Penn State AD and Sandusky Charged

Kremlin Watcher

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Uh oh. Now the money is starting to run: cars.com has withdrawn its sponsorship of the next two ESPN Saturday games, both of which feature (at least as of today) Penn State.
 

RedOctober3829

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Penn State statement: Due to multiple threats made against Assistant Coach Mike McQueary, the University has decided it would be in the best interest of all for Assistant Coach McQueary not to be in attendance at Saturday's Nebraska game.
 
Sep 27, 2004
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So they're punting on McQueary. Ridiculous. The remainder of the season should be canceled while the investigations run their course. Put everyone on administrative leave until you know what you're dealing with. End of story.
 

Sea Bass Neely

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So they're punting on McQueary. Ridiculous. The remainder of the season should be canceled while the investigations run their course. Put everyone on administrative leave until you know what you're dealing with. End of story.
This is insanely unfair to the students/players/everyone. Some of those players were in Kindergarden the last time Jerry Sandusky was on staff. It also kind of messes with their chances to earn a livelihood a bit.
 

terrynever

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So they're punting on McQueary. Ridiculous. The remainder of the season should be canceled while the investigations run their course. Put everyone on administrative leave until you know what you're dealing with. End of story.
Lot of money involved. Penn State home football games bring around $59M per into the State College community. ESPN will have high ratings, whether you want to hear that or not. They don't want to pull the plug.

The NCAA and everyone else are all about the money.
 

Kremlin Watcher

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This is insanely unfair to the students/players/everyone. Some of those players were in Kindergarden the last time Jerry Sandusky was on staff. It also kind of messes with their chances to earn a livelihood a bit.
If they canceled three football games? The football program is responsible for this mess. By playing on Saturday, Penn State University denies its responsibility for this. By playing any more games of football this season, PSU is telling the world that football is more important than the lives of little boys, victims of rape and abuse. Their little world is imploding in a frenzy of moral collapse, media scrutiny, lawsuits and condemnation from the likes of Barry Switzer and the Westboro Baptist Church (and when they are in the right and you are in the wrong, you are finished) that may threaten the University's existence. And they need to play football on Saturday to make themselves feel better?

Yeah, that sounds pretty unfair.

Blow it up. Suspend the football program. Let all players transfer with no eligibility loss. Fire everyone even remotely connected with it. Start over in a year or two. Show the world your press conference posturing isn't just empty words. Have some courage and recognize that the problem starts with the football program being untouchable and unaccountable. Make it accountable and maybe make something positive come out of this.
 

knucklecup

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Not fair to the players who had nothing to do with this absurd behavior - put a commemorative patch on the jerseys or something, but you can't cancel games.
 

natpastime162

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If they canceled three football games? The football program is responsible for this mess. By playing on Saturday, Penn State University denies its responsibility for this. By playing any more games of football this season, PSU is telling the world that football is more important than the lives of little boys, victims of rape and abuse. Their little world is imploding in a frenzy of moral collapse, media scrutiny, lawsuits and condemnation from the likes of Barry Switzer and the Westboro Baptist Church (and when they are in the right and you are in the wrong, you are finished) that may threaten the University's existence. And they need to play football on Saturday to make themselves feel better?

Yeah, that sounds pretty unfair.

Blow it up. Suspend the football program. Let all players transfer with no eligibility loss. Fire everyone even remotely connected with it. Start over in a year or two. Show the world your press conference posturing isn't just empty words. Have some courage and recognize that the problem starts with the football program being untouchable and unaccountable. Make it accountable and maybe make something positive come out of this.
The Westboro Baptist Church is right in your eyes, and for only one reason. You agree with them.
 

Kremlin Watcher

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Not fair to the players who had nothing to do with this absurd behavior - put a commemorative patch on the jerseys or something, but you can't cancel games.
Fuck it. I can't have an intelligent argument with people who think it's rational to compare the relative fairness of rape and football.

But yeah, a commemorative patch ought to make it all better.
 

Byrdbrain

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Fuck it. I can't have an intelligent argument with people who think it's rational to compare the relative fairness of rape and football.

But yeah, a commemorative patch ought to make it all better.

