Penn St. hit hard

[Marley23]

@brickbacon

Please explain to me why you think something like this would not have happened absent the existence of a powerful football program?

No. I’ve repeatedly explained my view of the reasons for the coverup. They included protecting the football program and its value to the image and finances of Penn State. I’m not going to go even further and start writing fiction about how it wouldn’t have happened if not for football.

Please feel free to link to evidence from the Freeh report that supports the notion that this coverup was done to protect the football team, or that it was orchestrated by Paterno.

Freeh doesn’t speculate on anyone’s broader motives as far as I can see, and I’ve never said Paterno orchestrated the coverup. It sounds like you’ve already seen the passage where Freeh concludes that Paterno played a role in the decision of the administrators not to go to the police in 2001.

I am not sure about your assessment of Paterno’s power at Penn State. It’s true that the football team wasn’t good in the early 2000s and some of the players got into trouble off the field. But of course Paterno was not fired. He was popular with the alumni and national fans, and he was in his 70s and had been with the school for decades. Later the team started winning again and that must have only increased his pull. I have no doubt there were power struggles and various PSU officials were uncomfortable with the amount of power he had as “only” the football coach. [When Penn State announced he had been fired, you could see that some people felt they’d always had it in for him.] He was not an all-powerful figure, but he was very powerful and very entrenched, and unlike an administrator or athletic director, he had a very high profile outside the school. There was always public speculation about his exit, but he said every year that he would not leave unless he had to - he was very blunt about being afraid that he’d drop dead if he retired because he wouldn’t have much to live for. He said that was what happened to Bear Bryant. Of course even in the wake of the Sandusky scandal he privately agreed to retire with a very generous bonus package, and when people started calling for his head, he went public with an “offer” to retire after the season even though he’d already agreed to do that. What a guy.

[brickbacon]

@Marley23

No. I’ve repeatedly explained my view of the reasons for the coverup. They included protecting the football program and its value to the image and finances of Penn State. I’m not going to go even further and start writing fiction about how it wouldn’t have happened if not for football.

Okay, but seeing as we now have plenty of evidence upon which we can base our conclusions, why speculate and distort what we have in front of us. The Freeh report has email and direct testimony illuminating what people thought at the time. AFAICT, nobody spoke about protecting the football program at all. They spoke about personal liability, bad PR for the university, and other victims, among other things. Yet, no mention of not wanting to anger Paterno, or hurt the program. Why is that? There is no reason for them to lie in private emails.

@Marley23

Freeh doesn’t speculate on anyone’s broader motives as far as I can see, and I’ve never said Paterno orchestrated the coverup.

He doesn’t have to. Their motives are fairly well outlined in their emails.

@Marley23

It sounds like you’ve already seen the passage where Freeh concludes that Paterno played a role in the decision of the administrators not to go to the police in 2001.

Wrong. He “convinced” Curley that offering counseling if he cooperated would be more fair. Curley sold the others on it. They never planned to go to the police. All Paterno did was convince them to work with Sandusky before basically doing what they had planned on doing anyway.

@Marley23

I am not sure about your assessment of Paterno’s power at Penn State. It’s true that the football team wasn’t good in the early 2000s and some of the players got into trouble off the field.

You are referencing something someone else said.

[Marley23]

@brickbacon

They spoke about personal liability, bad PR for the university, and other victims, among other things.

You’ve got several things wrong here. The comment about “other victims” wasn’t given as a reason for the coverup either, it was an assessment of what they were dealing with. The personal liability comment (an email from Spanier) referred to about what would happen if the coverup came to light, not as a reason to handle the matter quietly in the first place. I haven’t read the report from start to finish, but I don’t remember seeing them worry about bad PR for the university either.

There is no reason for them to lie in private emails.

Sure there was: they knew someone might look at them later. Freeh pointed out that even in the emails, the administrators were covering their tracks. After the meeting with Sandusky they stopped using his name and the name of the Department of Public Welfare.

He “convinced” Curley that offering counseling if he cooperated would be more fair. Curley sold the others on it. They never planned to go to the police. All Paterno did was convince them to work with Sandusky before basically doing what they had planned on doing anyway.

