Some truly evil schitt going down at Penn State
phongone
1,652 Posts
So Joe Paterno, who is revered as a college football god by many, is told in 2002 that his former defensive coordinator, Jerry Sandusky, was caught raping a 10-year old boy in Penn State's lockeroom, and all Joe does is (1) notify the Athletic Director and (2) bar Sandusky from bringing a kid on campus?!!!! Sandusky continues to molest kids through 2009. F*ck Joe Paterno and his legacy.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/writers/michael_rosenberg/11/07/pennst.scandal/index.html?eref=sihp&sct=hp_t11_a2
What would you do?
A young man tells you he just witnessed an older man molesting a boy in a shower. The boy appeared to be 10 years old.
What would you do?
There are a hundred other aspects to this Penn State story -- the legend and many good deeds of Joe Paterno, his tense relationship with his nominal "superiors," his longtime friendship with alleged child molester Jerry Sandusky, and the game of telephone that unfolded in State College after the incident. But don't let that obscure the real issue here, the only one that matters. There was an eyewitness to an unspeakable crime. Penn State knew it. And Penn State didn't do nearly enough about it.
The legal case is still unfolding. But Pennsylvania Attorney General Linda Kelly said on Monday that the inaction of Penn State athletic director Tim Curley and senior vice president Gary Schultz "likely allowed a child predator to continue to victimize children for many, many years."
Kelly also said there is a difference between legal guilt and moral guilt.
We don't yet know who is legally guilty. But several prominent employees at the state university are morally guilty. And one of them is Joe Paterno.
Today, Penn State looks precisely like the Catholic Church looked for so many years. There were accusations of pedophilia. The allegations were so horrific that they threatened to undermine the reputation of the institution. The people in charge should have brought the allegations to light. But they were more worried about how the institution would look than the values it is supposed to uphold.
Jerry Sandusky was evidently living a lie, but there were all sorts of little lies that covered up the big one. Paterno told himself -- still tells himself, apparently -- that as long as he reported the incident to Curley, he had done enough. Administrators apparently decided if Sandusky was no longer allowed to bring children on campus, they had done enough.
Think about that. If Sandusky did something bad enough that you don't want him bringing kids onto campus, why wouldn't you call the police? Why wouldn't you track down the victim, find his family, see how they want to deal with this?
How can you stay quiet when Sandusky worked with children every day -- and had them live in his home -- when you don't trust him enough to allow him to bring children onto your campus?
Penn State took that simple question -- "What would you do?" -- and covered it with so many layers of nonsense that nobody
could see the question anymore.
What happened? First, let's push some of the nonsense to the side. In the statement he released Sunday night, Paterno said, "If this is true we were all fooled, along with scores of professionals trained in such things, and we grieve for the victims and their families. They are in our prayers."
This is true, and also completely irrelevant. This isn't about whether Paterno should have known, for many years, that Sandusky was allegedly a pedophile. We've all heard a hundred stories of people who kept their pedophilia secret from those who supposedly knew them the best. It's almost a cliche when a pedophile (or serial killer) gets arrested and a next-door says "I can't believe it. Everyone around here thought he was a good neighbor." That is exactly what Sandusky's next-door neighbor for 30 years, Clarence Trotter, told The New York Times.
That has nothing to do with this story. This is about a specific incident, and everybody agrees: Paterno knew about it. The question is: What did he know?
This is where you start to see the seeds of Penn State's defense. In his statement, Paterno: said "As my grand jury testimony stated, I was informed in 2002 by an assistant coach that he had witnessed an incident in the shower of our locker room facility. It was obvious that the witness was distraught over what he saw, but he at no time related to me the very specific actions contained in the grand jury report. Regardless, it was clear that the witness saw something inappropriate involving Mr. Sandusky. As Coach Sandusky was retired from our coaching staff at that time, I referred the matter to university administrators."
The key passage there: "He at no time related to me the very specific actions contained in the grand jury report."
Curley has been charged with perjury, for saying he did not know about the specific allegation. In this case, it seems that both Paterno and Curley argue they didn't hear the specific vile allegation against Sandusky -- that they were just told there was an uncomfortable scene.