Well nothing will make it better but canceling the games makes it worse for some people. The football team will be gutted the next few years as who the hell is going to want to go there, at least let the kids that are there finish out the season. They didn't do anything wrong.
 

soxfan121

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This is insanely unfair to the students/players/everyone. Some of those players were in Kindergarden the last time Jerry Sandusky was on staff. It also kind of messes with their chances to earn a livelihood a bit.
Yup. I feel bad for the PSU football players and students who are disgusted, outraged and humiliated by the actions of the "adults" on campus. The Kremlin may want to carpet bomb State College but the actions of a few sick, evil old men can't and don't outweigh the large numbers of PSU employees, faculty, students, coaches and administrators who didn't know anything about this sordid mess. No one is going to shut down the football program and no one is going to shut down PSU. But individuals responsible need to be held accountable and the truth exposed.
 

Awesome Fossum

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It is incredibly unfair to the players (especially the seniors), but they need to be collateral damage, unfortunately. This ought to be bigger than them. The attitude/culture that the football team is untouchable is the entire problem. Staging this circus of a football game is a symptom of a still-infected university.
 

terrynever

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I've always felt sports had an ability to bring people together. This Penn State team is either going to fall apart on Saturday or pull off an amazing victory. They're not as good as their 8-1 record suggests and they've only played mediocre Big Ten teams so far. Maybe it would be fitting to see them get their asses kicked in front of their home fans. But whatever happens, it's going to be a sports event, not a roll call on the moral failings of the administrators and head coach who should have known better a long time ago, back in 1998 when this all began to fall apart.

I won't be watching the game because I'm working but I hope the Penn State players conduct themselves with class. Young people never fail to amaze me in situations like this. They are the hope for the future. It's us older people who keep screwing up the world.
 

Kremlin Watcher

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Yup. I feel bad for the PSU football players and students who are disgusted, outraged and humiliated by the actions of the "adults" on campus. The Kremlin may want to carpet bomb State College but the actions of a few sick, evil old men can't and don't outweigh the large numbers of PSU employees, faculty, students, coaches and administrators who didn't know anything about this sordid mess. No one is going to shut down the football program and no one is going to shut down PSU. But individuals responsible need to be held accountable and the truth exposed.
I can't resist. I am so fucking upset by this shit that I just can't stop.

Apply some basic critical thinking skills here. The problem was not "the actions of a few sick, evil old men". That may have been the proximate cause of the events of the last few days, but that isn't the problem. The problem is a culture that values football more than little boys and an institution that puts its own welfare above that of human beings. The problem is a personality cult built around the football coach that made him and anyone he wanted to protect completely untouchable and unaccountable, even for a crime as serious as rape. That is the culture that created a mindset that made it OK for Mike McQueary not to report his witnessing of anal rape of a child to the police. That is the culture that created the belief that it is OK to suppress findings of child abuse to protect the football program. The football program is the fucking problem. What they are doing now is a joke, an absurd, surrealist comedy. Replacing the head coach with an assistant coach, who could not have been ignorant of the problem and still been conscious for the last decade? Awesome. That ought to fix things. Play Nebraska on national TV as your little bubble of denial collapses in a morass of civil and criminal lawsuits? That'll make everyone feel grrrrrrreat! Seriously, who is running the show out there at Penn State? Bozo the Clown? Every single minute they sit there and talk about investigations and taking responsibility and keeping the victims in their prayers, they give the lie to it all by denying the truth: the football program is the problem. Shut it down.

Life isn't fair. Ask the rape victims.
 

Rasputin

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I don't get how cancelling football games is supposed to make it better. It's certainly not going to make the victims of the Pederasty Coordinator feel any better. It's not going to make the controversy go away any sooner. I just don't see the point.

It's pretty likely that most of the people who are involved in the football program didn't know shit and it's certainly true that most of the people in the stands had no clue.

Meanwhile you have a ton of financial commitments to a ton of people from advertisers to students to everything else. If cancelling games would enable the victims to go back in time and have it not happen then you do that but you can't.

Play out the season, decline any bowl invites, replace the entire coaching staff as soon as the season is over.
 