Freeh: “In critical written correspondence that we uncovered on March 20th of this year, we see evidence of their proposed plan of action in February 2001 that included reporting allegations about Sandusky to the authorities. After Mr. Curley consulted with Mr. Paterno, however, they changed the plan and decided not to make a report to the authorities.”

They might not have gone to the police or child services anyway, but they thought about it. They didn’t consider it any further after meeting with Paterno.

[Barkis_is_Willin]

I still think Penn State should have received a 1 year football ban. I bet they would have preferred that, too. It’s one of those punishments that sounds so horrible it really sends a clear message, but after 1 year, hey you’re back to football.

[brickbacon]

@Marley23

You’ve got several things wrong here. The comment about “other victims” wasn’t given as a reason for the coverup either, it was an assessment of what they were dealing with.

Actually, you should re-read what I said. I didn’t say the covered things up because of other victims. That would make no sense. I was saying they spoke about a wide variety of things. Protecting the football program was not one of them.

@Marley23

The personal liability comment (an email from Spanier) referred to about what would happen if the coverup came to light, not as a reason to handle the matter quietly in the first place.

Geez. This is not that complicated. If your contention is that they did this to cover up the for the football program, and to appease Paterno, why did NOBODY mention anything about it in the conversations we have on record? These no no evidence for what you suggest was going on beyond rank speculation on your part.

@Marley23

Sure there was: they knew someone might look at them later. Freeh pointed out that even in the emails, the administrators were covering their tracks. After the meeting with Sandusky they stopped using his name and the name of the Department of Public Welfare.

Correct, but their statements about the matter were not any less candid. More importantly, it tells you what they were thinking at the time. If they were so worried about the football team, why didn’t anyone mention it? Why do they spend so little time discussing Paterno and the football team if they were the prime motivation for their actions?

@Marley23

They might not have gone to the police or child services anyway, but they thought about it. They didn’t consider it any further after meeting with Paterno.

Read the report (page 23 outlining the events of Feb. 25-26, 2001). The authorities he refers to were DPW and Second Mile, not the police dept.

[Telemark]

@Marley23

Freeh: “In critical written correspondence that we uncovered on March 20th of this year, we see evidence of their proposed plan of action in February 2001 that included reporting allegations about Sandusky to the authorities. After Mr. Curley consulted with Mr. Paterno, however, they changed the plan and decided not to make a report to the authorities.”

They might not have gone to the police or child services anyway, but they thought about it. They didn’t consider it any further after meeting with Paterno.

Thanks for providing the exact quotes, I can’t get to that here at work. I don’t think there’s any reasonable way to read that without coming away with the conclusion that Paterno changed their minds about reporting to the authorities. Once that information about that coverup got out the fate of the entire program was sealed.

[brickbacon]

@Telemark

Thanks for providing the exact quotes, I can’t get to that here at work. I don’t think there’s any reasonable way to read that without coming away with the conclusion that Paterno changed their minds about reporting to the authorities. Once that information about that coverup got out the fate of the entire program was sealed.

Read what was said if you want to understand the context of the quote. Here is CNN’s account if you don’t want to sift through the Freeh report (it’s page 23 if you were curious).

In one e-mail dated Feb. 26, 2001, Schultz allegedly laid out a plan that involved “talking to the subject ASAP regarding the future appropriate use of the university facility,” “contacting the chair of the charitable organization,” and “contacting the Department of Welfare.”

But Curley raised concerns in a reply a day later, CNN reported.

“After giving it more thought and talking it over with Joe yesterday, I am uncomfortable with what we agreed were the next steps,” Curley allegedly wrote. “I am having trouble with going to everyone but the person involved.” The Joe mentioned is believed to be Paterno, who was fired days after Sandusky’s arrest for his failure to do more about the abuse allegations. He died in January.

Curley purportedly suggested an alternative that did not involve outside authorities. Instead, he allegedly said, the three officials should discuss the allegations with Sandusky, offer to get him professional help, and ban him from bringing children on campus.

