Speaking of schools with sexual assault issues… 
But Penn State was supposed to be clean, dammit! Between this and whoring themselves out on the hydrofracking issue, PSU has not been endearing itself to me as of late.
Not sure I’m following you. Are you referring to the mid-1990s crap with Christian Peter and Lawrence Phillips? Or am I spacing something more recent?
I’ve always thought Paterno was an asshole, but I never would have guessed he’d let something like this continue on his watch. To say he didn’t know the details is horseshit. As many others have said, Paterno *is *Penn State. That someone came to him with serious allegations and he didn’t bother to dig for details before taking it to the AD is too absurd to believe.
[QUOTE=BobLibDem]
As a lifelong Big Ten fan, I remember being pleased when PSU joined the conference. Now, it might be time to show PSU the door.
[/QUOTE]
Or, to borrow a thought from John Kincaid, at least kick them out of the Leaders division because they are clearly devoid of any kind of leadership.
The mid-90s crap, which is when I was living in Lincoln. I’m just ribbing you.
Well that was plenty bad, and I know you’re just needling me, but most of that crap happened in bars and what not, and was perpetrated by college students. It doesn’t compare to a coach in his mid-50s sodomizing a boy in the Penn State locker room. This is so far beyond anything I can imagine (outside the RCC scandals) that I don’t even know how to react. Tom Corbett (or the regents, or whoever) may have to use the nuclear option here and gut substantial swaths of the PSU administration, especially if it becomes apparent that Spanier knew. (I’m not arguing that this is going to happen, but I would not be surprised.)
ETA: Spanier was Chancellor at Nebraska in their dirtiest period as well. Funny that.
Well, I might have when I called for his “summary execution.” But seriously – he totally did that shit. There are times when lynch law is not the worst thing in the world.
Okay, okay, fine, crucify me, and I was just kidding (sort of). What I’m going to say for real is no more Christian, or particularly ethical. But . . . am I the only one who thinks that a Rommel endgame is the least-worst outcome here? Not that this guy has half the honor Rommel did, but . . . .
Now the Penn State administration, in its ongoing efforts to be completely open about what’s going on, canceled JoePa’s weekly press conference, allegedly without his knowledge. According to Sports Illustrated it was Spanier’s personal decision. Whether this was “this is our best way to keep embarrassing questions from being asked” or “we can’t stop our 84-year-old coach from being a loose cannon about everything” remains to be seen.
It’s not, but it certainly puts football into perspective.
Obviously, the young boys who were harmed deserve the lion’s share of our sympathy.
But I also feel bad for all the great players that came out of the program, who may have even proclaimed that they’d step in front of a bus for Paterno, have Nittany Lion tattoos on their chests and arms, who are so proud to have played for PSU. I feel terrible for the current players as well as the other student athletes. The PSU women’s volleyball team is a perennial national championship contender. Good luck getting the best recruits to go there in the future.
How about all the students and graduates of Penn State that now have to cringe every time they’re asked about their alma mater?
On Sunday night, November 20th, the New York Giants will play the Philadelphia Eagles in the NBC night game. Kareem McKenzie is the starting right tackle for the Giants. If you follow the NFL, you know that at the beginning of each NBC game, the starters for both teams are introduced via a short video in which they state the college that they attended. I wonder if McKenzie will say “Penn State”, or resort to stating his high school instead.
Maybe I’m going overboard here, but I’m now starting to wonder - does Saturday’s football game get cancelled / postponed? Penn State seems such a mess right now, I can almost imagine it happening.
Why is there talk that Paterno shoud resign? PSU should fire him, make it public, and dependent on the outcome of any investigation use any morals clause in the contract to avoid him getting another penny and hopefully go after him for past earnings.
The absolute best case scenario for him, even assuming he knew nothing, is that he ran a program where a man felt safe he could anally rape a child with impunity.
And I wonder if SA would be so quick to defend Joe had he been a campaigner for Obama not the Bushes?
I think they play the game and by the end of the week Joe Paterno will retire or say he will step aside for the rest of the season.
I suppose they could forfeit, but I expect the ‘show must go on’ attitude will prevail. Even if the Penn State administration finally clues up and puts Paterno on administrative leave, I expect the players will still take the field, and they’d probably temporarily promote the offensive or defensive coordinator to act as head coach.
N.Y. Times is reporting that JP’s exit is inevitable and currently under negotiation.
If I see a child being raped, I am calling 911 right then. If you tell me that you saw a child being raped, I am calling 911 right then. Another reaction is bullshit.
I think that the game will be played, but that Paterno will not be there. I think he will resign or be fired before Saturday.
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?
His retirement/firing is apparently imminent.
The prevailing wisdom in and around Penn State is that the president (Spanier) has wanted him to retire for over a decade now, but JoePa refuses. Spanier and JoePa have been butting heads ever since Spanier got there, mainly because Spanier thinks he should be numero uno on campus but everyone listens to JoePa instead of him. JoePa, from what I understand, just thinks Spanier should mind his own business.
All this time, of course, there was nothing actually stopping Spanier from firing JoePa. It’s just that, well, there was no way he could do it without looking like the bad guy. And even now he can’t do that. Spanier’s administration looks just as dirty as the athletics department in this scandal: it was his VP for finance, after all, who also didn’t notify authorities when he allegedly heard of felony child abuse on his campus. If Spanier fires JoePa now, all that does is make JoePa look like a scapegoat for Spanier. And, to be honest, there are not a lot of people in and around Penn State who have a lot of love for Spanier in the first place. That, of course, will be the end of Spanier; though he might be hanging by a thread now, at least now he can wait for the Trustees to decide that. If he cans JoePa the Trustees will be meeting that day to fire him.
As for morals clauses, back wages, etc.: you’ve got to be kidding. Everyone who knows Penn State knows that JoePa has been literally writing his own contracts for at least the last two decades. He decides how long he wants to coach, then he tells the AD to write a standard contract. It’s been understood even when I was a student (to 1994) that JoePa would decide when he left.
Honestly, I think the only way he will go is to resign. We all thought he was going to die still coaching the team, because he always pointed at Bear Bryant (who died a few months after he retired) as an example for his life. I still think the only two options are resign or die.
Can’t speak for SA, nor do I want to. I will note that I am a conservative Republican and I haven’t spared Paterno much sympathy in this thread.
In the interest of full disclosure, I will note that I am a Pitt grad and a fan of their sports programs. That only goes so far, obviously. When newly appointed Pitt football coach Michael Haywood got arrested for domestic violence and lost his job, I didn’t defend him at all.
It wasn’t my intent to suggest conservatives as a rule would. Just that SA is so staggeringly blinkered he’d honestly believe it impossible for an older right wing man to have moral failings.