Exactly. This supercedes football.......of course it does. But I actually am feeling some empathy for those innocent fans, boosters, alumni, students and parents of students who are completely innocent but have to stand by and watch a major fun part of their lives get destroyed. It's like Sandusky has them all bent over and it's a shame for them too.....though not as shamefully tragic as his actual victims but tragic nonetheless.
PSU top RB Silas Redd to Southern California http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iC02F91UcVFluztXdqQaoWi4J0zA?docId=8d33e556ded14576a8d39ef92a313ff3
Reading that article just sickens me. The cult is alive and well. No remorse shown. They've never shown any. I think the NCAA dropped the ball in not handing down the Death Penalty. We hear words like unprecedented and statements such as 'they'll wish they got the Death Penalty' but I just don't see that as true. The whole thing is a poison tree and must come down. Oh and Dave, I don't think there's anyone innocent here. That's not to say today's players had anything to do with it directly. I do think it is an overall cumulative cult of power that created this situation that allowed for a Sandusky to flourish. I don't want to hear 'but other than that, their record with the NCAA is clean.' Honestly, if they covered up a pedo what else do you think they covered up? I know that's normally an absurd assumption to make, but it's not as if there haven't been instances of smoke and rumor to come out of Happy Valley. They were always swept under the rug or JoePa given the benefit of the doubt because of his unquestionable integrity. I think it's fair to say that should all be questioned now. For as long as I've been following recruiting as an adult, rumors have come out of the western PA, Eastern OH, NY, and NJ area that JoePa is a lying 'win at all cost' recruiter. I took all that with a grain of salt, but never forgot it.. just like the things Tod said.. Now here we are all these years later. We'll never know the truth about that situation with Tod.. we'll never know the truth about the recruiting situations... but look at what we do know for sure and ask yourself.. should they be given the benefit of the doubt anymore?
Somebody's feeding you a line of **** Corey.....in my 50+ years on the planet following the discussions amongst and between insiders fighting Joe tooth and nail for the same kids over the course of those 50+ years, I've heard nothing but the opposite..... Tod had issues with Joe just like a great many media people had with Joe...he didn't much care for them, had little use for them and he didn't much care if that was troubling to them....I don't either. What happened was a tragedy of epic proportion and his failings were at the center of the tragedy without question, but let's not reinvent the entirety of his being to be something it wasn't.....
JoePa recruited the best quality kids... Under JoePa from 2001-2008, Penn State football players faced 163 combined criminal charges. And people know now how much they covered up, simple crimes were that much easier to cover up.
I could start a whole new topic on this subject. The question is......how much cooperation and molly coddling does/did the Penn State program get from the local police....including the university campus police? I don't want to hear that crap about how sworn to the law etc. etc. each and every community police department is when it comes to policing players of the local mega football program.....I contend that there is no uniformity across the nation and that in some areas of the country....at some programs......the police tend to be lax and look the other way at times and be lenient at other times. Programs like Penn State "allow" certain players at times to be handed their ass by the local law either to make a message to that player....to the team.....or because they want to get rid of that player. That all said.....I absolutely guarantee you that in Gainesville, Fl. and on the UF campus that stuff is just the opposite....that there is almost an adversarial relationship between UF football players and the local gendarmes and UF players do not get away with the smallest of indiscretions.....they usually get hammered for any and everything. These guys that get in trouble many times come from the same disadvantaged backgrounds with tough upbringing in tough neighborhoods and there isn't much difference in their character flaws and the fact they are just kids in age whether they are in Tuscaloosa, Columbus, Lincoln, Tallahassee, Austin or Happy Valley. Keep in mind I'm not excusing troublemakers.....I would just like to see uniformity in how they are held accountable.
My guess is that the cops are probably a mix of relocated 'Bama and Dawg fans....because you know as well as I do Dave, that everyone's against the Gators.
Either that AJ or an abundant amount of bad kids flock to Gainesville....hmmmmm.....do the nice kids flock to Lincoln.....is that what it is?