Kremlin Watcher

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I don't get how cancelling football games is supposed to make it better. It's certainly not going to make the victims of the Pederasty Coordinator feel any better. It's not going to make the controversy go away any sooner. I just don't see the point.
It doesn't make it better. Nothing makes this situation better. Nothing. By recognizing that the football program is the problem, by making the football program accountable, it makes it not worse. Playing football makes it worse. Playing football is denial that there is an institutional problem.
 

Delicious Sponge

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Playing football makes it worse. Playing football is denial that there is an institutional problem.
Yes. And punting on McQueary is another example of the same.

They still don't get it - and at some point you say - even the people who seem to be trying to fix it are part of the problem.

The people charged with the protection of this institution are destroying it by their actions.
 

kenneycb

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It doesn't make it better. Nothing makes this situation better. Nothing. By recognizing that the football program is the problem, by making the football program accountable, it makes it not worse. Playing football makes it worse. Playing football is denial that there is an institutional problem.
So why did they fire a bunch of really important people associated with the football program? You want to punish a large population for the actions of a small minority.
 

kenneycb

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Yes. And punting on McQueary is another example of the same.

They still don't get it - and at some point you say - even the people who seem to be trying to fix it are part of the problem.

The people charged with the protection of this institution are destroying it by their actions.
Have we had a definitive answer on the legal implications of the whistleblower thing? This may need to play its course for a little bit before McQueary gets his day.
 

Gdiguy

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Meanwhile you have a ton of financial commitments to a ton of people from advertisers to students to everything else.
I suspect the sponsors would prefer the game be cancelled at this point anyway. Cars.com has already pulled out from ESPN sponsorship for the next two weeks (which were to be PSU games), and Penn State's athletics dept sponsorhip page has been blanked out (see the google cache version)

Yeah, a lot of people will be watching... but I don't think at this point any company wants to be associated with this.

*edit

I have to say, I somewhat agree with Kremlin - the core of the problem is that the football staff had so much power that they felt (apparently accurately) they weren't accountable to anyone. Saying that they can't cancel the football game because of what a devastating effect it will have on the players and the PSU community is basically re-stating the exact problem; the importance of the football team is so incredibly out of proportion that it encourages an environment where rules don't apply.
 

Fred not Lynn

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If they canceled three football games? The football program is responsible for this mess. By playing on Saturday, Penn State University denies its responsibility for this.
For one, two of those three games are away games. Why should Ohio State and Wisconsin lose a home football date and the accompanying revenue because Penn State's mid-deeds?

And we're not just talking about the Football programs losing money, or even the athletic departments as wholes. Thousands of people; grounds crew, security, ushers, TV production people, F&B servers, janitorial staff, parking attendants and on and on rely on these events as part of their employment income directly - and yes, losing even one game worth of income is hard on them. Penn State needs to be held accountable, but not at such a high cost to so many others.
 

WayBackVazquez

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This is insanely unfair to the students/players/everyone. Some of those players were in Kindergarden the last time Jerry Sandusky was on staff. It also kind of messes with their chances to earn a livelihood a bit.
Innocent people pay the price for shit other people did all the time. Even most of the thugs at OSU probably haven't committed any of the violations that will have that program banned from postseason play for a few years. The difference here is that we're not talking about meaningless crap that every program engages in, and only some get caught doing. Here, innocent kids, kids who were never going to play Big Ten or NFL football, have had their lives ruined. So some players miss a few football games, and the opportunity to get destroyed in the first Big Ten championship game. They'll get over it. And they'll learn from it. But their lives won't be ruined like those kids' lives have been.
 

Alcohol&Overcalls

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I have to say, I somewhat agree with Kremlin - the core of the problem is that the football staff had so much power that they felt (apparently accurately) they weren't accountable to anyone. Saying that they can't cancel the football game because of what a devastating effect it will have on the players and the PSU community is basically re-stating the exact problem; the importance of the football team is so incredibly out of proportion that it encourages an environment where rules don't apply.
Canceling the games will do nothing to curb that institutional issue, either - nor will it "fix" the endemic flaws of college football on the whole, as these same issues are present in EVERY university with a major college football program.

