Joe Paterno must step down...immediately

Fox sports.com ^ | Nov. 9, 2011 | Bill Reiter

[Colofornian]

Buried in the statement Joe Paterno released this morning...is the final piece of evidence, if you are one of the few who still need it, that the man must be removed from his head-coaching job immediately.

...“At this moment the Board of Trustees should not spend a single minute discussing my status. They have far more important matters to address. I want to make this as easy for them as I possibly can.”

...Paterno did not do enough to put a stop to that abuse when alerted in 2002, is now issuing instructions to the Board of Trustees?

Shame on you. The proper path forward is clear: Joe must go. Now. Today. Without another moment to lose.

This is a striking level of arrogance and cluelessness from the 84-year-old coach, a level of brazen obtuseness that has the chance of getting lost in the actual news...

But let’s not miss the news that matters: Joe Paterno... still has the gall to offer instructions to those trying to make sense of this horror.

Joe must go. Now.

SNIP

“My goals now are to keep my commitments to my players and staff and finish the season with dignity and determination,” the statement concluded...

Here’s the thing, Joe. Your goals are now meaningless. Football has been put in its proper place, set into proper context by allegations that a man you gave access to your football program reportedly as late as last week...

SNIP

As for...the rest of your life doing all you can, Joe, well, start here: Step down. Today. Stop making this about you. Stop issuing ultimatums. Stop thinking your tenure as football coach means a thing right now. Stop allowing misguided Penn State fans to direct their moral outrage in the wrong directions, toward anyone daring to criticize a legend...

[Gil4]

From the ESPN article:

The coach defended his decision to take the news to Curley. Paterno said it was obvious that the graduate student was “distraught,” but said the graduate student did not tell him about the “very specific actions” in the grand jury report.

http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/7211281/penn-state-nittany-lions-joe-paterno-retire-end-season

So the question really is “What did JoePa know and when did he know it.” What did McQueary tell him?

Until we know that (or until someone in authority knows that), calls for Paterno to be fired are premature.

Note - I’m not a Penn State fan and I think Paterno should have been gone several years ago.

[j_tull]

Failing to report felonious sexual assault on a minor boy is not a “firing offense?” By report I mean to authorities, not his boss.

[buccaneer81]

BTW,, im kind of proud that i can’t spell the name of the most popular mom-has-stress pill. But I notice you can spell it just fine! Yesssiree,,,

It could have something to do with the fact that I have worked for a major pharmaceutical company for 21 years...and we make the generic of Xanax.

[PieterCasparzen]

It’s painfully obvious they all tried to keep the crimes and scandal within the school system and out of public view.

Yup, sweep it all under the rug—until the rug explodes. That’s the way just about every big organization does it—and lots of med/small ones’s too.

Which brings my mind back to the issue of parental rights. How many times do we hear how organizations outside the family are so necessary to "protect" kids ?

In NJ - the State foster program - LOST a few hundred, or IIRC, a few thousand kids, I'm not sure which. When they went back to the foster homes, the kids were gone.

So the State forcibly took kids from parents deemed "bad" by the State of NJ using Courts with NO juries, just a single Judge - and then lost track of them.

Government and "organizations" are a horrific substitute for FAMILY and CHURCH CONGREGATION.

[Gil4]

A likely excuse ;-)

[buccaneer81]

The Cain chicks are a minor story compared to this.

My belief that major universities are dens of shame and evil is reinforced on a daily basis with the stories we see. (And I say that as a college grad, but from a small private university.)

[miss marmelstein]

I, too, went to a small private college - in New York City. But it was in the 70s - before political correctness and Marxism destroyed the educational system.

Shame and evil. I pray for America.

[Colofornian]

From the ESPN article: The coach defended his decision to take the news to Curley. Paterno said it was obvious that the graduate student was “distraught,” but said the graduate student did not tell him about the “very specific actions” in the grand jury report...So the question really is “What did JoePa know and when did he know it.” What did McQueary tell him? Until we know that (or until someone in authority knows that), calls for Paterno to be fired are premature.

Sorry, but we already have Paterno's testimony on file via the Grand Jury Presentment. And according to that, he was "specific enough":

quoted from p. 7 of the Grand Jury Presentment:
"...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 supervisor, to his home the 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."

Now did you catch that last phrase: "or doing SOMETHING of a SEXUAL NATURE TO a young boy"???

There's no two ways about it: It's just as much of a felony to commit other forms of child sexual abuse as it is child rape! (Why can't people like ESPN and others get that thru their head?)

Therefore, due to the Grand Jury presentment, we know when he knew: He knew at least sketchy details via a phone call the night of the attack (March, 2002)

And by the meeting at his house the next day, he heard direct eyewitness testimony -- the kind of testimony that had it been presented to a police detective would have resulted in the immediate arrest of Sandusky. IOW, this wasn't just multi-generation "rumors" from a non-credible source.

We don't know EVERYTHING Paterno learned from that meeting with McQueary, but we know he knew it was "something of a sexual nature to a young boy."

So what's there to wait about there?