Did you conveniently leave out the years 1966-2001 and 2009-2011? He was there for 45 years, if you're telling me that Joe recruited kids that were in any way shape or form worse than any other large public program in the country over that time frame, I'm calling ********......and would suggest that there is a fair amount of evidence to the contrary PSU had stellar graduation rates over his tenure ranking at the top nationally among all public universities and above those of many private institutions as well. Like I said, what happened was a tragedy of epic proportion and his failings were at the center of the tragedy without question, but let's not reinvent the entirety of his being to be something it wasn't.....all this ex post facto piling on and other fairy tale ******** is disgusting....
Or it could be local prejudice also Dave...if the kid is an out-of-stater, they probably don't get the home town/state benefit of the doubt...them southern boys kinda paticular like that....at least that's what I heard. Something like that Angel Beach thing from Porky's
all this ex post facto piling on and other fairy tale ******** is disgusting.... Not here, my dad has preached this for years, JoePa is a phony and a fraud. -You can't be serious, so having Galen Hall in press box after fired Florida was ok too? -What about the Penn RB that went to Pitt that got verbally cussed at by Paterno when he changed his mind at the last minute? (This is from Colin Cowherd) -What about letting a player play in a bowl game yet he was expelled from school? Anwar Phillips I'm sorry you lost your mind, He knowingly let his def coord fool around with boys and did nothing for years, and you still think he also didn't do dirty tactics as a coach? Funny they had a high graduation rate with Mrs. Paterno as the tutor of a lot of these kids. The only thing I am sorry I missed was him getting cuffs placed on him. Still was only 5-22 against Mich and OSU
I was going to let this float, but you said it twice. You only get away with one hanging curveball in this yard. What kind of man shields a pedophile to protect his legacy? What is the ethos, let alone the entirety of a being that knowingly allows children to be raped (quite often in their facilities at home and on the road) repeatedly for years on end so as to protect the image of his career, as well as his program? You act as if this was some momentary blip in judgment. This wasn't an isolated incident and he didn't run a god damned stop sign. This is the most grievous of afflictions that could be made upon society as a whole. This isn't theft, bribery or even murder. I condone none of those things but I can think of a dozen justifiable reasons for each. There is one thing that we as a society, as a species, must hold sacrosanct and that is the protection of our children. This is a man who was charged with the protection and upbringing of children, teens and young men. We can't discount the job he did in serving those who served his best interest. What can we say for the job he did to those children and teens who didn't serve his interest? From what we know to be fact, he turned his back if not flat out shoveled them into the fiery cauldron of a lifetime of hell.. As for the people shoveling me a line of ****.. We're talking about dozens of people; from all walks of life; totally unrelated to each other in any way, shape or form other than they (or their children) were recruited to play college football. I first heard stories like this starting as far back as 1989 and they continued on into the recent years here. The internet obviously makes the passing around of rumors to be a frivolous act. The thing that always bothered me was.. why were the stories almost always the same? Why the same tactics? Why the same alleged lies? Do these people all belong to some secret organization conspiring the bring down the legacy of Joe Pa, but not the other coaches who recruited them? As for insider info, I stay pretty far away from naming names because this is the internet and a lot more people can read this other than us. What I will say is that there are people at Penn State that belong to families that have buildings named after them, some of them come from families that have various (and often PSU's most prestigious) Schools named after them.. Joe Pa attended their weddings, baptisms, various family functions and in one case, Joe Pa was a pallbearer at his father's funeral. His father had known Joe Pa long before he was "Joe Pa" and they are all left wondering, 'did we really know this guy at all?' I assure you quite a few of them are sickened by what they see at PSU and are even more so sickened by the Paterno family issuing these statements about their own investigation. Read the Freeh Report. Ask yourself those questions I asked you.. then tell me all about the entirety of a man who did the things that we now know Joe Paterno did...and worse, why he did them. By all means, tell me.
