Random Sports Discussion

[01101010]

What the fuck world do you live in where you have to have concrete evidence before going to the authorities?

Obviously one that you do not approve of.

[Trippy]

How does his staying till the end of season serve the best interests of the team or the school? He's being a self-serving bastard to the bitter end.

[HaemishM]

From the reports I read, Paterno was not told what the person saw just that they saw something they felt was inappropriate and they were unwilling/unable to discuss it with him and he followed procedure and put them in contact with the AD whose purview the HR/inappropriateness contact was.

Not trying to give anyone a pass on this, but everyone seems to be acting like Paterno was a direct witness which he wasn't.

The grand jury report says that the grad assistant told Joe Pa and the higher ups that he saw this guy fucking a kid in the ass. The guys who have been arrested for perjury claim the grad assistant said nothing more than "inappropriate contact." The grand jury didn't find them credible. Joe Pa SHOULD have gone to the cops, but at the very least, he shouldn't have allowed this fucker to continue to host shit on campus and be affiliated with the program if there was a hint of impropriety.

He let his "superiors" supposedly handle all that - which makes me think his attitude was "let it be someone else's problem." Which is all well and good until we start talking about child molesters being allowed to go scott free and do it again.

[Paelos]

You can't let him take the field. You simply can't. Not only is that a PR clusterfuck you're opening up, but it's also just in horrifically bad taste to expose your school and team to this shenanigans that would take place with him coaching. The taunts, the signage, the general atmosphere. You are taking your school and just throwing it open for every possible criticism by letting him coach. Forget that it's even going to be a football game, if he goes out there it becomes a fucking circus for the rest of the season. It's the distraction to end all distractions.

Some might ask what can it hurt to let him coach it out? What the hell can it HELP to let him coach it out? He doesn't coach and we all know it. Having him there would only make him feel better. Fuck making him feel better at this point, he lost that right when he failed the great test of morality. Evil thrives when good men turn a blind eye and do nothing. That's exactly what he did.

He took the easy road. It's hard to stand up to your friends. It's hard to believe that your friends are capable of monstrous acts. It's hard to go to the police and open up your program to scrutiny. It's hard to ask the uncomfortable questions to those who are responsible. It's hard to hold people accountable for what they did. So instead, he did nothing. He's been doing nothing for years. His current lifestyle is about riding out his goodwill until he dies. Were I the school, I would say no more. We draw the line here as a university and as a society. We will no longer tolerate you doing nothing for any period of time going forward. It ends this Saturday.

[ghost]

How does his staying till the end of season serve the best interests of the team or the school? He's being a self-serving bastard to the bitter end.

Again, my thought is that we have no idea exactly how much he knew or "hid", as it were.  There's some indication that he was being vague, but we don't know how much he knew.  I don't like the idea of going over the top just because of public sentiment, particularly in an instance where there are many other aspects of his job that he was excellent at (and not just winning football games).  

And since you asked, him staying on could preserve the decent season they are having, provide some continuity and provide some leadership in trying to get through this circus.  

To be clear-  I wouldn't have a problem if Penn State decided to shitcan him tomorrow, but I also don't have a problem with him coaching out the rest of the season.  It's not like he does anything but sit in the coordinator's box anyway.

[Margalis]

I don't have a huge problem with reporting something to superiors under the assumption that they will take care of it. You might assume that they have the proper contacts or better can navigate the procedures or whatever. But if you do that and clearly NOTHING HAPPENS as a result you have a moral responsibility to say "uh...yeah I told you that this guy was molesting kids and he's still on campus with kids. If you aren't going to call the police I will."

It does depend on what exactly Paterno was told. Apparently McQueary was "distraught" about it, called him and visited him at home, so even if he wasn't super-specific you have to think it's extremely serious. Paterno reported it as some thing extremely disturbing of a sexual nature so even if he didn't know the full extent of it he knew it was bad.

Now the McQueary father and son...there is no wiggle room there. This guy was an eye-witness, did nothing at the time, and continued to just stand around doing nothing while Sandusky continued to show up on campus with kids. They both knew exactly what happened.

[Ingmar]

How much good mojo offsets allowing a serial child molester to continue working at your place of business?  How do you not go straight to the police with that shit?