Besides, the real problem Paterno has morally and dereliction of duty-wise and violating NCAA bylaw 2.4 is what he FAILED to do 2003 and beyond. He was supervisor of the Wide Receiver Coach who was the eyewitness, but somehow lacked authoritative or moral compulsion to convince that coach to report the crime over the long run.

Paterno was irresponsible and wreckless with his ethical response to the situation over the long run.

[alarm rider]

Seems to me that Paterno is dictating his terms to the board. I ask everyone this one question:

When will someone at Penn State stand up and assume the adult status and start leading for God’s sake?

The silence is telling, there seems to be no rational understanding of how very deep the kimchee is at this point.

[miss marmelstein]

Are you also glad that you don’t know how to spell?

[JustaDumbBlonde]

"BTW,, im kind of proud that i can’t spell the name of the most popular mom-has-stress pill. But I notice you can spell it just fine! Yesssiree,,,"

Good grief, you're going to sling insults at someone because they know how to spell something correctly?

[miss marmelstein]

We’ve got careerists, elitists and football nuts running the asylum, I guess. And cowards.

[Gil4]

Did he know it was a “felonious sexual assault on a minor boy?” See my pst #41.

Maybe McQueary told him “Sandusky was doing something gross in the showers”, and maybe not even that much. I’m sure that kind of thing isn’t easy to talk about. Maybe Paterno saw the guy was upset and decided to get the boss involved right away. Maybe Paterno knew knew Sandusky like males, just not minors, and he added 2+2 and got 3.

I’m not saying that happened, just that is could have. I don’t want to pronounce him guilty until I know he’s guilty.

(If it comes out that he knew and didn’t report it to the police, that’s a firing offense plus time for another grand jury.)

[Mr. Bird]

I truly believe it's important to understand the defensiveness PSU loyalists have; who could blame them for denying the obvious, particularly when it involves someone who until very recently was the subject of (what was believed to be deserved) remarkable admiration.

The scales will fall from their eyes, hopefully. But I think it's important to NOT ridicule or belittle those who are suffering through the idea that an idol has crashed to the ground.

Though not affiliated with PSU, I can understand the familial dedication to the institution. In so many respects, it is up to the NCAA (and the rest of us) to help them understand how heinous, how utterly reprehensible these developments are. The board, the state, the student body and faculty all need to decide if PSU is a football team or an institution of higher learning. Is it a force for good in the effort to shape cultural and individual excellence? Or is it a vessel for athletic entertainment and financial advancement, at any cost?

I truly hope that PSU is able to reconcile its existence with the facts at hand. A responsible board would dismantle the program, for a defined period. A resurrected program, with newfound values and mission, could be inspirational. Flagellation with noodles will not do.

[LeonardFMason]

There is NO WAY the NCAA, an “ATHLETIC ASSOCIATION”, will get involved in sanctions.

PSU has MUCH, MUCH BIGGER PROBLEMS. People are going to jail. Hundreds of millions in lawsuits, institutional and individual. Alumni support($) evaporating. Institutional support($) from outside disappearing. The entire coaching/support staff for the football program will be fired sooner or later.

PSU will NEVER recover from this.

The NCAA leveling some sort of probation, or penalty, as if that even matters, amounts to nothing more than a mosquito biting a man about to be hung.

LOL! The NCAA has bigger problems. Ohio State players sold jerseys for tatoos, Miami players accepted money from boosters, and USC had players that took money from agents.
ROFLMAO!!!!! The NCAA is a pathetic joke.

[Gil4]

I hadn’t seen that. I’m OK with him being fired now, maybe indicted too.

[who knows what evil?]

Penn State should forfeit their last three games...spare America the spectacle that we know is coming...

[Leaning Right]

I don't know if Paterno is criminally negligent here, but I will tell you what he is. He is a liar.

Let's suppose that you are correct, and an upset McQueary simply told Paterno something vague like “Sandusky was doing something gross in the showers”.

What would any head coach's response to that be? Would it be “OK...I'll call the AD tomorrow”?

No! Any head coach would say “What the hell are you talking about?"

So Paterno had to know what the deal was. No one would get a report like that and not ask follow-up questions.

Unless Paterno already knew what the answers to those follow-up questions would be.

That's why Paterno said he did not know the “very specific actions” while testifying to the grand jury.

Why did Paterno insert the weasel-word “very”? Because he knew what happened.

[fatnotlazy]

I didn't say Paterno was entitled to his job. From what I've seen and read, he did report the matter to authorities at Penn State, and that was his duty under school policy. Maybe he should have followed up to see that his superiors had taken appropriate action and maybe he should have reported the crime to the police. But according to my information, he was not legally required to do so under the school's policies. He did what he was supposed to do from a legal standpoint.

Mr. Paterno perhaps exercised bad judgment and maybe he had a moral obligation to contact the police. What I'm saying is that he may have made a bad decision, but it was not something he should have lost his job over.

[bvw]

This is one of those “everything you thought you knew is wrong” periods for many folks.

Sleep calls all. Moral sleeping.