Within two hours, Spanier responded, calling Curley’s plan “acceptable” but expressing concern over their vulnerability for not notifying child-abuse investigators, CNN reported.

“But that can be assessed down the road,” the president purportedly wrote. “The approach you outline is humane and a reasonable way to proceed.”

Schultz agreed with the revised plan in a separate letter, the network said.

Nobody suggested contacting the police as far as we know. More importantly, just based on the evidence we have, Paterno’s role in securing the cooperation of all the parties involved is limited at best.

[Marley23]

@brickbacon

I was saying they spoke about a wide variety of things. Protecting the football program was not one of them.

OK. I’m sorry if that made it look like you were saying something you didn’t say.

Geez. This is not that complicated. If your contention is that they did this to cover up the for the football program, and to appease Paterno, why did NOBODY mention anything about it in the conversations we have on record?

They knew why they were doing it and didn’t need to discuss the obvious, and furthermore, they knew they didn’t want anyone else to find out. That’s why they stopped referring to Sandusky by name and made similar changes in their personal notes. Documenting the reasons for the coverup would be contrary to the purpose of keeping the whole thing quiet. In other words, you’re asking a ridiculous question: ‘Why didn’t they document in emails their reasons for hushing up the child abuse?’

If I may quote Stringer Bell, “Nigga, is you taking notes on a criminal fucking conspiracy?”

Correct, but their statements about the matter were not any less candid.

Yes, they still needed to discuss their plans. They just did so in code and discussed the people involved by their initials in the hope that if someone went through their notes or emails later, it wouldn’t be discovered and used against them.

Why do they spend so little time discussing Paterno and the football team if they were the prime motivation for their actions?

They never discussed any motives for their actions - except of course for meeting with Sandusky personally. We know they felt it would not have been “humane” to talk to DPW and Second Mile without talking to him face to face.

[That_Don_Guy]

@BigT

And now that I’ve read this thread, I have to say that, assuming you can transfer without losing your scholarship as someone said, I don’t see how the kids are affected, and they are the only ones who don’t deserve to be affected at the school

Who said that anyone who transfers automatically keeps their scholarship? Anyone who stays at Penn State will keep their scholarship even if they no longer choose to play football, if I read the report correctly, but if you leave for another school, it’s up to that school to decide whether or not you get a scholarship. The only change from the way transfers “normally” work is, they don’t have to sit out a year before being eligible to play for their new team.

As for whether or not giving a scholarship to a PSU player takes it away from someone else, the NCAA said it would “consider” allowing schools to exceed the 85 scholarship limit (and note that there are no “partial” scholarships in FBS football) for the 2012 season, provided that the new school reduces the number of scholarships it gives out in the 2013 season.

[Telemark]

@brickbacon

Nobody suggested contacting the police as far as we know. More importantly, just based on the evidence we have, Paterno’s role in securing the cooperation of all the parties involved is limited at best.

If they contacted the Department of Welfare the police would have been involved. Contacting DoW would have made the whole thing public.

Curley was handpicked by Paterno to be AD. He grew up in and played football for Penn St. He was Paterno’s boss in name only. His role was to do what Paterno wanted and that’s what appears to have happened here. On paper you might argue against that but in talking to people who lived and worked at Penn State you can see that Paterno’s word carried far more authority than the AD or even the Vice President.

Paterno is just as guilty as Curley and Spanier in covering up child rape and allowing it to continue for a decade. The fact that he’s dead is small comfort to the victims. His legacy, the Penn State football program should (and will) be dismantled to prevent this from happening again at Penn St and as a warning to other schools where something like this could easily happen.

[RaftPeople]

@brickbacon

I am more than okay with schools being punished by the NCAA for rules violations typically under the NCAA’s purview.

But institutional control is one of the very things that nuked USC.

[Evil_Captor]

Iteresting article about the widespread culture of abuse at Penn State. Avcording to the author, a former Penn State grad student,it wasn’t just the football team that concealed abuse of all kinds.

