Welcome to the Straight Dope Message Board. No better welcome than this thread.
Maybe his doctor just doesn’t want to say anything right now cause he doesn’t want to ruin anyone’s weekend…
SOME great football coaches are like Darrell Royal and Bud Grant. Royal retired while still a fairly young man (just 53) and was HAPPY to spend his time golfing and relaxing. Bud Grant quit coaching at 56 and was happy to spend his days fishing and playing with his grandkids.
A lot of other coaches are like Bear Bryant and Joe Paterno- they just don’t HAVE anything else they enjoy as much as coaching football, and just can’t imagine life without it.
Even BEFORE the scandal broke, Joe had been fighting tooth and nail to keep his job, because retirement seemed UNTHINKABLE to him. Spending the day golfing, fishing, loafing, doing crosswords, reading books, or hanging out with the grandchildren just held no appeal for him.
Joe Paterno - what a pathetic end to a life that up until this year was thought by many to be an icon.
Stripped of so much… his legacy at Penn State forever stained by the Sandusky scandal. His name stripped from the Big 10 championship trophy… His good name forever linked to pedophilia and the PSU sex scandal. The one thing death brought to JoePa was peace, and an escape from the horrific end to the 2011 season and his career. It also brought silence to a voice that may have told us more about what he knew and didn’t know regarding Sandusky’s behavior.
So he’s gone. I’m ambivalent. On the one hand, I’m sad to see him go out that way, but on the other hand, you reap what you sow.
What I respect - PSU never slapping anything but blue numbers on their helmets, and the white home/blue road unis. Black shoes. Simple and iconic. That was him more than anyone.
His graduation rate. not perfect, but he did put some premium on education.
His teams - rarely did he throw a turd on the field… and Linebacker U was not just a cute nickname.
What I was disappointed with -
Sandusky, obviously - Joe knew. He did nothing to stop a predator, and he will always be remembered for it. His legacy will be haunted by it.
his stubbornness - his inability to let go and retire years ago, allowing a new coach to make his mark with the program, while Joe could enjoy retirement in style.
His selfishness - he played a major role in the cancellation of the Pitt/Penn St. rivalry which was one of the best in the country. Now that he’s gone, perhaps it will return as a non-conference game for the two schools.
His lack of national championships. Not his fault, but he finished a few times undefeated and didn’t get the nod for whatever reason. My disappointment lies with the system, not with paterno.
The move to the Big 10. Great for PSU, but put a major hole in eastern college football. That one move made the Pitt/PSU game a memory, only to be renewed occasionally in the early part of the season. That’s a personal disappointment. The move to the big10 was a great thing for PSU and I think it was one of the smartest things PSU did.
depending on what comes out about what he knew about Sandusky and if he was an enabler of the man, I reserve my hope he rest in peace.
But surely The Program is much more important than one or two dozen little boys getting raped!
I live in Central PA, so there has been wall-to-wall news coverage of the reaction to Paterno’s death. And when I mean “wall-to-wall”, I mean “significant portions of the morning news not otherwise occupied by the South Carolina and Florida primaries.”
Truth be told, the hagiography is absolutely disgusting. I understand that Penn State, both as a community and as an institution, has been through a rather shitty few months. But the comments about Paterno go well beyond not speaking ill of the dead and into serious denial.
That being said, now that Paterno is gone, Penn State really needs to spend some time seriously reflecting on itself, both as a university and as a community. As long as Paterno was still around and as long as the administration and student body were willing to enable his (frankly, but IMHO) narcissism, that couldn’t happen. But now it can, and it should.
The city of Sandusky, OH should change its name to “Hitler” to avoid the connection with Jerry the pedophile.
As someone married to an incest survivor who now spends a considerable amount of her time volunteering for a sexual assault support center, I am amused by the higher than thou finger waging going on here. You clowns have no right to judge Joe Pa so harshly, especially before the investigation has finished the case has gone to trial. He is the ONLY ONE who reported the assaults and if you people think going to the police would have made a difference you need to learn a thing or two about how police investigations work wrt sexual assaults. They are one of the worst for covering up and trying for quick case closures and avoiding messing court procedings. Check the stats. Speaking of stats, statisticaly speaking, Joe Pa did more than 90% of people would do in the same situation. At least he tried to do something and then later openly regretted not doing more, but also admitting he was confused and did not know what to do. This is not surprising considering his age and generation. It was up to the administration to take his report and do something about it. Statisticaly speaking, 90% of you would do less than Joe Pa in the same situation so spare us your pontificating. Almost everybody covers up child abuse until they can’t cover it up. Going to the police only serves to re-victimize the victims twice more. The second victimization is when they are treated like a liar by the detective and then the third will be when a lawyer tries to destroy the victim on the stand.