Canceling games is yet another band-aid - Kremlin is actually pushing for elimination of the football program entirely, as that is the only way to get to the "root" of the issue, as it were.

Also, one floating thought on McQueary is that, as a star witness for the State (and eyewitness to rape), his arrangement is cozy at worst, and that the he/the school has a deal (or has to deal) w/ the AG's office.
 

singaporesoxfan

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So why did they fire a bunch of really important people associated with the football program? You want to punish a large population for the actions of a small minority.
The 'punishment' being suggested essentially is that the 100 or so players on a college football team will not get to play 1 regular-season game that likely will not affect a bowl appearance (assuming PSU will turn down any bowl offers), and their 100000 fans will not get to see that 1 game.

Fair or unfair, it sounds really weird to me that being denied one game is depicted as that horrific a punishment. That just shows I didn't go to a football school, I guess.
 
Sep 27, 2004
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This is insanely unfair to the students/players/everyone. Some of those players were in Kindergarden the last time Jerry Sandusky was on staff. It also kind of messes with their chances to earn a livelihood a bit.
You cannot be serious. The LAST people we should be worried about treating "fairly" are some entitled college students. They're not owed anything, unless you consider their collective inability to understand and respect what is truly important here as an educational failure. In which case, they're owed a refund from PSU for their wasted tuition.

As for those football players, it's three fucking meaningless games. If they're any good, they can still go to another team or get drafted by the NFL. Nobody's livelihood is impacted.

Cancel the games so the students can learn that some things are more important than football. That's a lesson they and many PSU supporters clearly haven't learned yet.
 

Snodgrass'Muff

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I think the best reason I've heard for cancelling games is that it demonstrates a willingness on the part of the university to show (not just say) that they are more than just a their football program and that the university, and by extension it's image, is more important than bowl games. If they want to start doing damage control for the university at large, this is one way they can do that.
 

singaporesoxfan

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Canceling the games will do nothing to curb that institutional issue, either - nor will it "fix" the endemic flaws of college football on the whole, as these same issues are present in EVERY university with a major college football program.
It might, however, show that the actions or inactions of people like Paterno have consequences. If these people claimed to love Penn State and the town so much, they should not have hurt the university and the community that way.

When Enron collapsed, a lot of innocent Enron employees lost their jobs. Many blamed Ken Lay. If the game has to be cancelled and people lose incomes, the blame falls on Sandusky and Paterno.
 

RedSoxFan

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Penn State statement: Due to multiple threats made against Assistant Coach Mike McQueary, the University has decided it would be in the best interest of all for Assistant Coach McQueary not to be in attendance at Saturday's Nebraska game.
They should let him coach. If something happens then I think Tom Bradley should just tell the AD about it.
 

WayBackVazquez

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You were probably typing while I was posting, but yes - thousands of people's livelihoods are impacted...many of whom are hurt a whole lot more financially than any player, coach or administrator would be by having even one game cancelled.
This is such an unfounded and absurd contention, I can barely stand it. Happy Valley, Columbus, and Madison will each lose one game. Each of those schools tends to play an extra home game than most of the conference, anyway. Do you honestly believe there are thousands of hot dog salesmen who will be sleeping on the streets because they lost out on the fifty bucks they would have earned at the PSU game? Give me a break.
 

Alcohol&Overcalls

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It might, however, show that the actions or inactions of people like Paterno have consequences. If these people claimed to love Penn State and the town so much, they should not have hurt the university and the community that way.
That very well may be - and that may be reason enough, I'm not in position to know really.

I think Snograss's line of thought may be better, though, because at least it frames it in the positive - an attempt to take control or a 'show' of action, but it's not clear it will be much more than just a show.
 

Cellar-Door

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This is such an unfounded and absurd contention, I can barely stand it. Happy Valley, Columbus, and Madison will each lose one game. Each of those schools tends to play an extra home game than most of the conference, anyway. Do you honestly believe there are thousands of hot dog salesmen who will be sleeping on the streets because they lost out on the fifty bucks they would have earned at the PSU game? Give me a break.
A days work is pretty important to a lot of people, especially people who are taking extra jobs working at a stadium selling food or doing janitorial work, add in the lost business to restaurants and hotels from thousands of visiting fans, and yes that is a major economic impact in the community. Also you are then punishing Ohio State and Wisconsin for the actions of Penn State officials.
 

