Oooh, I’m gonna disagree. (a) Sandusky was his employee during at least part of the time this was going on; (b) he was grooming his victims in substantial part using PSU games, sports activities, and his charity (which seems to have worked closely with PSU); and (c) much of the abuse seems to have taken place in PSU football facilities and/or at the football team’s official hotel during game weekends. Any of those independently gives JP a heightened duty, all three give him (especially given the tender years (oh, I passed up a good one there) of the victims vis a vis varsity football players) a fiduciary duty that I’d say was very analogous to if not higher than the duty that you rightly note he owed to “his kids” on the team (who were too old for Sandusky’s taste anyhow).
Westboro Baptist Church to protest Penn State game
(Link)
Yea, like that’s what we needed. Fred wants to be hated, and he has a talent for making it happen.
Damnit.
That church and this university are going to make my annual NAMBLA convention vacation the worstest evar.
I really don’t understand the debate on this. Of course he has to go, and go right now. He’s a football coach. I get the power of that, but if this happened in any presidential administration everyone would be call for the entire administration to resign. If it was found out a former member of a senators staff who go elected president was caught using the White House showers to rape kids, of course the President would be out. Almost immediately.
But they’re still so effing scared of Paterno he gets to do this.
I love Kentucky basketball, I’m completely pumped for the season start. And if anything like this happened the coach would have to be fired.
Yeah, I am kind of shocked there is a “contra” position on this. But there is. I just heard Lou Holtz, who’s kind of an idiot, saying that Paterno “owes it to the players to focus on the games ahead and to be there in the press box Saturday.” Paterno self-servingly said “the Board of Trustees should not spend a single minute discussing my status.” Oh really? I don’t think it works that way Joe. I don’t think you get to resign on your own terms (his contract was expiring anyhow).
Last I heard the Trustees were meeting tonight at 7:00. They’ve already decided to fire the President of the University at that meeting. Good. How they do that and not summarily fire Paterno, I just don’t know, though you are right, the deference to him at that place is very, very unhealthy.
What a wonderful example this coach and this University are setting for their students.
What a wonderful example the students and players are setting by rallying around him. Did you see the quote from one of the players (intended unironically)? “It’s criminal the way [Paterno] went out. He’s meant so much to the university. This wasn’t a fitting end for him.” (bolding mine).
Truly, not a single person associated with Penn State in any way comes out of this covered in anything other than crap.
New to the forum… happend on this place today by chance while looking up the Joepa scandal.
First, I live in KCSD. My older two children attend high school with “victim 1.” I also know Mr. Turchetta (have since he was the football couch at Lock Haven High school). I’m also familiar with Joe Miller. I think a few things should be made clear that the Grand Jury finding of facts don’t make clear. First, the grand jury concluded based on the testimony presented that Sandusky had no wrestling expertise. Coach Miller didn’t know that. Furthermore, in our district many of the sports coaches here coach in more than one sport. When I was in school (in this district) the football coach also coached wrestling. Mainly because his son played football and also wrestled. That coach took the football team to the play-off’s. He also coached wrestling and ended up coaching quite a few state champions. That type of parental/coach participation is still in effect today and is the norm for us.
Mr. Turchetta is referred to as the Vice Principal and Head Football coach. He started out in our district as an assistant coach and has worked his way up from there. He coached his own children in different sports and was, at one point, the Athletic Director, in our district. He himself has coached in sports aside from just football. I don’t want to make us sound like hicks here but it’s quite normal for people here to assume that anyone involved in any type of athletics might have knowledge of other athletics aside from what they mainly coach. I don’t want to say anyone here was ‘enamored’ by Sandusky but I think many of the people in the mandatory reporting capacity mistakenly believed his ‘position and mentorship’ could be valuable to kids even outside the football program.
I know Mr. Turchetta (Mr. T as locals call him) testified that he mediated disputes between Sandusky and students and/or victim 1. Normally I might think that adult should have known something was wrong but I’ve seen coaches lay into players all the time. I remember a screaming match in a hall between the wrestling coach and a wrestler. The kid left practice early and the coach was pissed. They aired their grievances in public. For us it was funny but normal. Even if Mr. T felt it was excessive he might have seen it as a more hard-nosed coaching style than his own. I won’t defend Mr. T but I will say this… most of the grand jury findings seemed to center on his thoughts in hindsight. Hindsight is always 20/20.