Corey, I get all that and have stated as much. I understand that there is a special place in hell for Joe and the others involved in this tragedy. Trust me, I get it....I have a 12 year old son myself, so you can get off the moral high ground and take back the bony finger of indignation you're pointing....I ain't buying it Everything you wrote doesn't change one thing I said.....Joe's acts in this regard did nothing to change, in fact, anything else that the man did in his life.....nothing. Zero, nada.....they will change the perception of the man, they will, as we see clearly here for example, bring out all the closet haters to gleefully piss on his grave and tell us that they always knew that Joe was dirty, and history will certainly write his story in a completely different manner.....but it does not change anything he did.....nothing. You can vilify his acts and portray him in any number of disgusting ways, but that in and of itself does not reinvent the entirety of the 85 years of his life into some haters fantasy land....it just doesn't. You can say that his acts were so heinous as to cast him into eternal damnation as a result, and that is fair, and I agree, but in so doing you can't also say that he did not contribute over $6 million of his own fortune to Penn State academic programs and it's library.....but there will be those that try and to do so is just nonsense NDfan77....just nonsense, it is ex post facto piling on and fairy tale ********. I will however make the following qualification, not all of it will fairy tale ******** to be sure, but there will be enough fairy tale ******** to thrill even the Grimm Brothers themselves and yes it is disgusting.....
I get what you're saying, but what do we know he really did? He donated millions of dollars. He made millions more. Let's not forget that there's no millions of dollars, there's no Linebacker U and there is no moral legacy that he marketed for decades if he doesn't cover up for Pedobear Sandusky. Which brings me back to my original point about the Penn State scandal. Joe Paterno put a price tag on the rape and torture of children. Sandusky didn't do that. Sandusky is the monster. He's the rabid dog. He is what he is. Joe Pa, the President and all those who knew put a price tag on the rape of children. Are you saying 6 million is worth it? I know you're not. That's all tainted money and you gotta know that. It's all stained, the whole damned thing. The longer this goes on, the more victims come out. Sandusky was an integral part of JoePa's legacy, to act as if he wasn't is to just ignore reality. (something real popular in State College) A man robs a bank, but donates half of it to charity.. Is he less of a bank robber? I'm not saying Joe was always a monster. I'm saying he's a bad human being. I think it's fair to say we should question everything about the man from the mid to late 70s on. I gotta friend, convicted drug dealer. He threw away a life making more money than you and I could ever imagine. He had every dream at the snap of his fingers, but he got greedy. When the trial came, people who had known him since he was a little boy refused to believe the things they heard. I knew of some of the sketchy stuff he did, but not all of it. I will readily admit, that it took me a while to admit it all to myself. Then he tried to have his judge whacked, and it all seemed to be more surreal by the second. It turns out. He was a bad man. None of us really knew him, not even his parents. Money does a lot of great things but it never made a man. Maybe I'm just different, but I truly believe that the legacy we leave is judged in moments that no one may ever see. They are the things you do when no one is looking. They are the legacy you leave. Those are the lessons you pass on and how you are truly graded. They stand time and can't be bastardized by the media. So from the father of one 12 year old boy to another, what's the legacy of Joe Paterno?
How do you say it's nonsense? So when you bring up facts, it's nonsense? JoePa was not a good man as his legend made him out to be. He wanted to win at all costs.
Also, they talk about him being a dominate coach in the big 10....What was his record versus Mich, OSU and Wiscy? Overrated!
Corey, I get all that.... You and I do not disagree on his legacy. We may well disagree on the appropriateness of the haters conjuring up fairy tale ******** to reinvent the entirety of his life in any demonic act and/or image that they desire.....perhaps to some it is deserved, to me it is disgusting. We will agree to disagree.....