Sea Bass Neely

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I really want to avoid repeatedly posting in this thread as I just don't have the patience or willingness to play the my outrage is worse than your outrage game. But do want to provide a little summation of my thoughts on the topic.

What happened was horrific. It was terrible and unacceptable. But I'm not willing to condemn the Penn State Community (of which I have many, many separate issues with), the students or the current students athletes because of what happened.

College football is so engrained in these communities it becomes a unique part of the culture. And you clearly think that culture is wrong and sick, and parts probably are, but is also the source of so much joy to so many people. Saturdays are sacred to me and it has very little to do with the actual football games.

So you have a problem here and you fix it. Make sure you get it right. It will take time and there will be painful progress to fix this thing as there already is. But I struggle to see how punishing the community is going to do anything to help the victims or stop the 1000's of other Jerry Sandusky's lurking out there. Everyone is going to lose in this process.

*On a completely selfish note - I hope they cancel their entire season as it would provide quite the favor to my own University*
 

WayBackVazquez

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A days work is pretty important to a lot of people, especially people who are taking extra jobs working at a stadium selling food or doing janitorial work, add in the lost business to restaurants and hotels from thousands of visiting fans, and yes that is a major economic impact in the community. Also you are then punishing Ohio State and Wisconsin for the actions of Penn State officials.
Yes, poor OSU is being punished. Of course they get punished all the time by having to give up 35% of their gate to freeloaders like Northwestern and Indiana. And the rest of the conference is going to get punished when OSU gets banned from postseason play and so all the schools lose out on their shares of the would-be bowl revenue. This money excuse is absolute bullshit. All 3 schools are extremely flush with football cash, and can both withstand the loss of a game, and make any employee who is not already paid a salary whole. The Big Ten, likewise could adjust the revenue sharing for these three games to minimize financial impact.
 

WayBackVazquez

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*On a completely selfish note - I hope they cancel their entire season as it would provide quite the favor to my own University*
50 bucks to the Jimmy Fund says your school won't be playing in a bowl game this season whether PSU goes 0-3, 5-0, or anywhere in between the rest of the way.
 

Mystic Merlin

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A days work is pretty important to a lot of people, especially people who are taking extra jobs working at a stadium selling food or doing janitorial work, add in the lost business to restaurants and hotels from thousands of visiting fans, and yes that is a major economic impact in the community. Also you are then punishing Ohio State and Wisconsin for the actions of Penn State officials.
So, the NCAA should not levy penalties on programs? Should the death penalty never be exercised? What are you arguing?

Punishments often affect many third parties who had no part in perpetrating the offenses in question. That should not affect the administration of the said punishment because the point is not to protect the interests of third parties but to hold the offender(s) accountable and vindicate whatever interests (in this case, the interests of the community, fans, and victims in living in a society where such acts are punished with impunity) may be implicated. No punishment will undo the damage, but IMO, it will allow for a collective psychological catharsis, or at least an acknowledgement that the game of football is not important right now. This game, and, arguably, none of the remaining games, should be played. The program and community has bigger issues to deal with, and, while unfortunate to the many innocent bystanders, things need to be put on hold for the time being. Playing these games suggests it is business as usual. It is not.
 

Fred not Lynn

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This is such an unfounded and absurd contention, I can barely stand it. Happy Valley, Columbus, and Madison will each lose one game. Each of those schools tends to play an extra home game than most of the conference, anyway. Do you honestly believe there are thousands of hot dog salesmen who will be sleeping on the streets because they lost out on the fifty bucks they would have earned at the PSU game? Give me a break.
Producing a major event for 80,000 to 100,000 spectators is a massive endeavor, we're not talking about an army of just "hot-dog salesmen", we're talking about a whole lot of people doing a whole lot of tasks - some will be impacted more than others for sure. And some of those guys, most likely from the crew of day laborers who clean the stadium after, are already on the streets or in a shelter...so yeah, that $75 they make that day matters a lot.