As for Joepa and whether he’s a mandatory reporter… one of the things people don’t seem to focus on is the student body of PSU. What few people know is that there are many students on the campus attending PSU under 18. In other words, there are children on the campus and as such any faculty member is/should be a mandatory reporter. I see it this way. Say the child in question in 2002 was a new recruit attending PSU at 17 and on the football team. If this witness had reported to Joepa that he saw Joepa’s 17 year old team member being raped by Sandusky could Joepa couldn’t stand behind a veil of “oh, I told my superior…?” PSU allowed children onto their campus, via admissions and by allowing staff to bring minors onto the campus. As such any faculty member is a mandatory reporter, including Joepa. Once he knew what Sandusky did he had an obligation to report it to the proper authorities… not just his superiors.
Take it a step further. Say Joepa himself walked in on this rape, be it a 17 year old recruit or a 10 year old boy… what would we expect him to do? The answer is obvious. Call the police. I’m not a mandatory reporter but I’ve tried to imagine what I would do in either situation (be it a witness to rape or a staff member hearing of it) and either way I view it my first instinct is to call the cops… in the event of a child rape I didn’t witness I see it as even more important to call the cops. Try putting yourself in Joepa’s shoes. A colleague shows up on Saturday morning and depending on who you ask said colleague either told a tale about a ten year old child being raped or was “very distraught” over what he saw the night before. I don’t know about anyone else, but if I pretend I’m the person being told my first thoughts are “okay… where is this kid now?” My focus wouldn’t be on what personnel within my employment I have to call. My focus would be on who do I have to call to make sure this child is safe.
That’s what I can’t get around. Maybe it’s the parent in me but my first thought is where is this kid now? For all we know Sandusky was digging a shallow grave that Saturday morning, and that is where my mind constantly goes to… as a parent, as a mandatory reporter or as a third party informant… where is this child? I cannot fathom that anyone’s first instinct isn’t to find that boy and make sure he is safe. Tp this day noone has ensured this boy is safe as far as I know. Joepa, on the other hand, decided to think about it all day Saturday, sleep on it and then call his AD Sunday morning? Hello??? At what point has anyone decided to make sure the child in question is safe or even still alive? Obviously noone cared about this boy’s welfare. It took almost two weeks for Curley to even call the witness in for his statement.
I pose this question to anyone who who questions Joepa’s responsibility in this matter… Had this boy been your son and he turned up three weeks after Joepa was told about the assault with a tale of abduction and sexual torture by Sandusky and it came out that Joepa knew about the boy the day after this initial assault and that he choose to “sleep on it” and opted to call his supervisor the following day over calling the cops would you be so forgiving? Of course you wouldn’t. And if the boy in question went on to hang out with Sandusky after Joepa was notified and the higher-ups opted to not tell you and your son was molested after they knew wouldn’t you blame them and Joepa? Of course you would… and rightfully so.
You and I clearly have different morals.
For me, if I am made aware of an incident like this, I would feel it is my responsibility to follow up.
You make an excellent point. This whole thing is repugnant. The cowardice of the PSU Board, the mealy-mouth, self serving statements of JoePa, the team and their reaction, and the fans who blindly support the football program make this whole mess all the more repugnant.
Right now I’m thinking that I will forever hate PSU more than any other NCAA school. From now on my favorite teams are my team and any team playing PSU.
Look, even if he didn’t know, he still would have to go. He’s the head of the program, and it happened under his watch with a guy he hired. In his locker room, where he controls access.
There isn’t a contra position on this. From what I can see, nobody is arguing child molestation is a-okay, nor are they arguing that Paterno did everything right. What they seem to be saying is that the rush to judgment is kinda unfair given Paterno’s long public history and generally upstanding citizenship. Even if you accept the facts laid out in the indictment, I am not sure why Paterno is the main focus of ire here. Clearly, he made some errors in hindsight, but I think we are forgetting Paterno did not have much of this information at the time. Why should Paterno accepted the word of a GA over the his judgment of the character of a man he knew and worked with for decades? We are ignoring the fact that this is a man who built an institution based largely on gut feelings, and correct judgments on the field. You can imagine it must be pretty difficult to get someone like that to accept facts that completely change his/her world view or opinion of a colleague.
