# It's time to officially Pit Joe Paterno and the Penn State football program. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [November 7, 2011, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-officially-pit-joe-paterno-and-the-penn-state-football-program/602167 "2011-11-07T14:23:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 12
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-officially-pit-joe-paterno-and-the-penn-state-football-program/602167/221 "2011-11-08T19:47:30Z")
I can’t imagine being able think much at all in that situation. I’d probably yell “what the fuck are you doing to that little boy?” After that, 911 and let the police take it from there. How can he sleep at night knowing he just walked away from a child being raped? ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-officially-pit-joe-paterno-and-the-penn-state-football-program/602167/222 "2011-11-08T19:56:41Z")
> [@ladyfoxfyre](#): > > I’m still confused by the fact that Schultz and Curley have both been indicted for what they knew and didn’t report to police, which was reported to them by Paterno, but somehow we “still don’t know if Paterno actually knew anything or not”. Doesn’t the fact that the AD and VP are being indicted based on knowledge they were provided by Paterno pretty much eliminate the argument that Paterno didn’t know anything? Schultz and Curley are covered under Pennsylvania’s mandatory reporting law, while Paterno is not. ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-officially-pit-joe-paterno-and-the-penn-state-football-program/602167/223 "2011-11-08T20:00:16Z")
> [@Frank](#): > > Schultz and Curley are covered under Pennsylvania’s mandatory reporting law, while Paterno is not. That just means that legally Paterno can’t get in trouble (but I wouldn’t bet on it). It doesnt tell us anything about what Paterno did or didn’t know. But, IMO it certainly sounds like he knew enough that he should have at the very least been a bit more proactive in his subsequent behavior. ---
**Author:** ![Gangster\_Octopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a8b319/32.png) [@Gangster\_Octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gangster_Octopus)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-officially-pit-joe-paterno-and-the-penn-state-football-program/602167/224 "2011-11-08T20:03:31Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > The thing is, if you cut Penn State out of the NCAA, the entire economy up there goes kaboom. Everything within about a 20-mile radius of the campus IS Nittany Lions. Which is one of the reasons Uncle Joe is God in Happy Valley. You realize that Penn State is in fact a very large University outside of its football program, right? ---
**Author:** ![Huerta88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/82dd89/32.png) [@Huerta88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Huerta88)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-officially-pit-joe-paterno-and-the-penn-state-football-program/602167/225 "2011-11-08T20:05:00Z")
> [@billfish678](#): > > That just means that legally Paterno can’t get in trouble (but I wouldn’t bet on it). Yes, and that is only with reference to crimiinal liability. For once, I am rooting for extensive civil litigation. I’m sure JP has some sort of indemnification in his contract (though most indeminty provisions contain exceptions for gross negligence or intentional malfeasance, which I think is far from unlikely to be found here). Not that it will make it up to the victims of this sodomite, but Penn State and Paterno can, and definitely should, be held liable for millions and millions (and millions) of dollars in damages. ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-officially-pit-joe-paterno-and-the-penn-state-football-program/602167/226 "2011-11-08T20:05:03Z")
> [@billfish678](#): > > That just means that legally Paterno can’t get in trouble (but I wouldn’t bet on it). It doesnt tell us anything about what Paterno did or didn’t know. But, IMO it certainly sounds like he knew enough that he should have at the very least been a bit more proactive in his subsequent behavior. Well, certainly. I thought **ladyfoxfyre** was wondering why Paterno wasn’t indicted. On rereading, I may have misunderstood the post. ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-officially-pit-joe-paterno-and-the-penn-state-football-program/602167/227 "2011-11-08T20:07:09Z")
> [@Gangster\_Octopus](#): > > You realize that Penn State is in fact a very large University outside of its football program, right? According to the NY Times article linked to above, Joe Paterno _made_ Penn State. It went from an endowment of almost nothing to one of 1 billion dollars after the football program brought it to national attention. ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-officially-pit-joe-paterno-and-the-penn-state-football-program/602167/228 "2011-11-08T20:08:27Z")
> [@Frank](#): > > Well, certainly. I thought **ladyfoxfyre** was wondering why Paterno wasn’t indicted. On rereading, I may have misunderstood the post. I think thats what happened here. If the two other guys knew enough to get in trouble, then it certainly is reasonable to assume that Peterno must have known some serious stuff because these two guys got at least some of the serious info from Paterno himself. So, its not that he didnt get indicted. Its that its highly probable he knew some bad shit. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-officially-pit-joe-paterno-and-the-penn-state-football-program/602167/229 "2011-11-08T20:14:04Z")