Point is, the vast majority of these people never molested a child (sadly, some probably have, given the numbers), and never covered up for someone who was molesting a child. Why should a groundkeeper in Madison lose a days wages because Jerry Sandusky is a pervert and Joe Paterno is a prick?
 

WayBackVazquez

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Producing a major event for 80,000 to 100,000 spectators is a massive endeavor, we're not talking about an army of just "hot-dog salesmen", we're talking about a whole lot of people doing a whole lot of tasks - some will be impacted more than others for sure. And some of those guys, most likely from the crew of day laborers who clean the stadium after, are already on the streets or in a shelter...so yeah, that $75 they make that day matters a lot.

Point is, the vast majority of these people never molested a child (sadly, some probably have, given the numbers), and never covered up for someone who was molesting a child. Why should a groundkeeper in Madison lose a days wages because Jerry Sandusky is a pervert and Joe Paterno is a prick?
Why should a groundkeeper in Ann Arbor lose a days wages because Dave Brandon wants to play Alabama at Jerry's World instead of scheduling another patsy at the Big House? What of the poor A2 Hampton Inn franchisee?! Honestly, this is a nonsensical argument.
 

jonb5

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Not a single mention of the huge heroin ring busted a few months before his disappearance, or the MD prosecutor who went missing in the same fashion. Let's not go with the most likely scenario. Instead we'll all assume a huge conspiracy. Until actual evidence appears even remotely suggesting PSU's involvement in the DA disappearance, people who throw these types of things at the wall are no better than the individuals who blindly defend Paterno, McQueary, Spanier, et al. The opposite end of the defend at all costs spectrum are the individuals who suggest a witch hunt condemning anyone who stepped foot on campus.
I feel the need to respond to this because many people seem to be accepting this heroin ring thing prima facie.

Who else is painting this as the most likely scenario beside William Keisling, a guy who wrote a book on Jonathan Luna, the U.S. Attorney from MD, and therefore has a financial interest in making such a connection? I don't see this mentioned at all in the New York Times piece or anything else I've read over the past 5 days. Why not?

Let me pick this apart:

1) Keatling's half-assed article that was linked to earlier was posted on April 17, 2005 - TWO DAYS after Gricar disappeared. More than enough time for him to conduct an exhaustive investigation for sure. Apparently, he didn't need to wait for the police to find Gricar's laptop and hard drive in the Susquehanna River. Or hear that Gricar seemed nervous in the days leading up to his disappearance, asking people at work if they knew how to erase a hard drive.

2) Luna did not go missing in a similar fashion. He was found dead within several hours of being stabbed 36 times.

3) I don't know how you define a "huge" drug ring, but 9 people led by a 24 year old kid trafficking $500k worth of smack a year is far from huge. Let's get real, this wasn't Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Cartel. In Centre County where a single heroin overdose warrants an investigation, it may have been a big deal. What's an even bigger deal is a football program that generates $70+ million a year in revenue.

Also, the drug ring was arrested 2 weeks before the disappearance, not a few months before. The trial had not even started yet.

3) Let's assume for a moment that the drug ring is the most likely culprit. Ray Gricar WAS NOT the prosecutor of this case. He wasn't even directly involved in the investigation. He made an appearance at a press conference held by the Attorney General, who just so happens to be current Pennsylvania Governor and PSU board member, Tom Corbett. If you're going to kill a prosecutor, shouldn't it be, you know, the one actually prosecuting your case? And how does killing the prosecutor help? You think they're just gonna drop the charges? You have someone kill a witness to get a case dropped (not trying to be ironic here). And why go to such lengths to cover up the crime and dispose of the body? We're talking about drug dealers, who aren't ezactly known for subtlte retribution.

