Exactly, not one single sane person would think reporting it to his bosses would be the right thing to do in that situation. Reporting to your boss just screams “how do we wanna deal with this” rather than “this is wrong”.
This FTW. This was no pencil necked geek GA. He was a D1 football player who was more than capable of ending the situation as quickly as he stumbled on to it. The boy made eye contact with him while being raped and instead of being his rescuer, McQueery ran home and told his daddy. I hope that eye contact haunts him for the rest of his life.
True enough. Unfortunately, how EVERYONE else dealt/reacted to this screams the same unpleasant thing (maybe even moreso since the other folks were in positions of higher power/responsibility).
What ten year old boy wants something shoved up his ass? Even if he did, what normal adult would help him out in that quest by offering up their penis to do the task?
Oh, BTW… Joepa has hired a defense attorney.
On a radio sports talk show tonight I heard that the McQueary and Sandusky families were very close. Like the McQueary Dad and Sandusky were college palls or roomies. Does anyone know if that is true? The way the caller described it was that McQueary would have thought of Sandusky kind of like an uncle. It does not excuse anything, but may explain the inappropriate way things unfolded. I have a feeling we have only begun to hear the whole story. Many more victims and relationships that were complex and familial in nature.
Right, everyone shares the blame here but the guy who actually witnessed the rape of a child and decided to let someone else handle it and did nothing even when it was obvious nothing was being done is the biggest culprit here. Trying to paint him as someone who tried to do the right thing is simply ridiculous.
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Gfactor
Administrator
Politics?
I thought American FOOTBALL was religion…
Pretty sure Coach Paterno’s checkbook is going back in the drawer, anyway. 
You win the thread.
[del]Maybe he thought the guy’s technique needed some–[/del] naaahhh, I think I better not.
So, Penn State to State Pen?
The thing I really remember about Paterno was how he was invited to give the commencement address at Penn State after turning down a lucrative offer to coach the New England Patriots around 1973.
Referring to Richard Nixon’s decision to award Texas the 1969 national championship instead of Penn State (both the coaches and writers poll agreed with Nixon) he said “I don’t see how Nixon could know so much about college football and so little about Watergate”. Got him a lot of favorable press, including a “60 minutes” portrait showing PSU players reading their textbooks in the locker room. Geez, cheesy photo op alert.
Yeah, Papa Joe, you could give Tricky Dick (and Slick Willie) lessons on covering up crimes. I hope you get indicted, or at least named as an unindicted co conspirator.
Is there any idea when Sandusky began molesting young boys? The first one reported was in the 1990s when he was in his fifties. But is it common for pedophiles to start so late, especially since he started this “foundation” some 20 years earlier.
I am not sure what he saw. Do you think he pulled up a chair for a good long take? He was uncomfortable enough to report to the bosses. Understand he reported what he saw, whatever it was.
Should he have gone to the cops? Did he have proof? Would he have lost his job?
If you were hell bent on rationalizing away the actions of Sandusky, the obvious answer to this question is “A gay one, duh”.
This line of defense has recently been used by members of the Catholic church to defend inaction towards their dirty own priests. See here. So it would not surprise me if Penn State drank the same koolaide a little bit.
I wish it were that simple, but it isn’t. The question of “but did she want it?” is not uncommonly raised when we’re talking about sex between adult men and female children (even those younger than 10), and sometimes it’s people in power who do the raising.
If I were McQueary and I wanted to sleep at night, I’d probably delude myself into believing that what I’d seen was consensual. Shit, if he didn’t convince himself of that, I honestly don’t see how he’s able to function.
Yes. So he gave $4M to PSU. It’s going to cost them a whole lot more to get all of this finally resolved. They’ve probably spent $4M already. Look at some of the judgments/settlements with Catholic Archdioceses. This one is going to turn into a feeding frenzy because people, whether they deserve it or not, will be coming at them. The legal and settlement costs will be staggering. In the end, Penn State may wish that they had never heard of Joe Paterno or football. Of course, the taxpayers of Pennsylvania will pick up the bill.
It is my belief that he not only didn’t know enough, but that he didn’t believe or appreciate the gravity of the claims.
You are missing the point. Some have alleged that he was perfectly aware of the facts, appreciated the gravity of the claims and the affect it would have on the program, yet decided to engage in a cover up that would have at the very least required the cooperation of 5 people beyond the victim, the accused, and any other person who could possibly find out about it. The thinking being that he is told that the accused was engaged in anal sex with a child in a public place where tons of people have access, and somehow thinks his ONLY telling two other people will somehow keep the entire story under wraps indefinitely. If you contend that he was aware of the facts, why would he think a cover-up was a good idea, or even achievable? Or even better, why would he even bother involving two more people? If he wanted to cover it up, why didn’t he just tell McQueary to keep it to himself?
Of course there would be fallout. The issue is why people think fear of going public with the claim at the time would have been a less effective plan than trying to hide something that you have little control over, and something that you have already involved two other people in. If Paterno came forward with the claim, he would have been thought of as a hero once the smoke cleared. He would have been the guy that righted a wrong. It makes ZERO sense to think the short term pain the program may have suffered would have been worse than even the sliver of the chance that they would be experiencing what they are going through now.
More troubling is the contention that a guy, who by all accounts has helped countless people, contributed vast amounts of money to various charities and good will organizations, and has AKAIK led a pretty exemplary life would not even be concerned about the alleged victim if he truly thought something terrible was happening. There is no evidence of such callousness and insensitivity in his past. A past that stretches for multiple decades, and has been well scrutinized. Believing the worst makes for a convenient narrative, but it is not in keeping with logic, history, and the facts we have before us.
Joe Paterno’s football program has made that school hundreds of millions of dollars over the years. He’s screwed them up with this latest scandal, but Penn State has made an enormous amount of money off of him.
You make it sound like Penn State, in the absence of Joe Paterno, would have had no football program at all, and would not have received any benefit from the sorts of donations, sponsorships, and other financial windfalls that accompany a successful program.
I’m not denying that Peterno was a good coach, or that he didn’t have a hand in Penn State’s football and financial successes, but if it hadn’t been him, it might well have been someone else. He has been coach precisely during the era when nationwide television exposure has meant so much to college football, and while he has had an incredible influence due to his long tenure, it’s ridiculous to suggest that, in his absence, Penn State wouldn’t have anything that it has now.
I take it you get why I specifically referenced Barbarella 