> [@Frank](#): > > According to the NY Times article linked to above, Joe Paterno _made_ Penn State. It went from an endowment of almost nothing to one of 1 billion dollars after the football program brought it to national attention. This. I actually WENT to Penn State University Park for two years. Before Paterno took over the Lions, the “main campus” was pretty much on par with the branch campuses, one of many “satellite” campuses. It was Paterno that made the Nittany Lions, and it was Paterno that made the UP campus the draw that it was for students. The student population probably wouldn’t be anywhere near what it is without the Lions, and without that student population, the town’s economy dives off the cliff. It’s sad, but the decisions have already been made. The reputation of Paterno and the Athletic Dept. are pretty much done. I really hope the Lions phenomenon isn’t pulled down by this, but it’s possible. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-officially-pit-joe-paterno-and-the-penn-state-football-program/602167/230 "2011-11-08T20:14:51Z")
Paterno will retire and be a hero. His staff will get broomed. The next coach will have a mess to deal with. ---
**Author:** ![Mince](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecd19e/32.png) [@Mince](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mince)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-officially-pit-joe-paterno-and-the-penn-state-football-program/602167/231 "2011-11-08T20:41:50Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > Thus far, JoePa is kinda sorta clean. He reported the allegations when he became aware of them. Not to law enforcement officials. Months (years) later, he must have known that appropriate action wasn’t being taken and _still_ didn’t notify law enforcement. That is either criminal behavior or horrible judgment. Do you want a person with either trait mentoring young students? ---
**Author:** ![Barkis\_is\_Willin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a183cd/32.png) [@Barkis\_is\_Willin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barkis_is_Willin)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-officially-pit-joe-paterno-and-the-penn-state-football-program/602167/232 "2011-11-08T20:42:20Z")
> [@Hbns](#): > > In my mind there is no way to find fault with Paterno’s actions and not also fault McQueary. If one has a moral obligation to go to the police after notifying superiors, so does the other. I do not defend McQueary at all, but at the same time, he is not the face of Penn State. Paterno is, and he should have known that this would come back to him whether he kicked it upstairs or not. > [@Gangster\_Octopus](#): > > You realize that Penn State is in fact a very large University outside of its football program, right? Well, they aren’t going to fill that stadium with 100,000+ people to watch a calculus exam. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-officially-pit-joe-paterno-and-the-penn-state-football-program/602167/233 "2011-11-08T20:54:13Z")
Here’s a great critique of Paterno and McQueary. The whole thing is worth reading. > **[Difference Makers - Lawyers, Guns & Money](https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2011/11/the-mystery-of-cowardice)** > > On a Friday night in March of 2002, Mike McQueary, a 28-year-old former starting quarterback for the Penn State University football team, entered the locker room at the PSU football complex. At the time, McQueary was a “graduate assistant” – that is,... > [@](#): > > The point of lingering over McQueary’s decision to value his potential for career advancement over stopping a serial child rapist from continuing to find and parade his victims in front of McQueary’s face isn’t that McQueary (along with the rest of the actors in this saga) is some sort of inexplicable moral monster. It would be nice to think so, but consider that his despicable behavior merely mirrors that of his head coach, his athletic director, and his university’s president, who all made, and continued for years to make, essentially the same decision to value their careers over stopping little boys from being raped by a man they had worked with for years, and who they allowed to continue to walk among them every day. The point of calling out McQueary’s physical and especially moral cowardice is to remind us how we are all capable of sinking so low, if we do not remind ourselves constantly, in whatever way is most useful for each of us, of the truth of Samuel Johnson’s remark that, “courage is reckoned the greatest of all virtues; because, unless a man has that virtue, he has no security for preserving any other.” ---
**Author:** ![Gangster\_Octopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a8b319/32.png) [@Gangster\_Octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gangster_Octopus)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-officially-pit-joe-paterno-and-the-penn-state-football-program/602167/234 "2011-11-08T21:06:59Z")
> [@Frank](#): > > According to the NY Times article linked to above, Joe Paterno _made_ Penn State. It went from an endowment of almost nothing to one of 1 billion dollars after the football program brought it to national attention. I get that, but the economy up there isn’t going to go “kaboom” if football were to disappear (which it won’t). ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-officially-pit-joe-paterno-and-the-penn-state-football-program/602167/235 "2011-11-08T21:10:36Z")