Maybe so. And again: Curley and Schultz were charged with perjury, but Paterno has not been charged with anything.
Still, it is hard to evaluate this situation because of the unusual dynamic around the Penn State football program. It is no great secret that for at least a decade, and maybe two, Penn State administrators have felt powerless against Paterno. He and school president Graham Spanier have privately battled for years.
Forget about telling Paterno when to retire. Nobody can tell Paterno anything, because he is Joe Paterno.
Paterno has done far more good than harm in his career. But if you have been paying attention, you know that he has a bad habit of minimizing serious allegations.
When Penn State receiver Tony Johnson was arrested for driving under the influence a few years ago, Paterno said he would discipline him "just because I have to send a message to the squad that it is inappropriate to be out in the middle of the week having a couple of drinks."
Police said Johnson had a blood-alcohol level of .136, well above the legal limit.
Before a bowl game against Penn State in 2006, Florida State linebacker A.J. Nicholson was accused of sexual assault. Remember: This was not Paterno's player. He didn't have to say anything.
But he said this: "There are so many people gravitating to these kids. Maybe he didn't know what he was getting into, Nicholson. Somebody will knock on the door. A cute girl knocks on the door. What do you do?
"Thank God, they don't knock on my door. I'd refer them to a couple of other rooms.
"But that's too bad. You hate to see that, you really do. You'd like to see a kid end up his career. And he's a heck of a football player, he really is. It's just too bad. That's all I can say. It's just too bad."
To sum up, we have:
1. An administration that feels it can't control Joe Paterno.
2. Paterno's habit of minimizing serious allegations.
As I said, I don't know exactly what happened. But it's reasonable to imagine that the climate at Penn State played a big part in it.
Sandusky was retired in 2002, when the incident in question took place. But he continued to spend time in the Penn State football building, where the incident took place. Yahoo! Sports' Dan Wetzel reported Monday that Sandusky was seen working out in the Penn State weight room last week.
Penn State is a notoriously airtight program.
Nobody spends that much time in the football building unless Joe Paterno approves of it.
Paterno will apparently avoid charges in this case. But his reign at Penn State will end poorly, just as Woody Hayes' reign at Ohio State ended poorly, and as Bob Knight's reign at Indiana ended poorly. In all three cases, you could see a lousy ending coming -- though of course, it was hard to imagine this particular lousy ending.
There is no joy in saying that. But there is no joy anywhere in this awful story. Strip away the fame, the money and the popularity of Penn State's football program, and you have a sordid allegation that demanded a powerful response from powerful people.
What would you do? For most of us, the answer is simple: A lot more.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/writers/michael_rosenberg/11/07/pennst.scandal/index.html?eref=sihp&sct=hp_t11_a2
What would you do?
A young man tells you he just witnessed an older man molesting a boy in a shower. The boy appeared to be 10 years old.
What would you do?
There are a hundred other aspects to this Penn State story -- the legend and many good deeds of Joe Paterno, his tense relationship with his nominal "superiors," his longtime friendship with alleged child molester Jerry Sandusky, and the game of telephone that unfolded in State College after the incident. But don't let that obscure the real issue here, the only one that matters. There was an eyewitness to an unspeakable crime. Penn State knew it. And Penn State didn't do nearly enough about it.
The legal case is still unfolding. But Pennsylvania Attorney General Linda Kelly said on Monday that the inaction of Penn State athletic director Tim Curley and senior vice president Gary Schultz "likely allowed a child predator to continue to victimize children for many, many years."
Kelly also said there is a difference between legal guilt and moral guilt.
We don't yet know who is legally guilty. But several prominent employees at the state university are morally guilty. And one of them is Joe Paterno.
Today, Penn State looks precisely like the Catholic Church looked for so many years. There were accusations of pedophilia. The allegations were so horrific that they threatened to undermine the reputation of the institution. The people in charge should have brought the allegations to light. But they were more worried about how the institution would look than the values it is supposed to uphold.