Lots of people put blinders on when it comes to their family, which it sounds like this dude pretty much was for Paterno - it's retarded, because it usually ends up hurting everyone more, but it isn't exactly rare.

[ghost]

I think that part of my issue with this, as it stands, is that I feel the administration is offering up Paterno as a sacrifice when they know that this could bring down the entire administration of Penn State.  He's a player in this, sure, but he's not the guiltiest by any stretch of the imagination.  All this wrangling from Penn State about Paterno is purely to take attention off of the administration and that is also reprehensible.
 

[Ingmar]

Yeah, the people it was bumped up to not doing shit about it is the part that I find hardest to understand.

[ghost]

Honestly, I think the entire board, the president, and anyone else that even caught wind of this should eventually be gone.  

Edit:  Which is where this whole thing seems to be headed.  Penn State president supposedly out.

[Margalis]

In a "the buck stops nowhere" situation like this you basically have to clean house. You can get endless finger-pointing, claims of garbled messages, each guy can say he expected somebody else to do something or the person reporting to him minimized what happened.

If the claim is "the system failed" then get rid of the people who make up the failing system. They fostered an environment where an entire chain of people can hear about sexual abuse of minors and do nothing.

[WayAbvPar]

They really have no choice. This is going to hang over the program for the next 50 years anyway; best thing is to rip the bandage off and let the healing start. I hope everyone responsible gets what they deserve, and I don't mean a nice retirement plan.

[Malakili]

I'm going to put this in Random Sports Discussion, for the lulz.

https://www.esbl.co/

[ghost]

One of my colleagues mentioned that he believes that Paterno has dementia.  He is a fan and says that in his interviews that he typically seems agitated or just not completely there.  This may not be far from the truth.  Paterno has been operating on cruise control for a long time. 

[Outlawedprod]

Disturbing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMnq52jZejQ

[Paelos]

Lovely...this whole thing just turns my stomach. Couple that with my already pissed off feelings about conference expansion this year, and the Cam Newton fiasco, and the Ohio State fallout.

I don't know, it's just getting harder to support college football in any capacity. Granted not all programs are dirty or are hiding child molestors, but it just shows you that even when something is so fucking wrong at the very core of morality they STILL won't report it. We all know and gloss over the educational bullshit, the money bullshit, but MAN. At some point it makes you question why you're a fan when these guys are the ones supposedly representing your institution.

[Ingmar]

The Sandusky thing isn't really a college football problem as such, more of a "any big entity with a reputation to maintain" problem. It's way way bigger than college sports; I'd bet good money that major corporations and charities and religious groups (beyond just the Catholic church) also sweep this stuff (and other things that would cause major embarrassments) under the rug more often than not. It doesn't really enter into it for me when thinking of the way that college sports fuck up in general, not the way that stuff that's actually specific to them does.

[Margalis]

It's related to college sports in that Paterno and Sandusky are only big important figures that are protected because of how fucked up college football is.

For fuck's sake Sandusky was an assistant coach. It's absurd that somebody in that position is important enough to not immediately be thrown under the bus. The only thing that matters in bigtime college football is money. That should be abundantly clear to anyone. And it matters so much that at many places college football is more important than anything else the institution does.

Here you have a situation where the University clearly decided that putting kids in danger was less important than protecting the football program. (And everything that comes with it) Would this have played out the same way if it was an assistant swim coach? I'm guessing no.

The fact that you can compare a college football program to a major corporation or a religious organization really says something.

[Ingmar]

It's really the college as an institution making the decision, not just the football program though. A big college like Penn State is a multi-billion dollar enterprise and they have a lot of their 'brand' invested in the football program. A scandal like this will impact far more than just the athletic department, it will affect their ability to attract and retain good faculty, grad students, etc. But let's say some school whose brand is very valuable and unrelated to athletics entirely - say a Harvard or a University of Chicago - gets caught in a similar situation, covering up a high-profile faculty member's decades-long pattern of abuse. They'd be in much the same sort of deep water with the same sort of consequences PR-wise, and it wouldn't have anything to do with athletics.

In other words, I think there are things that are fucked up with college sports that are created by the weird business of college sports, and then there are things that are fucked up in a more general way and this is one of the latter.

