period, send the bill to the Pennsylvania taxpayers?
IanS_Liv wrote:I wouldn't call for a complete removal of the football programme, but I would like to see a 5 year ban of it as a penalty for Penn State. I doubt there's a mechanism for that, unfortunately.
How do you pay for all the other sports, including track and field, during this five-year period, send the bill to the Pennsylvania taxpayers?
That hardly seems terribly important.
It may not be important to you, but it's a question that must be dealt with by the folks at Penn State responsible for paying the bills, like the President and the Athletic Director.
I don't see that as a remote possibility (or even 'fair' in the strictest sense - it punishes (greatly) the current team), but there does need to be some draconian penance paid. This is much worse than the SMU scandal that gave them the death-penalty (which I also did not totally agree with).
This isn't a football competition issue, a la SMU, and as ESPN's legal experts have pointed out, it's outside the purview of the NCAA's authority. Furthermore, I don't recall any demands for the Vatican to shut down a single church when its pedophilia epidemic came to light and it was a lot broader and longer lasting than the Sandusky scandal.
Perhaps the NCAA does not have unlimited punitive powers but a university cannot be absolved by the resignation or firing of the guilty officials. Somebody gotta come down hard on somebody or there is no deterrant to such shenanigans.
lonewolf wrote:Perhaps the NCAA does not have unlimited punitive powers but a university cannot be absolved by the resignation or firing of the guilty officials. Somebody gotta come down hard on somebody or there is no deterrant to such shenanigans.
Everybody from the water boy to the President has been fired. There are no longer any people in the Penn State football program that had any ties to Paterno and/or Sandusky. What more would you want them to do?
Danged if I know. I had not heard there was a general housecleaning.. I do not think anyone who had no knowledge of the situation should be fired.. I also don't know how to identify the unguilty.. the asst coach who reported the 1998 shower incident to Paterno was still coaching last season.. The surviving guilty conspirators should be prosecuted to discourge future coverups by universities/officials in similar circumstances..and Penn State should ease up on the reported posthumous largess bestowed on the Paterno family..
As ill as this case makes me feel whenever I encounter it, I still drop in to read this thread occasionally, because there has been a very good discussion along the way of these crimes. Agree w gh's & lonewolf's posts, just above, and -- sadly -- especially agree w IanS_Liv's post, here:
IanS_Liv wrote: ... This kind of looking the other way is not unusual within institutions. I think that "look at the example of the Catholic Church" is about as far as I can go on this forum!
In fact parents have been known to look the other way when the other parent is the perpetrator. Either for fear of the guilty party or not wanting to acknowledge abuse and the tearing apart of their family or exposure to shame. Siblings, even ones who have also been victimised, can often turn viciously against a sibling that raises the issue. So, the turning of two blind eyes is not unexpected. ...
Very well stated. The nature of this category of crime -- so obviously heinous against so obviously vulnerable victims -- seems in too many cases to make people look away and thus, however passively, become complicit. As much as I know this to be the case on some level, I will never fully comprehend it.
lonewolf wrote:Danged if I know. I had not heard there was a general housecleaning.. I do not think anyone who had no knowledge of the situation should be fired.. I also don't know how to identify the unguilty.. the asst coach who reported the 1998 shower incident to Paterno was still coaching last season.. The surviving guilty conspirators should be prosecuted to discourge future coverups by universities/officials in similar circumstances..and Penn State should ease up on the reported posthumous largess bestowed on the Paterno family..
McQueery is no longer at Penn State. One of the things that Penn State alumnus were so upset about is that when they hired a new coach, they didn't even consider anyone with Penn State ties, and when Bill O'Brien put his staff together, he hired all people without Penn State ties. Penn State basically fumigated the football program after the season was over.
I have never been a real college football fan, having worked at a state univ., with a good football team and little in the way of academics. Having the tail wag the dog is never a good idea. I have been amazed at the "support" of PSU students/alumni to their "God" - the football program. Many have said Paterno and the football program put PSU on the map nationally and helped the univ. in general. Material science has always been a strong suit at PSU, and names like Rustam Roy are known by scientists well beyond narrow limits of the subject. I would hope that (federal) granting agencies like NSF, are not apt to hand out loads of money to univs. just because they have a strong football or other sports program.
<<....If Ohio State gets a one-year bowl ban for players selling jerseys, what should Penn State get for selling out a whole community? If Reggie Bush cost Southern California a four-year probation for accepting cash and cars, what should Penn State get for letting a child molester use its locker rooms for his perverse fantasies?...>>
gh wrote:But I think the point here is that the fumigating that's needed isn't necessarily in the football program.
Yes, indeed.
If not the football program, what are you two suggesting? The AD has been replaced as well as the President and everyone in between. I guess the board could also be replaced with folks without Penn State ties. Who else should be replaced? How broad should the fumigation be?
gh wrote:But I think the point here is that the fumigating that's needed isn't necessarily in the football program.
Yes, indeed.
If not the football program, what are you two suggesting? The AD has been replaced as well as the President and everyone in between. I guess the board could also be replaced with folks without Penn State ties. Who else should be replaced? How broad should the fumigation be?
When you see headlines like this:
Penn State football recruits using Jerry Sandusky scandal as motivation
I want to throw up. They still don't get it in Happy Valley.
gh wrote:But I think the point here is that the fumigating that's needed isn't necessarily in the football program.
Yes, indeed.
If not the football program, what are you two suggesting? The AD has been replaced as well as the President and everyone in between. I guess the board could also be replaced with folks without Penn State ties. Who else should be replaced? How broad should the fumigation be?
When you see headlines like this:
Penn State football recruits using Jerry Sandusky scandal as motivation
I want to throw up. They still don't get it in Happy Valley.
CD, plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose. Over two hundred years ago, Schiller wrote something like "Against stupidity, the Gods themselves battle in vain". Perhaps an earlier apt quote can be found.
lonewolf wrote:Let me get this straight. These 18 year olds are motivated by the rape of 10 year old boys to perpetuate the glory of Penn State football?
Delightful, isn't it?
A real question: are collegiate football programs so scarce and endangered that the nation can't afford to lose one?
kuha wrote:are collegiate football programs so scarce and endangered that the nation can't afford to lose one?
The good news is that even with NO more penalties, the damage to PSU is devastating. At this point only the university itself can meaningfully punish itself further - and it should - but it won't.
In a state where policemen and fireman have had their salaries cut to minimum wage in order to make ends meet, how can Penn State "meaningfully punish itself further" without enraging the Pennsylvania taxpayers even more than they already are? That's the dilemma.
