Well they just had live report from PSU and showed a lot that is usually filled by now and it was pretty empty.
That is my guess. Horribleness happens in 98, Sundusky is quietly removed in 1999 and they hope it's buried. Then he's caught raping a 10 year old by an eye witness in 2002. At that point, everyone must have known they were deep in the muck and they just buried that, too, in hopes it would go away, to protect the Institution of Penn State and, more important, Penn State football. They must have realized how horrible it would have been to have to admit a 1)a child rapist worked there for 20 years and 2) they covered up the 1998 story, so hiding the truth must have seemed like a decent option to them.Most here are going on the assumption that the incident in 98 and Sandusky's subsequent early retirement in 99 are related. If you start there then once he hears about 02 he knows it is true but he can't go forward with the information as he is already complicit in a cover up.
He then goes to his "superiors" to fulfill his legal obligation and to get them to continue the cover up. I have no idea if Paterno knew going "up" the chain covered him legally or if he just wanted to wash his hands so he took it to two people who were involved in 98 and he knew would take care of it again.
I need you to explain how Paterno can be absolved. He was told Sandusky was fucking a ten year old in the ass on the grounds of Penn State, three years after other child abuse allegations. But this wasn't 10th hand heresy, it was first hand.. He ran this news up the flag pole and washed his hands of it. Wait, he didn't do that? Then why was Sandusky free until last weekend?But whether it's Ananias or anyone else, I haven't read too many people who are excusing anything here -- just trying to understand how something this awful could have been condoned by this many people. I feel like we should try to be mindful of that before we accuse someone of being some mindless kool aid drinker who is trying to find reasons for absolving Paterno.
The problem with speculating about why Paterno didn't do anything besides reporting it to one person is that he had to deliberately ignore things going on around him in order not to question it. It's possible in a situation similar to this for someone in Paterno's position to perform their duty as required by law and optimistically believe that it's being handled, but it's not possible in this situation.From the details that have emerged, I don't view him as a monster who was involved in covering up the scandal, but just someone who was tragically lacking perspective ie. he felt that his responsibility was only the football program, so incidents of this nature aren't meant to be dealt with by him.
It is extremely difficult to get convictions for sexual crimes in America, even when children are involved. Furthermore, the process is extremely traumatic for the victim, especially for children, even if the trial does end in a conviction. As sad as that fact is, there are many legitimate reasons the DA could have decided not to proceed with the case that have nothing to do with the actual guilt or innocence of Sandusky.Like I said, the key to the 1998 incident is that charges weren't pressed, for whatever reason. It wasn't like Sandusky was put on trial and acquitted. Charges weren't even filed. What does that say about the case against him? In hindsight, with the details of all the other victims, Sandusky's guilt is pretty clear. But from Paterno's perspective, the 1998 case was a one-off in which Sandusky wasn't even charged. From Paterno's perspective, there's no reason to suspect Sandusky of being a child molester because the DA reviewed the allegations and decided not the press charges. If you don't take cues from law enforcement officials then who do you take cues from? Maybe a deal was made where Sandusky wasn't charged and would be removed from the staff, but I don't see how that benefits the child, and I don't see how that deal benefits all the other kids at Second Mile. My guess is that he wasn't charged because there wasn't enough evidence, and no deal of any kind was made. Do you think a DA would not charge a child molester if he agreed to resign from his position on a football staff? It doesn't make any sense, man. That deal still leaves open the possibility that he's molesting kids through his charity, or that he would simply just molest kids but not be a member of the football program. No DA makes that deal. Sandusky's position on a football program has no relevance to whether a DA would charge him for child molesting or not. It might be a deal that Paterno would be willing to make, if you're extremely cynical, but then you would have to jump through even more hoops because now you're effectively saying that Paterno has enough power to sway and influence the DA to charge or not charge a suspected child molester.
If I had to guess, I would say that this is likely to be closer to the truth for Paterno's actions rather than a pure Machiavellian plot. Which doesn't make what he did less immoral.This isn't like buying the wrong kind of toilet paper.