Jerry Sandusky was evidently living a lie, but there were all sorts of little lies that covered up the big one. Paterno told himself -- still tells himself, apparently -- that as long as he reported the incident to Curley, he had done enough. Administrators apparently decided if Sandusky was no longer allowed to bring children on campus, they had done enough.
Think about that. If Sandusky did something bad enough that you don't want him bringing kids onto campus, why wouldn't you call the police? Why wouldn't you track down the victim, find his family, see how they want to deal with this?
How can you stay quiet when Sandusky worked with children every day -- and had them live in his home -- when you don't trust him enough to allow him to bring children onto your campus?
Penn State took that simple question -- "What would you do?" -- and covered it with so many layers of nonsense that nobody
could see the question anymore.
What happened? First, let's push some of the nonsense to the side. In the statement he released Sunday night, Paterno said, "If this is true we were all fooled, along with scores of professionals trained in such things, and we grieve for the victims and their families. They are in our prayers."
This is true, and also completely irrelevant. This isn't about whether Paterno should have known, for many years, that Sandusky was allegedly a pedophile. We've all heard a hundred stories of people who kept their pedophilia secret from those who supposedly knew them the best. It's almost a cliche when a pedophile (or serial killer) gets arrested and a next-door says "I can't believe it. Everyone around here thought he was a good neighbor." That is exactly what Sandusky's next-door neighbor for 30 years, Clarence Trotter, told The New York Times.
That has nothing to do with this story. This is about a specific incident, and everybody agrees: Paterno knew about it. The question is: What did he know?
This is where you start to see the seeds of Penn State's defense. In his statement, Paterno: said "As my grand jury testimony stated, I was informed in 2002 by an assistant coach that he had witnessed an incident in the shower of our locker room facility. It was obvious that the witness was distraught over what he saw, but he at no time related to me the very specific actions contained in the grand jury report. Regardless, it was clear that the witness saw something inappropriate involving Mr. Sandusky. As Coach Sandusky was retired from our coaching staff at that time, I referred the matter to university administrators."
The key passage there: "He at no time related to me the very specific actions contained in the grand jury report."
Curley has been charged with perjury, for saying he did not know about the specific allegation. In this case, it seems that both Paterno and Curley argue they didn't hear the specific vile allegation against Sandusky -- that they were just told there was an uncomfortable scene.
Maybe so. And again: Curley and Schultz were charged with perjury, but Paterno has not been charged with anything.
Still, it is hard to evaluate this situation because of the unusual dynamic around the Penn State football program. It is no great secret that for at least a decade, and maybe two, Penn State administrators have felt powerless against Paterno. He and school president Graham Spanier have privately battled for years.
Forget about telling Paterno when to retire. Nobody can tell Paterno anything, because he is Joe Paterno.
Paterno has done far more good than harm in his career. But if you have been paying attention, you know that he has a bad habit of minimizing serious allegations.
When Penn State receiver Tony Johnson was arrested for driving under the influence a few years ago, Paterno said he would discipline him "just because I have to send a message to the squad that it is inappropriate to be out in the middle of the week having a couple of drinks."
Police said Johnson had a blood-alcohol level of .136, well above the legal limit.
Before a bowl game against Penn State in 2006, Florida State linebacker A.J. Nicholson was accused of sexual assault. Remember: This was not Paterno's player. He didn't have to say anything.
But he said this: "There are so many people gravitating to these kids. Maybe he didn't know what he was getting into, Nicholson. Somebody will knock on the door. A cute girl knocks on the door. What do you do?
"Thank God, they don't knock on my door. I'd refer them to a couple of other rooms.
"But that's too bad. You hate to see that, you really do. You'd like to see a kid end up his career. And he's a heck of a football player, he really is. It's just too bad. That's all I can say. It's just too bad."
To sum up, we have:
1. An administration that feels it can't control Joe Paterno.
2. Paterno's habit of minimizing serious allegations.
As I said, I don't know exactly what happened. But it's reasonable to imagine that the climate at Penn State played a big part in it.
Sandusky was retired in 2002, when the incident in question took place. But he continued to spend time in the Penn State football building, where the incident took place. Yahoo! Sports' Dan Wetzel reported Monday that Sandusky was seen working out in the Penn State weight room last week.