For many victims, it’s better for them to get counselling and never bother going to the police.
The kind of smack being talked in this thread is precisely why people don’t report abuse. Whether they are the victim or somebody else is the victim. Who needs the grief?
Child abuse isn’t nearly as black and white as you think and the correct manner to handle such a situation isn’t black and white either.
As someone married to an incest survivor who now spends a considerable amount of her time volunteering for a sexual assault support center, I am amused by the higher than thou finger waging going on here. You have no right to judge Joe Pa so harshly, and make presumptions about his motives and what he did or did not know. Especially before the investigation has finished and the case has gone to trial.
He is the ONLY ONE who reported the assaults and if you people think going to the police would have made a difference you need to learn a thing or two about how police investigations work wrt sexual assaults. They are one of the worst for covering up and trying for quick case closures. Avoiding messy court procedings is preferable, plus investigators tend to take a “victim is lying” default position in this case. Check the stats.
Speaking of stats, statisticaly speaking, Joe Pa did more than 90% of people would do in the same situation. At least he tried to do something and then later openly regretted not doing more, but also admitting he was confused and did not know what to do. This is not surprising considering his age and generation. It was up to the administration to take his report and do something about it. Statisticaly speaking, 90% of you would do less than Joe Pa in the same situation so spare us your pontificating. Almost everybody covers up child abuse until they can’t cover it up.
Going to the police only serves to re-victimize the victims twice morem btw. The second victimization is when they are treated like a liar by the detective and then the third will be when a lawyer tries to destroy the victim on the stand. Gotta make sure the alleged victim isn’t making this up!
For many victims, it’s better for them to get counselling and never bother going to the police. That’s why so few are reported.
The kind of smack being talked in this thread is also why people don’t report abuse. Whether they are the victim or somebody else is the victim. Who needs the grief?
Child abuse isn’t nearly as black and white as you think and the correct manner to handle such a situation isn’t black and white either. He tried to do something, that’s better than most. Remember his career and regret the stain that alleged scumbag, Sandusky put on it.
That may be true. It’s almost certainly true that for other victims the best possible outcome would be for police to put a stop to it and let the victim be assured that the perpetrator won’t be doing it to anyone else.
If we were talking about someone who didn’t report their own abuser, sure, I’ll grant that might be the person’s choice (though I’ll also argue they have some responsibility to potential future victims), but we’re not.
Horse Shit.
Sandusky went on raping kids for nearly a decade after Paterno was informed about it. You can argue about what he was or wasn’t told but he was definitely told “Sandusky…inappropriate sexual contact…young boy” by a distraught employee in tears. Whatever was between the blanks, that right there is enough to make sure the cops get involved and it was followed up. And Paterno was well known enough and had enough clout and influence to make sure it didn’t get swept under the rug.
Sure, other people are just as guilty of inaction, everyone from McQueary up to and including the trustees themselves, but they’re not the ones being talked about as “a pillar of the community” and “a role model for thousands of students”. If Joe had gone to the cops or made enough of a fuss about it with his bosses, Sanduskys victims might not have had to suffer for nearly a decade afterwards until he was finally caught.
Paterno was part of the problem, a look the other way culture at Penn State that didn’t go to the cops, didn’t do anything to help the victims, didn’t do anything to prevent future abuses, and only banned Sandusky from bringing more kids on campus. Every person who could have done something about this and didn’t has to look at themselves in the mirror every morning and know they could have spoken up, but let it be " someone else’s problem". As long as it didn’t happen on campus, everything was ok.
Now Paterno is dead, and the tributes to this “shining example”, this “community leader”, are ringing a little hallow. He did the minimum that was required, and the kids suffered for years because of his (and others) inaction.
Why Joe, why?
“Legacy”, indeed.
