FWIW My thoughts are:
I don’t think they are the same situation. I’m not an expert on the RCC situtation, but my impression is that the RCC leadership did think they were dealing with the situation on their own, but just did a bad job of it. In this case, what’s being alleged is that JP not only covered up for someone he knew to be a child molestor but made zero attempt to even follow up on him, while allowing him to hang around the football program. It’s hard to imagine why he might have done this.
Even if JP was the single most amoral bastard who ever lived, and had zero concern for anyone or anything besides himself and his football program, it’s hard to see why he would chose that course of action. If he knew the guy was a molestor and pedophile, then the least he could have done to protect himself and his football program was to keep an eye on the guy to make sure he didn’t cause a massive scandal that would crush him and his program. Or, at the absolute least, to keep him away from the program. To just let a ticking time bomb that could blow up on him and him program just keep ticking and do absolutely nothing about it was completely contrary to his self-interest.
I can understand the cover-up. But the fact that he did nothing about it going forward either is a strong indication that he simply did not appreciate that the guy was a molestor, IMO.
You make a lot of weasely statements like this. Maybe, if you put more effort into reading the evidence, such as emails, grand jury testimony, and investigative reports, you’d stop having to imagine so much about this case. You’re obviously very dedicated to the idea that the evidence of what happened is so far beyond your imagination that it simply cannot be. The evidence of the case suggests otherwise.
The report concludes that Curley decided not to go to the police about the 2001 shower incident McQueary saw (the one that was previously believed to have taken place in 2002) after a meeting with Paterno. I’ve botched some details, but that’s what I had in mind. They also didn’t tell the board of trustees of the school.
I think this theory relies on Joe Paterno being the dumbest motherfucker in the state of Pennsylvania, if not the Eastern United States. I won’t rule that out. I don’t think he hated children or didn’t care if they were molested- I think he just didn’t want to know what was happening beyond making sure it didn’t hurt his football kingdom.
The culture at Penn State is so fucked up that it doesn’t matter if all the ringleaders are gone. Wipe the slate clean. Shut the program down and start over again from scratch in a few years.
Even if he didn’t believe the guy was a molester , that wasn’t the reason nothing changed going forward. Even if you don’t believe it, there’s no reason to give a former employee free access to the locker rooms, and if for some reason you agree to it, and you are afraid to be sued if it was revoked , there is no reason in the world to allow that former employee free access to bring children into the Penn State facilities.
Except for hubris, and arrogance and every other word that describes people who think the normal rules don’t apply to them. It wasn’t about protecting the program- it was about protecting his friend. Forget the fact that the retiring assistant coach of some other sport or assistant professor of music wouldn’t have been given the same opportunity to continue to work with children while capitalizing on an association with Penn State after such an accusation. Let’s look at a sports organization that really wants to protect the program, like a professional team. Some professional teams allow other entities to run children’s camps or clinics using the team name where the professional coaches or player make appearances and act as guest instructors. How quickly do you think that team will disassociate itself from a non-employee who was accused of taking a shower with a child? It might take 14 hours , but certainly not 14 years.
The program would have been fine if Sandusky had been made to go away after the first incident. It was Paterno’s arrogance in believing he could protect his friend by keeping the incidents under wraps indefinitely and everyone’s else’s apparent fear of Paterno that caused problems for the program.
Your position on the law seems to be that we should let people do whatever the hell they want, as long as they give us the “impression” that they have the best of intentions.
So, in your world, the RCC can protect abusive priests by simply shuffling them from one diocese to another, but that’s OK because that’s their way of “dealing with the situation.”
And, in your world, the fact that Joe Paterno failed to do anything constitutes, by itself, evidence that he had no malicious or criminal intent.
So the act itself serves as mitigation for the criminality of the act. It’s a perfect logical circle!
You are actively discounting the fact that this is where Steelers fans, and their raping QB apologists, also reside.
Don’t underestimate the stupid in that part of collegiate/NFL fandom.
I don’t need to be an apologist for the Steelers to point out that a quarterback with criminal convictions plays in Philadelphia.
Why did you not include him in your insightful analysis?
It’s also worth noting here that even though I think it’s crazy to believe that Paterno might not have known this guy was abusing children the second time he heard about a suspicious incident, there is no doubt the PSU administrators understood the possibility that he might be a child molester. Their emails around the time of the 2001 meeting with Sandusky become noticeably vague - they stop referring to people by name and start talking about meetings with “the person” and discussions with “the group” and “the other group” - and one of them notes their decision to sit him down and talk to him instead of going to the police could blow up in their faces if he continues to abuse children. Even though they considered this possibility, that’s exactly what happened and here we are.
Did you hear some wiseacre’s comment on Twitter? Instead of removing the statue of JoePa, just have it turn away as if nothing happened.
As soon as all the legal stuff is over, PSU is planning to renovate and change the Lasch building, and especially the shower area.
R-P, even The Onion got it, and within a day or so. Why can’t you?
Nation’s 10-Year-Old Boys: ‘If You See Someone Raping Us, Please Call The Police’
‘Doesn’t Matter Who, Doesn’t Matter Where,’ Children Say
Yes, but USC didn’t fire its president, athletic director and the remainder of its football staff.
Of course they play a part. However, NCAA sanctions are not part of a “system of justice”. They are regulatory rules, plain and simple. Applying the “death penalty” to the PSU athletic program because of (an admittedly horrible crime and cover-up) totally unrelated to athletics doesn’t make sense; it would be like pulling the engineering school’s accreditation because the department chair turned out to be a serial killer or something.
There is nothing in the NCAA rules, per se, that prohibits this sort of conduct. It’s a matter of criminal and civil law, not amateur* athletic codes.
I have no problem with any of this stuff, and I think the second point is a very good idea indeed.
Probably because that guy repaid his debt to society**, and Roethlisberger didn’t.
*I use the word advisedly.
**The debt society deemed appropriate, at any rate. I take no position on whether Vick deserved a longer jail term.
But, as a number of commentators have pointed out (there are links in this very thread), this was not “unrelated to athletics.” The very reason that so many people did so many things wrong in this case is precisely because they considered the reputation and the status of the football program to be more important than their legal and moral obligations to Sandusky’s victims.
Your engineering school analogy misses a key aspect of the case.
If the department chair turned out to be a serial killer, and everyone else in the department and the university covered it up so that they could keep getting engineering-related grants and contracts, and maintain the reputation and standing of the engineering school, then damn right the engineering school should have its accreditation yanked.
I think that’s a bit of a stretch. I haven’t seen anything to indicate that the cover-up was intended to protect PSU’s recruiting and fundraising.
But it was intended specifically to protect the football program. It’s only because of the size and prestige of the football program that so much was swept under the rug.
Check out Steve MB’s post, and its quote from Eugene Robinson:
To argue that this whole thing is “totally unrelated to athletics” is to deliberately ignore or willfully dismiss the central reasons that so many people failed in their moral, ethical, and legal duties.
Gosh, I never thought I’d catch myself saying this, but after all the recent posts in this thread, I’m starting to miss the contributions of our former guest of honor. At least they were amusing.
That assumes that reporting Sandusky would have harmed the program, though. I don’t see how that’s the case. He had already “retired”; he was just a guy who hung around the facility and was friends with the coach. It was Paterno protecting One Of His Own, not the football program protecting itself.
Of all the creepy and sad things about the story and the Freeh report, I think this is the creepiest part of the actions (or lack of them) by the senior administrators. I appears in the timeline as March 5, 2001 and refers to the still-unidentified victim McQueary saw being abused:
The source is Sandusky’s lawyer, so it’s likely second-hand and therefor suspect, but appalling if true.