I have always disagreed with the NCAA dropping the hammer on institutions after the culprits are gone. Reggie Bush and Pete Carroll are an example. They go for the riches of the NFL and leave USC to suffer for the infractions THEY committed.
I want a mechanism to go after the actual culprits. Have coaches and administrators sign an agreement that they will be personally liable for any and all damages arising from their failure to manage, monitor, and control the entity they are responsible for. Destroy the destroyers. Spanier, Curley, and the Paterno estate should be open to lawsuits. They should forfeit any and all pensions and benefits.
The $60,000,000 grab by the NCAA? Why wasn’t it $600,000,000? Because they can build a new organization, hire a staff of well-paid lackeys for $60,000,000 and get away with it. $600,000,000 would be to obvious a grab. If Penn State needs reform, and it does, the NCAA should be next in line.
All I know NOW about Paterno is that as these various trials unfold he will NOT come away with a restored reputation. More likely, and especially now that he is dead, he will be made to look even worse.
One question I have, where was his son Jay Paterno, the Obama supporter, during the evil reign of Sandusky. Are we to believe he knew nothing about what was going on? I believe that he and Mike McQueery were both offensive coaches who worked together. This never came up? Is that possible?
Can’t wait for these trials to commence. All I want is the facts. What is the TRUTH about what happened.
Your third graph is not only wrong but judgmental of ncaa internal motives that aren’t there...from what I saw on cnn this am...the $ will go toward an endowment ed fund for sexualabuse victims...which means the ncaa costs of having to investigate ped state is being absorbed by ncaa...
McQueery was simply a grad student when he was that shower witness to child rape...Paterno promptly rewarded McQueery's silence with a wide receiver coach job...then rewarded his longterm silence by promoting McQueery to both wr coach AND head of recruiting...what was interesting in happy valley last fall was how many anti-McQueery attitudes developed...and adamant negative tudes...and rightly so...yet 'twas Paterno who had the exact reverse attitude toward McQueery for being a "team player" in maintaining silence...this was yet one more dagger in showing joepa's guilt...some alumni were ready to almost lynch McQueery -- all as joepa amply elevated and rewarded him by moving him up the ladder, thereby "purchasing" his ongoing silence...truly pathetic...
btw people keep talking as if all the psu asst coaches have moved on...two are still there...as is spanier...who has tenure as a prof...penn state still doesn't "get it"
(Yeah, that's just so inconvenient that these schools just don't police themselves to blow the whistle on themselves as these very infractions are taking place...ALL: Leonard's comment would be just like people expecting an offensive lineman to grab the closest official's flag to toss it on himself for holding as the play unfolds)
As for Jay Paterno?
Well, I believe Sandusky's dirty little secret was whispered about openly in a fairly broad circle.
Philadelphia Magazine mentioned it in an article in late winter/early spring 2011, months before the November indictment - quoting someone who had been told by Curley back in 1998. In its special issue, right after the scandal broke, Sports Illustrated quoted a barber with a shop near Penn State as saying that Penn State administrators had talked and joked about it in her shop.
There were law enforcement officers (university and city) who knew, Penn State officials, coaches - I think a lot of people knew. So few schools approached Sandusky after his retirement at the height of his career - ending on a year he was named NCAA Assistant Coach of the Year.
It's my opinion, but I think a lot of people are happy they aren't being asked under oath whether they heard the rumor.