Some rambling thoughts… I do not think we have information that allows anyone to convincingly state that Paterno shielded a pedophile for years and thus allowed him to prey upon helpless children. The Freeh report discussions about Paterno “knowledge” concerns the shower incident in 98 and what McQueary witnessed in 2001. Re the 98 incident, the F report cites to 1 email sent between PSU administrators that “the Coach” wants to be kept informed about recent developments with Sandusky. The email does not, I believe, specifically reference the investigation: at the same time, PSU and Sandusky were discussing retirement after S was informed by Paterno that he would not he PSU’s next head coach. It is hard to tell from that EM if the subject involved the police investigation or Sandusky’s retirement. Moreover, a police investigation did take place re the 98 incident which concluded that while Sandusky may have behaved inappropriately by showering and engaging in horseplay with a child, no criminal conduct had occurred. When you read the Freeh report regarding this investigation, it is pretty clear that the investigation reveals tragic components and convincing evidence that the investigators were inept. The tragedy was that when the mother initially reported the incident to child welfare authorities, a staff psychologist assigned to the case quickly connected the dots---that S was a likely pedophile and that his aura as a famous coach combined with his position at the Second Mile provided him the horrible power to troll for and hunt down vulnerable children to sexually abuse. But, when the matter was routed to the police to investigate, the report sets forth a convincing case that the people who investigated the matter did not possess the expertise needed for the magnitude of the task. The report of the psychiatrist who examined Sandusky in this investigation and concluded that he posed no threat to children is appalling. But, given that the police investigation found no evidence of wrongdoing, it seems far fetched to conclude that Paterno should have been able to determine from an investigation ( if he was aware of it) that found no criminal wrongdoing that S was a pedophile. There is no evidence in the Freeh report indicating that P was aware of any other allegations of abuse re S until the 2001 incident. Re the 2001 incident, P and M’s GJ testimony dovetail that M did not describe the incident in graphic terms but that from the context of the conversation, P was aware that something of a sexual nature was witnessed by M. Paterno then informed the person in charge of the university’s police department and the AD of that conversation who then talk with M. Following this discussion, the AD and the individual in charge of security talk with the president of PSU and, per 1 e-mail, with Paterno and ultimately decide to keep the matter in house. The Freeh investigators did not interview any of these people because of the pending criminal trial and P’s death. I guess the question that jumps out at me is did M, when discussing these incidents with PSU’s administration following his discussion with Paterno, further water down his description of the incident to the point that the administrators and Paterno felt that they did not have solid eye-witness verification upon which to report the incident to state agencies? My guess is that at hearing, that will be the defense used by these administrators and that M will be the designated fall guy. I totally agree, as most have, that one can look at this scenario and make a reasonable inference that a cover-up took place. But, if so, why? At that time, S was no longer a coach. If PSU reported the incident at that time to state agencies and S was charged and convicted, would PSU have taken a big hit in terms of its reputation or would P and the other key administrators have been credited with assisting in bringing S to justice? And if they chose the path of concealment, did they not factor in the possibility that given that pedophiles operate serially, he likely would eventually get caught and that when this occurred, their cover-up would also be uncovered bringing complete disgrace to the university and criminal charges upon those involved? It seems that when weighing the costs and benefits of notifying the state at that time versus concealment that choosing concealment made little sense. Assuming P had knowledge of the 98 police investigaton, even though it exonerated S from criminal wrongdoing, his knowledge that an investigation occurred in 98 combined with what M told him should have caused every alarm bell wired is his brain to go off. Those who were informed by him of his conversation with M were aware of the 98 investigation and alarm bells should have been ringing in their heads. But, I really want to here what Curley, Shultz, M and Spanier say at trial about their conversation before I say they are criminals. The PSU program was admirable. Since they joined the B10, there graduations rates for white and black players was always at the top although the discipline of the program and its players stated to erode as Joe got older. Paterno was a major force because of the success of his program and the way the program conducted itself into transforming Penn State from a farm college to a major university. He did more to better the lives of others than all of us here will do combined in our lifetimes. But did he, as he aged and obtained greater power, transform from of person of integrity and ingenuity to a corrupt man solely interested in preserving the image of what he once was? I guess that question is going to be answered in time but I am not sure we have all the answers , yet.
All the good mentioned above as well as all of JoePa's accomplishments are totally mitigated in most minds by the atrocities that occurred there for the last 14 years. A 30 year employee of my company is a lifelong season ticket holder and his brother in law is one of their influential boosters. he tells me that the inner circle of boosters has been trying to get rid of Joe for at least 15 years. Things came to a head in repeated confrontations with him and the administration but Paterno always backed them down, calling upon his donations to the school and his pursuit of the record as his defense. He also insisted that, when he retired on his own timetable, only his son Jay would succeed him. Otherwise he would stay until he dropped dead on the sideline. Jay Paterno's coaching skills are negligible by most accounts.