I agree with Apisith's comment about Paterno lacking perspective. Of course, that doesn't excuse what he did at all, not does it afford him any benefit of the doubt as to his actions. I wouldn't be surprised to find that an 84 year old man had no real concept of the width and breadth of damage that can be inflicted through sexual abuse. People of his generation can hold some pretty idiotic beliefs and stereotypes, and it's fair to say they come by it naturally. I can accept that part of what went wrong here is directly related to Paterno being poorly educated on the subject without also saying that that absolves him.
That said, there's no excuse for his lapse in moral judgement.
How about the most obvious one: the DA knew there was a conspiracy of silence, a PSU football omerta, and that he wouldn't be able to get anyone to testify against Sandusky? Not his friends, not his colleagues, not eyewitnesses to his predation, not the victims, and not their parents?It is extremely difficult to get convictions for sexual crimes in America, even when children are involved. Furthermore, the process is extremely traumatic for the victim, especially for children, even if the trial does end in a conviction. As sad as that fact is, there are many legitimate reasons the DA could have decided not to proceed with the case that have nothing to do with the actual guilt or innocence of Sandusky.
Promise?No. The problem is that we are talking about Joe Paterno. When the focus of the discussion on this matter is Joe Paterno and Penn State football, then it is clear that we have already forgiven them as a society. When we focus on what all this means to his legacy and what will happen to the Penn State football program, we have already more or less absolved them. The villains are the victors, their legacies secured by our blind devotion to bread and circuses and our own societal unwillingness to confront the terrible truth of child abuse in the United States. The victims will get some money and platitudes thrown their way. And we'll forget about them until the next serial rapist is uncovered. I hope those of you with young children have the means to protect them.
I will now stop posting in this thread.
This is where I am as well.I think we can all look at this and realize there is plenty of blame to go around here.
1. Sandusky-Nothing needs to be said
2. McQuery- Should have taken more immediate action (preferably stopping it) the he did.
3. Paterno-Should have gone to police or at least followed up to his superior.
4. Coaching staff- How could they NOT know this was going on with Sandusky give that most of them have been at PSU 20+ years??
5. Curley and Schultz- Did nothing.
6. Spanier-All his employees below and he is the top of the food chain.
Everyone here appears to be either protecting their position/legacy, the university's reputation, the multi-million dollar franchise that is PSU football or their own reputation at the expense of these children. A lot of people here have blood on their hands and none of those listed above should be allowed to keep their jobs.
Just a thought: If Paterno was aware of any other incidents regarding Sandusky, would he have not mentioned it during the Grand Jury testimony? The fact that the report does not mention any other incidents that Paterno either witnessed or was aware of suggests to me that Paterno only knew about 2002. And contrary to what I said earlier, he may not have known about 1998 as well, although I don't remember exactly what the report said about the 1998 incident, so forgive me if I'm wrong.
From a legal standpoint, if Paterno knew about other incidents and didn't mention them, could he be indicted later if other victims now step forward?
I would assume it is because there is 1. a degree of vagueness to his comments that make it easy for a defense attorney to argue he didn't feel at the time the "hug" was wrong and that it wasn't sexual in nature. and 2. It is very likely the judge would not allow that evidence to see a jury, I am assuming here that the conversation they listened in on was a phone call. Pennsylvania is a 2 party consent state so they couldn't record it without a warrant.Paterno claims he was unaware of the charges from 98, I along with many others find this difficult bordering on impossible to believe. I find the surprising retirement of the still in his prime Sandusky in 99 a bit too convenient.
I imagine Paterno could be charged with perjury if it is found he knew about 98 but I don't see how they could ever prove he did.
I can't say why Sandusky wasn't charged in 98 after he essentially confessed to molesting the boy with police present. Was it because these cases are so hard to prove or was there something more sinister going on?
