I just watched the video where the fans were chanting “We want Joe”. I’m scared of people who somehow think winning football games is somehow more important than protecting small children from sexual predators.
You’ve never heard the phrase “take one for the team”?
I’m horrified this thread made it to page 7.
Well, sorry, but I think I should point out the inconsistency of your statement.
Why would his reputation be intact if he had retired years ago and we now know that he turned a blind eye to child abuse?
The major criminal here is the abuser, but there should be no excuses for the trash that covered him up or ignored what they knew, just to keep propping up a multi-million $$ operation. But so many people in our society, sadly, choose to worship random people that carry a ball in a football field instead of caring for the welfare of their children.
We don’t know all the details, but reporting something like this to internal higher-up admins is the least any decent person should do. For such an esteemed position Paterno had, he should have investigated the incident himself with the help of the authorities.
Sad.
[honest question] Why?
It’s about a scandalous, criminal fact pattern involving a very well know institution and public figure, both long reputed to be upstanding in every way.
It raises important legal and ethical issues that apparently, still need some working out, for some.
It’s about a horrific series of crimes going unavenged for a long time (the same fact pattern that has launched thousands of true crime and mystery books, understandably so).
It’s about an all-too-familiar (apparently innately human) tendency to downplay, excuse, overlook certain types of horrific crimes, either out of misplaced solidarity with the transgressor or out of the factually-incorrect (we now know almost for certain), yet apparently still-believed-by-some notion that “it was a mistake” or “it won’t happen again” or “it was consensual” or “it wasn’t what it looked like” can EVER be acceptable or accurate bases for overlooking a predator’s sexual activity with children. They ALWAYS repeat themselves – it’s as close to true as anything science knows, and I’d say posting that mantra alone through seven pages and forcing anyone who’s tangentially involved with, or in charge of those who are involved with, supervision of children to read, would be a worthy exercise.
Nor is it RO – students are cheering him at this very moment, allegations of more abuse are emerging and will no doubt continue to do so, the University hasn’t fired JP, and the doddering fool is appearing in his front yard acting as though he’s just going to gosh darn it brazen it out with the help of his Kool-Aid drinking supporters. If that’s the case, it’s an ongoing, and real, outrage, a continuation of his original moral failing and – hey, almost the stuff of tragedy. Wait, what the Hell did I mean by that “almost?”
I’ve seen American Idol threads go on for twice this many pages, with infinitely less interesting or important issues arising or being debated. So I don’t read them. I almost never read, let alone post in, the Pit, but this is about a subject I (and a lot of posters) know about intimately (football, not abuse). Why shouldn’t it go on?
Can I hire you to write the book about this? If this isn’t a classic morality tale then what is? From the start I have thought of Robert Penn Warren and "All The Kings Men".
From this site:
http://www.bsos.umd.edu/gvpt/lpbr/subpages/reviews/warren0408.htm
This quote:
Does this sound vaguely familiar?
And of course, the most famous quote from the book:
Sorry, Joe Pa. Sorry that it went down this way.
I’m a big Nebraska fan, and I want no part of this game on Saturday. What an ugly mess we’re going into in Happy Valley. Especially if the fans and players dedicate the game to JoePa.
Go in, play the game, go home.
And here we thought we left all that drama behind in the Big XII
There are many aspects of this story which are truly disgusting, the pedophile predator and the people who enabled him. But correct me if I’m wrong but the price of Jerry Sandusky’s autobiography on Amazon is frigging skyrocketing. I don’t clearly recall what the price was yesterday when I first clicked on the link that was in this thread but I seem to recall the paperback was far cheaper than the <shudders> leather bound version but now it lists for almost twice that price.
I suppose if I ever get tired of being nauseated by the people who directly did or directly refused to do anything which contributed to this atrocious situation, I’ll start getting pissed off at the people who view owning a copy of Jerry Sandusky’s Touched as either a collectable or an investment opportunity.