We are also ignoring the context. If some guy comes to you and says someone you know very well is a monster. This person says that they saw your friend doing something awful in a public venue accessible to tons of people. The person says they didn’t intervene at the time, didn’t call the cops, and decided to come to you the next day on the advice of their father. Does this really sound 100% credible to you? Would you really feel comfortable initiating things that would ruin your friend’s life regardless of their guilt or innocence? Given that we now have strong evidence that the claim is true, it’s easy to throw stones, but I am not sure most people in Paterno’s situation would have taken this much further than he did.
That’s not to defend Paterno at every step of this, but to make sure people appreciate that his actions are not uncommon, nor are they particularly surprising. That fact is certainly lamentable, but it’s not cause to lynch this guy for being susceptible to what are pretty common human frailties. Again 47% of people who knew of sexual abuse DID NOT report the incident to authorities. Why is everyone shocked that Paterno is perhaps amongst that group?
More importantly, I don’t get why people are assuming malice on Paterno’s part when there is exactly ZERO benefit to him for participating in a cover up. The guy didn’t even work for him at the time. If anything, he would have looked like a hero if he were to report this as soon as he heard about it. What would he have to gain by covering for this guy, given that Sandusky’s future conduct would have indicated he was continuing to sexual assault children, thus exponentially increasing the likelihood of him getting caught?
Cummon’ brickbacon, Sandusky had a history.
Back to Sinsaint’s point. Where was Paterno’s concern for the safety of the child? Maybe they should be digging up Sandusky’s basement like John Wayne Gacy’s.
Here’s the article from ESPN.com I mentioned earlier, which is about Penn State’s off-field problems between '02 and '08: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/otl/news/story?id=3504915
Penn State Criminal Charges
Is there a double standard at Penn State? ESPN researched the number of football players charged with crimes and the number of counts.
All of records are from the state of Pennsylvania.
Year Players Counts
2002 4 6
2003 10 20
2004 8 32
2005 11 12
2006 5 7
2007 17 72
2008 3 14
Total Players Charged: 46 Total Counts: 163
Total Players Guilty: 27 Total Guilty: 45
Was it a history that Paterno knew about? Was it a history based on the reports of people credible or close to Paterno? He was presented with a fantastic claim that turned out to be true. I don’t think people appreciate the difficulties of the position Paterno was in, and why people make (bad) decisions in those contexts. It’s not because they are bad people, they often just blinded to reality. Paterno was definitely ignorant, perhaps even willfully, but this was not malicious. The ire in this thread makes it clear to me that people are assuming he is, and I don’t see any evidence that that is the case. Especially since there is zero incentive for him to cover it up, and a whole lot of downside to trying.
The number of adults who enabled this serial pedophile are beyond shocking. I am so thankful the percentage of people who find this unacceptable is high. My thoughts have been stated by many, more times than I ever thought possible. Everyone who was either active or passively involved in this cover up deserves the hell they will live with. I am curious though why I have yet to hear concern about the safety of the environment at any future PSU games. Why is the PSU board not worried about a riot if they allow JoePa or McQueary to make any form of appearance. I really fear the results of the “mob” mentality. This could be one of the worst disasters at a public event in history.
What - is Paterno out at last?? I can’t find that anywhere.
He’s still officially a lame duck, retiring at the end of the season. I hope the Trustees overrule that.
This lady doesn’t sum up much that we haven’t gone over here, but it’s nice to see a concisely-stated demonstration of why he’s got to go as the espn.com splash page.
Of course not. But they’ve got ten days to think of ways to humiliate Paterno and Penn State. There’ll probably be everything from signs saying “Thank Heaven for Little Boys” to papier-maches of a naked Paterno sticking it to a naked kid. Don’t expect opposing fans to stick to the facts, and don’t expect it to make Penn State look any better if a TV announcer explains that no, it was really Sandusky.
Or maybe a “Limp Dick”?
Sorry about that…