If somone tells me that they saw someone else molesting a boy in a public locker room, I’m not certain this in and of itself gives me a reasonable cause to believe the molestation happened. I think it gives me a reason to take further steps to investigate. But just because someone told me something happened, I don’t thereby have a particularly compelling reason to think it happened. If the thing they said happened is particularly unlikely, and if there’s a power/political relationship between the reporter and the one they’re reporting on, then my epistemological position is even more murky. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-officially-pit-joe-paterno-and-the-penn-state-football-program/602167/236 "2011-11-08T21:22:37Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > If somone tells me that they saw someone else molesting a boy in a public locker room, I’m not certain this in and of itself gives me a reasonable cause to believe the molestation happened. > > I think it gives me a reason to take further steps to investigate. But just because someone told me something happened, I don’t thereby have a particularly compelling reason to think it happened. > > If the thing they said happened is particularly unlikely, and if there’s a power/political relationship between the reporter and the one they’re reporting on, then my epistemological position is even more murky. How about if the older adult in question had been involved in other “investigations” over a period of over a decade? Remember that the incident in question here happened in 2002. Sandusky had had several other allegations aimed at him, starting all the way back in 1994. He had one that was so serious (though it ultimately got swept under the rug) in 1998 that Sandusky retired in 1999 rather than becoming Paterno’s successor, which was expected at the time. It’s not like this was the very first time Sandusky had ever been suspected or witnessed being inappropriate with young boys. The idea that Paterno _didn’t know_ about the previous allegations against Sandusky is ridiculous. If there’s ANYTHING in that sports program that Paterno doesn’t know about, it’s because it was just created two days ago. He’s been there 62 years, 44 as the Boss. He knows that place and his staff inside and out. ---
**Author:** ![Kolga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e56c9b/32.png) [@Kolga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kolga)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-officially-pit-joe-paterno-and-the-penn-state-football-program/602167/237 "2011-11-08T22:00:46Z")
[Rush Limbaugh](http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2011/11/08/joe_paterno_and_the_degradation_of_american_culture) has weighed in, and the entire thing is a pattern of liberal left-wing attacks on Joe Paterno. And it’s all somehow related to Obama’s mission to destroy the country. So, thanks for that update, I guess? ---
**Author:** ![ladyfoxfyre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ad7895/32.png) [@ladyfoxfyre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ladyfoxfyre)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-officially-pit-joe-paterno-and-the-penn-state-football-program/602167/238 "2011-11-08T22:09:07Z")
> [@Frank](#): > > Well, certainly. I thought **ladyfoxfyre** was wondering why Paterno wasn’t indicted. On rereading, I may have misunderstood the post. > [@Frank](#): > > Schultz and Curley are covered under Pennsylvania’s mandatory reporting law, while Paterno is not. Yeah, my comment was more directed at anyone still claiming that there was no way Paterno could have known, or at least it was very plausible that he didn’t know anything. That story doesn’t hold for two reasons; he knew enough to feel it was appropriate to escalate to Schultz and Curley, and Schultz and Curley are being indicted based on the breadth of their knowledge about the issue and the failure to report it to the authorities. ---
**Author:** ![HubZilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ccd318/32.png) [@HubZilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HubZilla)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-officially-pit-joe-paterno-and-the-penn-state-football-program/602167/239 "2011-11-08T22:26:56Z")
> [@Duke](#): > > I’m thinking a better protest would be to see the student section totally empty. It’s one thing to expect the players–who are totally blameless in all this–to potentially jeopardize their scholarships by effectively going on strike. They know most of the team is not going to make it to the NFL and that degree is all they’re going to get out of Penn State. But the students…how can you go to the game and sing “For the Glory” after this? How do you tailgate or do the stadium walk after this? I couldn’t, no way. No way! The Penn State fans will rally around their beleaguered coach. It’s the anti-Paterno media’s fault for blowing this out of proportion. When I went to Nebraska in the 90s, we had some girls assaulting players’ fists with their faces. While some were appalled, most rallied around the team and blamed the media for their anti-Husker bias. I’m sure the same thing happened initially at Ohio State with Tressell and Indiana with Knight’s ouster. Never underestimate the “fanatic” in “fan”. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-officially-pit-joe-paterno-and-the-penn-state-football-program/602167/240 "2011-11-08T22:30:28Z")
> [@Kolga](#): > > [Rush Limbaugh](http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2011/11/08/joe_paterno_and_the_degradation_of_american_culture) has weighed in, and the entire thing is a pattern of liberal left-wing attacks on Joe Paterno. And it’s all somehow related to Obama’s mission to destroy the country. > > So, thanks for that update, I guess? Because everyone knows liberals prefer the SEC to the Big 10. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-officially-pit-joe-paterno-and-the-penn-state-football-program/602167.md?page=11) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-officially-pit-joe-paterno-and-the-penn-state-football-program/602167.md?page=13)