I’d love to see the NCAA take this on. Don’t think they will, it’s not close to their core competencies, but – while it was not traditional “football misconduct” – this crap happened partly on Penn State premises, was perpetrated by a Penn State employee, and overlooked/minimized by high-ranking Penn State officials.
I actually don’t think I’ve ever seen a clearer case of “lack of institutional control,” which is one of the triggers for the NCAA death penalty. I hate it when commentators suggest that SMU proved/established that the death penalty should/could never be applied again. F that, PSU and any fans who are rallying to support/defend Joe P. Deserve five years of no football for their shameful conduct. It won’t get those kids their lives back (I’m relishing, oops I meant dreading, reading details of how F’d up some of their lives are), but it sure no more than proportional justice.
There are indeed several books to be written here, low, middle, and highbrow. If I were smart, I’d be doing my pitch/draft for the (attempted) latter one right now.
As to the quote a bit above – there is a whole thread unto itself to be posted inviting taglines from the classics. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Lather, rinse, repeat.
I haven’t said anything about what Paterno’s contention has been. What I’ve been doing is suggesting scenarios which might explain why Paterno didn’t react more strongly to what McQueary told him. Paterno"s testimony was that McQueary’s report was vague (fondling or doing something of a sexual nature to a young boy." If he is telling the truth, and there’s no evidence at this point to suggest that he isn’t, then what McQueary saw might have been anything from wrestling with the kid in the shower to groping him to something even more serious. But prior to my entrance into the thread, people were going berserk and accusing Paterno of subborning or covering up anal rape of a child and I was trying to show that this may very well have not been true.
With regard to what was reported and to whom, yes, some types of behavior call for the police and some don’t. Had Sandusky been engaging in some sketchy but factually defenceable behavior such as playfully grabbing the kid and wrestling or horsing around with him, I can see where Paterno might feel that it should be handled in-house. And on the other hand if it had been something more serious I can see where Paterno would trust that the school’s administrators would contact the police with whatever evidence they had gathered. I imagine that since they didn’t do that, he figured that the administration’s investigation found nothing of substance to act upon so he let it drop. Since McQueary didn’t go to the cops, and the school’s administrators didn’t go to the cops, it probably never occurred to him that he should. Frankly, I think that he most likely felt that what McQueary saw or thought he saw (this from Paterno’s perspective) turned out to be a non-starter and so he simply let the matter drop.
There is absolutely no evidence at this time to suggest that Paterno knew what Sandusky had done, and no evidence whatever that Paterno was a knowing enabler of child anal rape or that he knowingly engaged in any sort of coverup to keep it hidden. Thus there is no evidence that he has engaged in any of the behavior he has with such certainty been accused of in this thread, and therefore he doesn’t deserve the scapegoating that he is being subjected to.
You are truly a untruthful, partisan, disgusting piece of shit-eating filth, SA. And that is all the effort, time, and care I am expending upon you from this moment on.
I can’t help myself: have you engaged in some “lesser” form of homosexual child abuse? "Cause that’s the only thing I can think of that would explain the assiduity (I said ass) of your fine distinctions as to different categories of abusive rectal ranger activities by a 60 year old man with a ten year old boy, and how Paterno did/should have treated them.
I’m fairly certain that you won’t find different levels of child anal rape in any of my posts.
And no, no homosexual child abuse, and no heterosexual child abuse either. Sorry, I’m operating strictly out out of common sense - and an aversion to people who behave like Nancy Grace. Do a little searching and you’ll find out that my revulsion for her and the way she thinks and behaves is well established on this board. And believe me there’s not a hair’s breadth of difference between her and the likes of you.
Starving Artist, if someone made the report to you that an older man was “fondling or doing something of a sexual nature” to your kid, would you simply just alert your supervisors and leave it at that?
That, I think, is the question any person should be asking “how would I handle it if it was my child?” or “how would I want any other adult to handle it if it was my child?”
The bar is extremely low on something like this - it doesn’t mean you get hysterical and make assumptions, but you do what is right and follow up on it.
It’s that simple.
“Nancy Grace” is not a totem we get to use as a free pass.