I've followed this whole thread. I understand that you've been pointed, opinionated, and at times, poignant in this thread.No. The problem is that we are talking about Joe Paterno. When the focus of the discussion on this matter is Joe Paterno and Penn State football, then it is clear that we have already forgiven them as a society. When we focus on what all this means to his legacy and what will happen to the Penn State football program, we have already more or less absolved them. The villains are the victors, their legacies secured by our blind devotion to bread and circuses and our own societal unwillingness to confront the terrible truth of child abuse in the United States. The victims will get some money and platitudes thrown their way. And we'll forget about them until the next serial rapist is uncovered. I hope those of you with young children have the means to protect them.
I will now stop posting in this thread.
I keep going back to this foolishness that people continue spewing that Paterno was "informed by McQueary that something of a sexual nature occurred." Living in reality here for a moment i'm trying to imagine a scenario where the private conversation between two football coaches includes the term "something of a sexual nature" without any further description. These are two frickin alpha-male football coaches for christs sake and i understand this is a board full of overly analytical types (pun intended) but i can fairly confidently assure you that the quote much more closely resembled, "Jerry was fucking the boy in the ass, Joe!!"I've read the Grand Jury report, by the way. At this point in time, I don't think there's any doubt about Sandusky's guilt. But at that point in time, in 2002, Paterno knew of one incident which the DA decided not to press charges, and then was informed that 'something of a sexual nature' occurred in the locker room. He then passed on this information to his superiors. His actions, given what he knew, doesn't sound like someone who wanted to ignore it to protect his football program. It just sounds like someone who felt that there were people better placed to deal with it. He failed the kid by not informing the police, but he at least informed someone else. That's why I view it as an innocent mistake. He didn't ignore it or swept it under the carpet.
So damn frickin naive at best and simply ignorant at worst. Do some research on Paterno's level of fundraising for Penn State University before you post crap like this. Joe Paterno's primary job the past 30 years has been to raise money for the University he loved and nothing was going to stop him.....not even if he had to assist in coverups I'll give you a head start.....Other anecdotes about Paterno that I've read in the past couple of days suggests that he considers himself a pure football man and acts accordingly. It doesn't suggest that he would sacrifice other things for football, but that his responsibility is only the football program, nothing else, so he doesn't concern himself with other things, rightly or wrongly.
In fact, Paterno played a key role in getting Penn State into the fundraising business. He once recalled a meeting with university trustees to talk about the football team’s 1982 national championship where he issued a challenge to make the university No. 1 in academics as well.
In 1984, the university launched its first campaign, setting a $200 million goal — the highest target ever set by a public university at the time. It raised $352 million.
“Fundraising is a lot like recruiting,” Paterno once said. “Sooner or later, you gotta ask the kid, ‘Are you coming or aren’t you?’ I don’t see much difference. You make the case. And you say we’d like this, and sometimes they’d say, ‘Well, yeah, I can handle that.’ Sometimes they’ll say, ‘I can’t do that right now. How about this?’ That’s fine.”
And Paterno had a talent for separating people from their money. One time, he asked his friend Frank Pasquerilla for money to build the $9 million Pasquerilla Center, a religious and ethical affairs center at the State College campus.
No one knows exactly how much Paterno raised for the university over the years. Rod Kirsch, senior vice president for development and alumni relations, said in 2009 that it would be foolhardy to guess — $50 million, $100 million, $500 million, more?
Some estimate it’s much more. They guess it exceeds $1 billion.
Paterno played a large role in the trustees’ decision to set $1 billion as the target for Penn State’s capital campaign that ended in 2003, a goal few universities had taken on at the time, Thomas said. Paterno was confident the amount could be reached.
The campaign raised $1.4 billion.
You are grasping at straws to absolve this Pope-like figure of willful ignorance, dereliction of moral duty, cover-up, or worse. The Grand Jury report is not a transcript of all testimony before the Jury -- it is a brief and nauseating account of the information they found influential in recommending charges against Sandusky, Curley and Schultz. The report does not absolve Paterno or McQueary -- it merely does not recommend charges against them. If the report had the level of detail needed to assess Paterno's state of mind, we would also have a clearer idea of why the Jury was convinced that McQueary was telling the truth about what he told Curley and Schultz, and that Curley and Schultz were both lying when they said it wasn't serious or wasn't sexual.Just a thought: If Paterno was aware of any other incidents regarding Sandusky, would he have not mentioned it during the Grand Jury testimony? The fact that the report does not mention any other incidents that Paterno either witnessed or was aware of suggests to me that Paterno only knew about 2002. And contrary to what I said earlier, he may not have known about 1998 as well, although I don't remember exactly what the report said about the 1998 incident, so forgive me if I'm wrong.
