Posted on 11/11/2011 12:20:45 PM PST by ken5050
I've been following the events at Penn State as they unfold, and like everyone, am horrified at what I've read. But there are two things that have bothered me about this story, that I'm having trouble understanding, keeping in context, and may well provide a viable alternative explanation of what happened.
Did Rodney Erickson at his presser just say that Graham Spanier is still a tenured prof at PSU and could return to teaching?!?
No, I am not. Something is very radically wrong with a man whose entire life is a myth. It’s an image polished and spitshined over years and years. He never ventured into the real world...ever.
Yes. He was a good coach. Maybe even a phenomenal coach. It does not wash away his guilt in this.
He was the backstop...the enforcer. He was there to make sure that nothing went wrong. Nothing got past him because everything went THROUGH him. Please do not try to tell me he didn’t know.
They paid the man a mil a year PLUS. Please.
I think the administrators knew by 2002 that PSU was in line for enormous lawsuits if the whole truth came out in a police investigation. (Everybody knew about the suits against the Catholic Church by then.) So they went into damage control/coverup mode. They tried to dissociate themselves from Sandusky without making it too obvious. Completely banning Sandusky would have drawn too much attention from “nosy” reporters and the like. Of course, the coverup ultimately failed.
If you'd read this thread before posting #80, you'd see that someone else corrected me on this quite awhile ago.
But thanks for caring.
As always, Sam, a brilliant and knowledgeable post.
I'm sorry to report that you're wrong.
At some point Paterno and Athletic Director Jay Curley spoke with Gary Schultz, the PSU Senior Vice President of Business and Finance, but we don't know if Curley or Paterno called in Schultz. The Grand Jury documents don't say.
The head of University Police reported to Schultz on the organizational chart, but Schultz wasn't the head of the University Police. Just as the Director of the FBI reports to Barack Obama, but Obama is not the head of the FBI.
Schultz never reported the 2002 incident to the University Police. Nobody did. The GJ documents make that point clear. Schultz was NOT the University Police or the head of the University Police. He was a VP of Penn State.
When the students rioted the other night, or when a dorm was broken into, or a car was stolen, you didn't call Schultz. You called the University Police. Except, of course, in the case of anal rape of a preteen boy in the football showers.
You are correct and this is something for each of us to remember. Inaction IS action. The ban shows they knew something, just they were not willing to do what it took to fix the problem.
And we still don't know just how culpable he was.
Please do not try to tell me he didn’t know.
Don't act like it's certain that he did know.
They paid the man a mil a year PLUS. Please.
And...?
I don’t believe the McQueary was molested by Sandusky. I do think that Sandusky’s position as a defensive coach on a team that Mike quarterbacked, he was the father of a friend, small community that Mike grew up at...etc caused Mike M to not know how to deal with it. He went to JoePa, the most authoritative person in the entire world in his eyes. People want to hang McQueary for not doing enough, but he was a local HS quarterback that had a dream fulfilled playing for the Lions. This was all family to him and he went to the one person that he felt would make everything right and that would magically transfer the responsibility of what he had witnessed.
Not neccessarily true. Bill Clinton’s secretary was not forthcoming with his peccadillo until forced to. These ‘professional’ are just like anyone else. Sadly, today so many of us can turn a blind eye to these situations, first, because it brings us into it, and secondly it might cause us our job. A superintendent where my wife taught would not stand up against some parents bringing up false and anonymous complaints because and quote, “I have to feed my family.” His response, find another school and leave as fast as he could. Each of us better reach way down inside of us and figure out what we are made of and fast.
samantha, remember that this is coming from someone who was formerly a huge fan of Joe Paterno.
Paterno could get a little preachy. Well, that's sugar-coating it. Paterno often preached from a point of moral superiority that bothered people. It may have bothered me slightly, but when it came to the old saying "people who live in glass houses . . . ", we believed Paterno lived in a glass house. PSU was one of only two NCAA Division 1 institutions that had never been charged or even investigated for a major infraction. And Joe Paterno and his wife gave over $4 million to the PSU library. The guy was a literature major from Brown. An Ivy-League educated football coach who gave money to his university's library!
But the petty side is that Penn State once turned Notre Dame into the NCAA because a Notre Dame recruiter gave a recruit a meal at McDonald's. So . . . there were people who thought that Paterno had a 'holier than thou' posture.
And they thought he was cocky. He was. When he turned 78, the Trustees of Penn State asked Joe Paterno to resign. He said no.
So your point is that child-rape is something done only by Catholics?
Or is this just your special way of announcing to the world that you’re a moron?
"All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing." Has Edmund Burke's quote ever been more appropriate?
There wasn’t one report.... there were multiple reports something was going on. Clearly Sandusky had some sort of issue; it was obvious for anyone who cared to look.
Secondly, the AD and President of the University came to Paterno’s house in 2004 and asked him to retire. He basically told them to pound sand. Paterno was the most powerful person at Penn State until this all came to light. After that, his power quickly faded away.
Exactly right.
I apologize for getting so huffy. I have the impression that you've been posting on multiple thread defending the actions of Paterno and Penn State without having the facts, and my 'just stop it" wasn't based on a single post, but on the bulk of work. It was a Lifetime Achievement Award.
If my impression is wrong, then I apologize again.
I am aware of the incident when they came to his house. He was able to hold onto his job like that, but it doesn't make him the most powerful man in Happy Valley. If they really wanted to, Spanier and Curley could have fired him, and being afraid of public backlash isn't what stopped them. It's not like they would have been without support either. Paterno wasn't unanimously loved during those down years, and people were clamoring for his retirement at the end of this season even before the scandal broke.
whoa ...didn’t know there were so many anti-Catholic freepers....
Very Bad
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