Homosexual abuse of boys is wrong – even if it is/is not part of what that meiodcirty of a woman includes in her diatribes (or isnt).
Successive generations of (possibly naïve, possibly complicitly pedophile homosexual men) covering something up) is proof of nothing other than human tendencies toward covering up.
I am fairly sure that in Western Penna., admitting to homosexual/pedophile tendencies was No Encouraged in the "60s/'70s. Sandusky could have been a (relatively, all else equal) gaylord at Studio 51 had his life circumatances been different. Instead, he indulged his aberrant boy-love as he did.
Please do not conflate homosexuality with pedophilia. Whereas in this particular case Sandusky’s child molestation was same-sex, that’s not the case for all child molestation, and the two are not the same thing.
Whoa there.
Don’t foist this piece of shit on us. Gay men are attracted to men, not boys.
The implication that all he need to do was fuck men is off the mark. I’m fairly certain that even in the 60’s and 70’s, Western PA frowned upon fucking children way more than homosexuality.
(The bolding in this quote was done by me for emphasis.)
You are either a lying piece of shit or a willful idiot. McQueary testified he told Paterno he saw Sandusky engaging in ANAL SEX with a 10 YEAR OLD BOY. What is wrong with you?
To quote from the Grand Jury report -
Any decent adult I know would call the police when told by a credible witness about the rape of a child. Continuing to make excuses for Paterno at this point is pathetic. I have no idea what world you live in where anal intercourse between an adult male and a 10 year old boy could be confused with “wrestling with the kid in the shower to groping him to something even more serious” (your words). And honestly, the fact McQueary failed to stop the rape in progress and call the police doesn’t make him look very good either.
What’s boggling my mind is trying to figure out their motivation for not dropping the dime on Sandusky. Did he have enough dirt on Penn State from his years of coaching there to intimidate them? Was Sandusky tight with any local or state politicians? There was a police investigation over the 1998 incident; it seems to have resulted in Sandusky’s retirement & not much else. There must be a lot more to this story than a few stupid admins & coaches - however criminally negligent they may be.
If my child was taken to a school and raped anally in a shower and that crime was observed by someone employed by the school who did nothing about it at the time but reported it to his boss the next day in rather vague terms, and that person then immediately passed that vague nformation along to the people running the school only to have nothing come of it, the last person I would be pissed off at would be the guy who passed the information from the witness to the school’s administrators. This stuff about how it was Paterno’s responsibility to force the issue with the police is nothing but a stalking horse being used by the type of people who want to go after the guy with the biggest name whether he’s guilty or not. Paterno passed the information up the chain of command just like was supposed to do legally and in accordance with school policy, given that he was unaware of the true nature of the offense. The people I would be furious with is, number one, the guy abusing my child; and number two, the witness for: a) not stopping it in the first place; b) not calling the cops himself; c) not reporting it till the next day; and d) not insisting that the police be notified when it became clear that the school’s administration wasn’t going to do anything about it. He’s the only one in this entire scenario who could state firsthand exactly what he saw and what was really going on.
To my mind McQueary bears most of the blame for having not gotten the police involved. Then, depending on how much detail he gave the school’s administration, they come in for the rest of the blame. If he only told them that he saw Sandusky doing some sort of sexual stuff with a kid, and they told me that because no one knew who my child was and therefore he couldn’t be found and questioned, and because Sandusky insisted he didn’t know what McCreary was talking about, no evidence could be found to substantiate McQueary’s claim. Therefore they didn’t make a report to the police because there was only he said/he said evidence that a crime had taken place and they were reluctant to get the police involved and ruin Sandusky’s life and that of his family on the strength of only one man’s allegations. This, I would understand. On the other hand, if I found out that they knew the crime likely occurred and made no effort to do anything about, then yes I would be very pissed indeed. So the anger would go to Sandusky number one, McCreary number two, and the school’s administrators number three depending on what they knew and how they acted or didn’t act upon what they found out. The guy in Paterno’s position would hardly draw a glance. And that’s a fact.