Posted on 01/21/2012 3:58:56 PM PST by Dysart
Legendary former Penn State football coach Joe Paterno is gravely ill and his family is rushing to State College to be by his side, his family has confirmed
According to Onward State, Paterno was taken off of a respirator earlier today. However, the Paterno family has not confirmed that report.
Facebook and Twitter are flooded with students and fans saying that they are praying for Joe and for the Paterno family.
“Over the last few days Joe Paterno has experienced further health complications,” spokesman Dan McGinn said in a brief statement Saturday to The Associated Press. “His doctors have now characterized his status as serious."
“His family will have no comment on the situation and asks that their privacy be respected during this difficult time,” he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at pennlive.com ...
Thank you.
Realistically, there isn’t much he could’ve done. He could have encouraged the actual witness to follow up with police (which he may have done - we don’t know). We know that he got the witness together with the police commissioner. We don’t know what happened after that.
Reasonable people (read: *not* most of his critics in this thread) wanted him to “follow up” more than he did. There might be some merit to that. I don’t know. It’s very difficult to say what you should or shouldn’t do if you aren’t a witness. Paterno had no idea what actually happened. He did exactly what he was *legally* supposed to do.
If the reports are true (conflicting information is coming out now), then I too will raise a glass to him. I believe he did what he felt was right, and the details of that are going to be between him and the Good Lord.
Remember also that Paterno was not a “media friendly” coach, and they held that against him for years.
Indeed. May Our Lord be with you all the days of your life.
That is what I thougt—thanks
I agree - a wise lady.
We all will have to account for something in the end.
And you as well.
I’m getting a “that page does not exist” message.
That honor (if you will) goes to Spanier and the Trustees who granted Sandusky Emeritus status and gave him the keys to the locker room. After that happened, Paterno told Sandusky he would never allow Sandusky to become head coach at Penn State.
All he had was secondhand information—he wasn’t a witness himself.
This thread is amazing and I am only on the 17th comment.
Too bad the old man is departing without telling everything he knows about Sandusky and who else was involved.
The man lead a long and good life. The comments made bye the self righteous, sanctimonious people here are nauseating.
Self righteous because we didn’t enable a serial pedophile the way he did? Is that what you mean?
Not to butt in the conversation, but there’s a big difference between say cheating or feeling lust in the heart, or even a divorce or cheating incident, and enabling a serial pedophile.
To bad justice towards pedophiles and mercy towards little boys weren’t important parts of his life.
Paterno was on the governing board of The Second Mile, which is the charity from.which the children were obtained. When it came about that the campus police did not perform an investigation into the incidents being reported ... He should either have gone to the city police or resigned from the board. Most freepers are focusing solely on the incident witnessed by the assistant coach. That doesn't fly, there was the janitor reported incident as well.
There is zero plausible deniability for Joe.
A lot of the football pagans do not require plausability.
It sounds as if Paterno reported the incident according to the existing rules and regs >>
most states have laws where you must report any threat of child abuse to the police or child services if not you will be charged with a crime if you do not. I don’t know about PA.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.