As someone who’s been dating the same woman for five years who spent a semester of law school working as a seven-eleven intern for the branch of the State’s Attorney office (i.e. in the State of Illinois, students in at least their second year of law school are allowed to be licensed to practice law for Illinois under the tutelage of a barred Illiois attorney, both on the State’s Attorney side and the Public Defender’s Office side) that removes parental rights, I disagree highly. I got to hear secondhand the stories of what the cops go through to make sure the State’s Attorney office has solid cases. (The one case my girlfriend tried she ended up winning against another seven-eleven.) The cops really do care, even to the point where they have to watch videos of things you wouldn’t want wished on your own worst enemy, so that they can testify to sever the parental rights of the non-offending parent. (See, usually the offending parent is an easy case to strip rights from, but the other parent is considerably harder because you have to prove that there was no way they couldn’t know what was going on.) There was one case where the cop had to excuse himself and throw-up as he was watching these videos? Why? Because he had to watch it. He was the arresting cop in the case, and it was his job to make sure that this woman wouldn’t be able to claim that she didn’t know what her husband was doing to their daughter. Maybe Pennsylvania has a different atmosphere, but in Illinois, child abuse is not taken lightly by the state, and you do those who fight it a huge disservice by tarring them with such a brush.
Not to mention that by not going to the cops, you stand zero chance of stopping the actions so these predators can continue what they are doing.
I’m sorry for what your wife went through, but your post is ignorant.
Paterno practically fucking owned the state and was the god of PSU. He easily could have had Sandusky permanently banned from campus. He could have called the cops himself. Hell - he probably could have had the SOB bumped off of he wanted to.
He kept his mouth shut because to say something would jeopardize his stupid football team.
Having read the reactions of Penn Staters online I think they’re little more than a cult. The man was a fucking FOOTBALL COACH. That’s all. Yes, he was apparently a damn good one. Big fucking deal. It’s just sports.
In the end the man knowingly protected a child rapist. Fuck him.
I’d also like to see some cites as to Seamus McCool’s little “90%” thing …
One of my local news anchors had some unkind words, something you don’t usually expect from the normally bland 10pm news. The two main anchors were talking about the death and generally going over the man and his legacy, but then the sports guy (I think), chimed in. He cut right to the heart of the issue. He said that all of this measured tone for the deceased and talks about how he was a great coach and whatever falls kind of flat when in the same breath you have to talk about how he allowed a child molester to go on raping kids for years. In the face of that, he said, we shouldn’t be treating this as the death of a venerable old man but a monster who contributed to harming children. I think the two main anchors were a little surprised and a little shellshocked on how to follow that
AFAICT, he wasn’t even that good a coach. He just managed to build up a two-bit program into a larger one, but I don’t think there’s anything special about him aside from a cult of personality that could probably rival Chairman Mao’s.
You and me both.
NOW you’re just being petty and ridiculous.
Paterno WAS a great coach (though even his admirers will usually concede he should have retired a decade ago). He ALSO did something morally repugnant.
The two aren’t mutually exclusive, you know. You can be superb at your job and STILL fall short as a human being.
I wasn’t talking about the scandal. I was referring to his record as coach. Not bad, but not great. His record can be attributed as much to sheer longevity as much as his skill.
That’s the thing. Maybe it’s because I don’t live in central PA, but the news coverage I’m seeing is tempered by the child rape allegations. Most of what I’ve read recognizes his accomplishments, his commitment to education and a clean program (meaning no steriods, no NCAA rule breaking of any kind), but also talks about his legacy being tainted by the scandal.
I don’t see, as someone who actually reported the abuse (unusual), how he deserves to be told to rot in hell and a lot of the other vindictive I’ve seen around here. Firstly, I see it as largely hypocritical as I know how people typicaly act in such a situation, secondly, yes, he could have done more, but for a 74 year old man of a certain generation he did a lot more than I would have expected him to do.
Lastly, unlike any of the other parties (Sandusky who is denying everything, the administrators who are now charged for lying to the grand juror), Paterno was man enough to say to the media that he was confused and wasn’t sure what to do, regrets that he did not do more and that he feels awful for the victims. For that he deserves some respect during his passing.
That’s great that the cops are into it 100% when there’s 100% indisputable video evidence.
Although, there’s a big difference between a cop and the detectives charged with investigating the case. Especially when there’s no video evidence. My wife and her peers regularly go to court with victims of sexual assault (not just children) and not only do the victims typicaly get grief from the interviewing officer, sometimes the advocates are tricked and locked into other rooms so that the officer can get the victim alone. They do this so that they can try and intimidate the victim because many of these investigators treat them as liars first when it’s one person’s word against another.
The kind of stuff detailed in this link is pretty common.