Penn State is a notoriously airtight program.
Nobody spends that much time in the football building unless Joe Paterno approves of it.
Paterno will apparently avoid charges in this case. But his reign at Penn State will end poorly, just as Woody Hayes' reign at Ohio State ended poorly, and as Bob Knight's reign at Indiana ended poorly. In all three cases, you could see a lousy ending coming -- though of course, it was hard to imagine this particular lousy ending.
There is no joy in saying that. But there is no joy anywhere in this awful story. Strip away the fame, the money and the popularity of Penn State's football program, and you have a sordid allegation that demanded a powerful response from powerful people.
What would you do? For most of us, the answer is simple: A lot more.
Comments
really has this sunk in yet for most people?
i mean, this shit happened?
i also read a DA from some years back suddenly went missing after being informed of some shit involving Sandusky.
dude has yet to turn up but they found his destroyed laptop and removed hard drive in a river.
could be unrelated, but dang.
things are gonna get downright horrific in PA soon.
Worst sports related scandal ever.
Who cares if some loser is better at you at one specific thing.
Go have sex, like a normal mammal.
say what?
A) Why the fusk is this dude not fired or quit?
B) Why is this dude not being arrested like the VP and AD.
Disgraceful. This shit has had me salty all day long the more I've heard about it.
http://www.amazon.com/Touched-Jerry-Sandusky-Story/dp/1582613575
FUSKED UP!
Nuts! I didn't even peep that. They're going in on Amazon hard!
I read that technically he followed the law by reporting it to his superior (athletic director), he didn't break any law.
Now ,what he didn't do in a moral sense was incredibly wrong, but legally, he did all that was required.
Fuck Paterno.
Everything about this is awful, anyone who puts sports above the welfare of a child is fucked up.
These kind of crimes enrage me more than any others. JoePa needs to quit, be banned from any type of honor in college football forever and never show his face again and Sandusky deserves the harshest of penalties.
word.
now i'm just thinking out loud here, but:
i am a little hesitant to completely throw out paterno just yet. we do not know all the details.
isn't it only fair we hold off our judgement of the old man until all this shakes out?
as the story looks now, how the hell could paterno ignore the accusation? how could anybody just forget about what the kid said he saw?
and that's where some details might be we aren't considering:
maybe paterno was told the following day it was a total misunderstanding?
maybe paterno was told the kid thought he saw something, but didn't?
consider how old paterno is! you know how oblivious and naive some old people are.
to me, these kind of crimes would be almost completely unfathomable to someone like paterno, as old school as he is.
so...
as it looks now paterno should be done and his legacy tarnished forever. but i think i at least owe it to the old man to hold off judgement until all of this shakes out?
I'll never understand the arrogance of those in power in letting this go unexplored.
And, it's been said on here, but I do find the idea of prison justice a bit unsavory. Like, none of us want to risk anything in dishing out frontier justice of our own, so we leave it to a prisoner to do.
All that aside, there were people who knew of the Sandusky allegations for a long time. A quick termination could have saved a lot of face in the long run. But could it be that initial investigations didn't yield anything conclusive? PSU wouldn't have kept S if they knew he'd be a long-term liability. Or so you'd think.
These types of people do everything they can to put themselves in situations where they will be near potential victims. Nobody just makes a mistake once and molests a child. These people are pathologically drawn to do this, which makes the people turning a blind eye to it and not contacting the police culpable for every molestation that occurred after. This is some sick shit.
Uhhh, it's not about a "quick termination", it's about reporting it to the police and stopping it right there.
Not to nitpick, but the phrase you're looking for is "in light of". "In lieu of" means "in the place of".
I generally want to believe in the good of people, but there was a fuck of a lot riding on everything continuing as it had been - careers, reputations, enough money to support a few small countries, the image of the country's defining sport and a ripple effect hard to measure. All these folks decided that a few young lives ruined in secrecy was worth maintaining very public sucesses.
The molestation is evil, but the greed and selfishness of everyone around it is more so imo.