[Chimpy]

The entire Penn State campus is deeply tied to Paterno. It is not just the athletics. The main library is named for him, he is one of their biggest donors to the campus (a large portion of his salary over the years has gone back to the university in donations) as a whole.

[Margalis]

It's really the college as an institution making the decision, not just the football program though. A big college like Penn State is a multi-billion dollar enterprise and they have a lot of their 'brand' invested in the football program.

The fact that the Penn State brand is so tied to the football program is part of the problem.

But let's say some school whose brand is very valuable and unrelated to athletics entirely - say a Harvard or a University of Chicago - gets caught in a similar situation, covering up a high-profile faculty member's decades-long pattern of abuse.

Why is an assistant coach a high profile faculty member? We aren't talking about covering up for a nobel prize winning chemist, this guy was a fucking assistant coach on a sports team. And let's get real, Penn State is probably much more likely to cover up for a football coach than for a chemistry professor.

The fact that the most important people on campus are all related to the football program is pathetic.

There is a fundamental problem with bigtime college sports being huge money makers, hugely influential, dwarfing actual academics while not being considered pro leagues and not paying players. People really need to wake up and see these programs for what they are - professional-level programs that hide behind academics as a way to exploit players.

How is single-A baseball professional and college football not?

[Ingmar]

That's not really true, but they are the most visible people, certainly.

[Margalis]

Meh, I've said my piece on this. Big time college football is corrupt to the core. Anything for a dollar.

[Ingmar]

There's certainly nobody of more symbolic importance, but there are dozens of people more important to the actual functioning of things, even on his own coaching staff he's a figurehead now.

Penn State is an enormous public research university with close to 100,000 students when you count up all their campuses. Even a program like their football program is just a drop in the bucket at a place like that.

[Paelos]

Joe's done. They fired him.

It's the right call, but it's too little too late after Joe said he wanted to stay on.

[Ingmar]

One down, probably about 30 to go.

[Chimpy]

So Illinois goes down in the record books as both the team to make Paterno the winningest coach in Div-I and the last team to lose to him.

[Ingmar]

If he'd made it one more game he'd have the record for most games coached all to himself, as it is he ends tied with Amos Alonzo Stagg apparently.

[caladein]

I feel like I missed something because I don't understand how we've gone from an indictment to "Holy shit fire everyone."

[Rasix]

I'm sure it's just a big misunderstanding. 

[Hawkbit]

I feel like I missed something because I don't understand how we've gone from an indictment to "Holy shit fire everyone."

Because any person who had knowledge of this situation before it came to light and didn't report it (read: everyone involved) needs their fucking head chopped right off.  I have no tolerance for people that feed on children.

This was the final straw with me and college sports.  I was on hiatus this year as an OSU fan, taking a break from the fallout.  But this shit takes the cake.  This guy is supposed to be one of the good guys; a hero.  And he failed to do the right thing in a big, big way.   From now on I'm 100% pro, where I know it's about the money, murderers and rapists.  At least there I know I can't trust anyone.

[Abagadro]

I feel like I missed something because I don't understand how we've gone from an indictment to "Holy shit fire everyone."

Trustees are now involved which means two things: money and politics.

[Cyrrex]

Being in a position of clear authority and not making sure that action was taken makes you the biggest asshole imagineable.  Shit, at least some of the other douchebags involved in this had some reason to fear for their livelihoods due to being in somewhat inferior positions (which also doesn't excuse them one fucking bit). Fuck "JoePa" in his tiny asshole.  With any luck he'll also die very soon, piece of shit.  Better yet, put some lipstick on him and throw him in a cell with Sandusky.

[caladein]

I feel like I missed something because I don't understand how we've gone from an indictment to "Holy shit fire everyone."

Trustees are now involved which means two things: money and politics.

I agree.  The trustees getting rid of Paterno and the school president immediately is the only real course of action they had available.

[Abagadro]

This place is facing MASSIVE civil liability right now.  The Trustees are shitting their collective britches and heads are going to roll for anyone who even tangentially touched this thing. I wouldn't be surprised if the entire athletic department and coaching staff is purged.  How this all happened in basically the middle of the entire Catholic Church scandal is beyond me.