4) Here's just some of what constitutes a "striking resemblance" between the two "disappearances", according to Keisling:

-- At the time of their disappearances, both prosecutors were involved in high-stakes heroin cases.
-- The drug suppliers in both cases were from the New York city area. "Bricks and bricks from foreign dudes up top," as Luna's FBI informant, Warren Grace, explains.
-- Both men disappeared on car rides, while they were alone.
-- Both men vanished without their cell phones. Luna's cell phone was found on his desk, while Gricar's was in his car. This seems to indicate misplaced trust, or perhaps a sudden interruption that called them away from their routine or expected activites.
Ummmm... actually none of those things indicate they are related. If someone has "actual evidence even remotely suggesting PSU's the heroin ring's involvement in the DA disappearance" please share.
 

Fred not Lynn

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Why should a groundkeeper in Ann Arbor lose a days wages because Dave Brandon wants to play Alabama at Jerry's World instead of scheduling another patsy at the Big House? What of the poor A2 Hampton Inn franchisee?! Honestly, this is a nonsensical argument.
There's a big difference between long range planning towards greater goals and more or less last minute cancellation of planned events. In any case, IF Penn State were to withdraw their football team from their two remaining away games, I would hope at minimum a large payment to their two scheduled opponents would be part of that action. You can't play in a league and then just not show up for your games, forcing your opponent to refund millions of dollars in ticket sales.

And don't worry about the Big House. I'm pretty sure Dave Brandon will keep finding ways to keep operations satff employed and hotel rooms full in A2 for many years to come.
 

Cellar-Door

Member
SoSH Member
Aug 1, 2006
34,457
Why should a groundkeeper in Ann Arbor lose a days wages because Dave Brandon wants to play Alabama at Jerry's World instead of scheduling another patsy at the Big House? What of the poor A2 Hampton Inn franchisee?! Honestly, this is a nonsensical argument.
No it isn't. you advocate something that punishes a huge group of people for actions of a few, while not actually punishing the few. How does cancelling games punish Joe Paterno, Jerry Sandusky, Tim Curley, Graham Spanier, or Gary Schultz all of whom have been fired (except Curley who I'm sure will be fired when it is legally possible). If your issue is with the University you can make the argument that they should donate their share of the gate to charity, but the idea that cancelling games punishes those responsible is ridiculous. The argument that cancelling games adversely affects the communities is hardly nonsensical, just because games are scheduled elsewhere and hurt the community doesn't mean your proposal hurts the community less.
 

JBill

Member
SoSH Member
Aug 17, 2001
2,028
I suspect the sponsors would prefer the game be cancelled at this point anyway. Cars.com has already pulled out from ESPN sponsorship for the next two weeks (which were to be PSU games), and Penn State's athletics dept sponsorhip page has been blanked out (see the google cache version)

Yeah, a lot of people will be watching... but I don't think at this point any company wants to be associated with this.
This was the cars.com comment:

Due to the recent allegations surrounding the Penn State Football program, Cars.com has decided to withdraw from this weekend's sponsorship of the Nebraska at Penn State game on Saturday, November 12 at 12:00 PM. As a proud, longtime supporter of ESPN College Football, it's important to us that we're building our brand and raising the visibility of our advertisers in a way that celebrates the sport, the dedication of its student athletes and the many reputable universities that field teams. We will still be sponsoring a game this weekend.
That stings a little cars.com. I mean, understandable, but yikes.
 

WayBackVazquez

white knight against high school nookie
SoSH Member
Aug 23, 2006
8,294
Los Angeles
Right, because your hypothetical migrant stadium workers/homeless shelter denizens could have planned to go work the Auburn game that weekend. Now they'd be fucked. Games get cancelled. Shit happens. Often times it happens simply because some douchebag athlete took some free stuff from another douchebag booster. Sometimes you miss out on 5-10 home games because guys are eating fried chicken, drinking beer and playing video games in the clubhouse. Nobody in Madison is going to lose his house because Penn State cancels a game. This whole situation is so much bigger than losing a home game, and deep down I'm sure you get that.
 

Cellar-Door

Member
SoSH Member
Aug 1, 2006
34,457
This was the cars.com comment:



That stings a little cars.com. I mean, understandable, but yikes.
It's also callous self promotion. No one was going to criticize them for having ads on during that game, they knew that withdrawing and making a public statement about it would tie them in with the biggest story of the week and give them tens of thousands of dollars worth of free advertising.