There don't seem to be a lot of administrators at Penn State who are actually that smart.That message on ESPN from the interim PSU president is so off-key.
Yes, we know your "heart goes out" to those who were victimized. Good for you that you plan to rebuild the trust and respect that PSU used to have. But you're asking for people to join you in doing that? Why should any of us do anything for you?
His message should have been something like: We are appalled by what has happened. It doesn't represent what PSU is all about. There are legal investigations going on and we will support them to the best of our abilities until everyone that was involved in letting this happen in our community is brought to justice. Only by assuring you that we have done our part to live up to the values of our organization can we earn back your trust and respect and to this cause we are all dedicated.
The message he chose was "some bad things happened, but it's time to move on." It's not that easy.
Sandusky didn't continue working on his staff, but he still had an office at the school. And he still was seen around the locker rooms without anybody batting an eye, apparently. He was even seen on campus a week before this news got huge. McQueary was not only still on the staff, but he received a promotion, getting a full-time job as an assistant coach instead of being a graduate assistant. How can you hire someone at a full-time position if you think his "very upset" proclamation that he saw a child being raped (McQueary's words) or "fondling or something of a sexual nature" (Paterno's words) and still see Sandusky around on campus connected with the football program?Well firstly, Sandusky didn't continue working on his staff. He was already gone by that time.
Secondly, Paterno told McQueary to report it to the higher-ups, which McQueary did. Paterno's already been quoted as saying that he stopped McQueary before he was able to reveal all the details - for whatever reason - and asked McQueary to report it to the higher-ups.
This should make clear that you have either made an incorrect assumption about the events and their timeline or that you are repeating incorrect information or that you are repeating unverified information (rumors). I'm not sure why you would believe anything other than the grand jury report, which was convened to find out the facts of what happened.The next morning, a Saturday, the graduate assistant telephoned Paterno and went to Paterno's home, where he reported what he had seen.
Joseph V. Paterno testified to receiving the graduate assistant's report at his home on a Saturday morning. Paterno testified that the graduate assistant was very upset. Paterno called Tim Curley ("Curley"), Penn State Athletic Director and Paterno's immediate superior, to his hom ethe very next day, a Sunday, and reported to him that the graduate assistant had seen Jerry Sandusky in the Lasch Building showers fondling or doing something of a sexual nature to a young boy.
Old news but certainly worth mentioning again.Yahoo Sports reporting that Sandusky was working out at the Penn State gym last week.
http://rivals.yahoo....last_week110711
I have to offer a confession...when estimating the revenue of one major college football game, I did some bad math and had an extra zero in there...what I had seen as $100 Million was really only $10 Million. Then I spun that into "fraction of a billion". The better phrase would have been "Tens of Millions". The point still stands that it's a shitload of money, but not quite as enourmously massive a shitload of money as I migh thave implied at first.
WayBacks assertion that this stuff is so damn profitable that that losing one home date and compensating opponents for skipping two away games wouldn't come close to "crippling" Penn State could be true, but one would have to carefully review the numbers to say for sure. Those are the sort of numbers that can get spun and manipulated like crazy, depending on what's is being shown, and who is showing it.
Anyway, Mea Culpa on the "fractions of billions" thing. That was just incorrect.
https://twitter.com/petethamelnyt/status/135462789396434944Tom Bradley: "I felt today that just maybe the healing process started to begin."
"You have to look at who he is, and what he stands for," said Williamsport head coach Tom Gravish, who has known Sandusky ever since his coaching days at East Juniata. "He stands for everything that is right in life. There's so much more to him than the game of football. I refer to him as Saint Jerry because I have so much respect for him. I'll never forget when we had a football festival when I was at EJ, and I asked him about helping us out. He never wavered. He said, 'Absolutely, I'm there.' He has so much energy and is always smiling."
I bet the writer wishes his name were off that article. Or maybe he should just change his name and assume a new identity.http://www.maxpreps....ll-teaching.htm
October 2008 article about Sandusky, starting with a nugget about he and Bradley's working relationship and summarizing his post-PSU coaching career. Filled with quotes I'm sure people wish didn't exist on the internet anymore.
Good for that guy. This was a very poignant comment from the writer:
At least he referred to "victims", while ESPN refers to "alleged victims". Aren't we past allegations?There don't seem to be a lot of administrators at Penn State who are actually that smart.
Thanks for sharing. I feel dirty after reading that. What possesses a grown man to throw a sign to the ground that condemns child abuse? Does that idiot even realize how that must look? Unless he actually approves of child abuse?
There's plenty of reason to be critical of ESPN, but they're right about this. They use the word alleged not because they don't believe it really happened, but because if they didn't it would basically give the defense a slam-dunk grounds for appeal.At least he referred to "victims", while ESPN refers to "alleged victims". Aren't we past allegations?
http://www.maxpreps....ll-teaching.htm
October 2008 article about Sandusky, starting with a nugget about he and Bradley's working relationship and summarizing his post-PSU coaching career. Filled with quotes I'm sure people wish didn't exist on the internet anymore.
"I knew some kids from way back, and I took an interest in them." Sandusky said.
In addition, The Second Mile continues to succeed. It has nine programs that touch well over 100,000 kids in all counties of the state. It has three offices – in State College, Camp Hill and King of Prussia.
The game plan has been drawn up, and he has drilled the defense.
Passion.
No - they're doing that because to do otherwise is potentially slanderous in the event isn't convicted of anything. News organizations do this all the time. It doesn't make it any more pleasant to listen to, but there it is.There's plenty of reason to be critical of ESPN, but they're right about this. They use the word alleged not because they don't believe it really happened, but because if they didn't it would basically give the defense a slam-dunk grounds for appeal.
Maybe in the UK, but in the US you need to prove malicious intent, and that's a hard standard to prove against a (purported) news organization.No - they're doing that because to do otherwise is potentially slanderous in the event isn't convicted of anything. News organizations do this all the time. It doesn't make it any more pleasant to listen to, but there it is.
While this may be true surely you can understand why a conglomerate such as Disney wouldn't even want to go near that hornet's nest, can't you?Maybe in the UK, but in the US you need to prove malicious intent, and that's a hard standard to prove against a (purported) news organization.
Doesn't matter. Until someone has been convicted, you go with "alleged." Frankly, I'd go with "Victims 1-8 allege that Sandusky ..." rather than refer to a person as an "alleged victim." It's just better writing and removes the "he said/he said" from the conversation.Maybe in the UK, but in the US you need to prove malicious intent, and that's a hard standard to prove against a (purported) news organization.
You've got to be kidding. "Innocent mistake"? Locking your keys in the car is an innocent mistake. Failing to properly address (at best) or even covering up (at worst... ?) child rape allegations is not an innocent mistake.I don't think there's any doubt that he was aware of the 1998 incident. But he could have reasonably assumed that it was a one-off based on the DA's action. Then 2002 happened, and I think you have to evaluate his judgment and decision here by firstly trying to understand his perspective. Like I've explained before, if you do this, it could easily be Paterno passing on the responsibility because he felt that there were other people who were better placed to deal with it, in which case his mistake is of a more innocent nature, even if the consequences were tragic.
You know, if I were in Joe Pa's shoes, and I heard about a child being raped, I think that logic is right. I would pass on the responsibility to other people who were better placed to deal with it.I don't think there's any doubt that he was aware of the 1998 incident. But he could have reasonably assumed that it was a one-off based on the DA's action. Then 2002 happened, and I think you have to evaluate his judgment and decision here by firstly trying to understand his perspective. Like I've explained before, if you do this, it could easily be Paterno passing on the responsibility because he felt that there were other people who were better placed to deal with it, in which case his mistake is of a more innocent nature, even if the consequences were tragic.