[Acsenray]

@Evil_Captor

Iteresting article about the widespread culture of abuse at Penn State. Avcording to the author, a former Penn State grad student,it wasn’t just the football team that concealed abuse of all kinds.

Some statements from that column:

But Central Pennsylvania as a region is hate group central. It houses the national headquarters of both the Aryan Nation and the Association of Independent Klansmen Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. The latter is located in Lemont, just a 10-minute drive from Penn State. Plus, smaller militia and/or neo-Confederate groups are sprinkled throughout the area, and continue sprouting up. People in the region commonly note that State College has the “highest per capita hate group membership” in the United States

…

I was, in other words, no stranger to these problems when I entered Penn State. But neither had I ever seen a university close ranks with such precision against students who decided to go public about assault or rape. At PSU, it soon became clear, you simply cannot take any abuse public without suffering severe consequences. Maybe that’s what makes Penn State culture so unusual.

…

… just before my arrival, my department (philosophy) had been embroiled in lawsuits and was placed in receivership. Due to swirling allegations of sexual harassment and faculty infighting, the department was not permitted to govern itself or admit new graduate students for a few years. During this time, many students were pushed out of the university for political allegiances seen as disloyal to the department. Several faculty members left, some of whom later sued as a result of what they viewed as campaigns to remove them from the university.

The writer also makes reference to the two “This American Life” episodes about Penn State, which reveal that the entire culture surrounding football at the university is one of alcohol-fueled debauchery, public nuisance, and petty crime.

[brickbacon]

@Marley23

They knew why they were doing it and didn’t need to discuss the obvious, and furthermore, they knew they didn’t want anyone else to find out. That’s why they stopped referring to Sandusky by name and made similar changes in their personal notes.

Why do you think they discussed or took notes on all sorts of incriminating things including, but not limited to: the possibility of other victims, the shit storm that would arise if they covered it up and got caught, how to proceed, etc. What you are suggesting is certainly possible, but it’s unlikely given that everything else was laid out on the table except what you allege was the impetus for everything. If protecting the football team, and catering to Paterno was priority number one, why didn’t Paterno attend the meeting between them? Why wasn’t he CC’ed on the emails? Why did Paterno even bother telling them? It makes ZERO sense to suggest a guy who was not even present during, or aware of, many of the incriminating encounters is the one in the driver’s seat.

To quote the Freeh Report:

Spanier explained that he was concerned with Sandusky because the situation “doesn’t look good, I was concerned with what people will think, the visibility and the public relations aspects of it. I was not concerned with criminality.”

No mention of football. He mentions PR, visibility, and public perceptions yet nothing about football or Paterno. Are we to believe all those things had to be explicitly stated, but the main impetus for the cover up, and the guy running things needn’t be addressed? They have no problem mentioning Paterno any other time. Why would they be gun-shy then?

@Marley23

Documenting the reasons for the coverup would be contrary to the purpose of keeping the whole thing quiet. In other words, you’re asking a ridiculous question: ‘Why didn’t they document in emails their reasons for hushing up the child abuse?’

But they did document the reasons (see above) in addition to their fears, concerns, etc. Yet, THERE IS NOTHING TO SUGGEST WHAT YOU CLAIM. There is zero evidence for it, yet you keep stating it with confidence. Just admit you have no proof, or reasonable suspicion that the football program or Paterno were principally responsible for the cover up.
Just admit there Paterno was not orchestrating this cover up, and that he was not pulling the strings.

@Marley23

Yes, they still needed to discuss their plans. They just did so in code and discussed the people involved by their initials in the hope that if someone went through their notes or emails later, it wouldn’t be discovered and used against them.

The code came much later.

@Telemark

If they contacted the Department of Welfare the police would have been involved. Contacting DoW would have made the whole thing public.

Wrong. That’s why the first incident was not public. It was investigated in 1998 by both the police, the DA, and DWP. Yet, nobody knew about it.

@Telemark

On paper you might argue against that but in talking to people who lived and worked at Penn State you can see that Paterno’s word carried far more authority than the AD or even the Vice President.

This is just speculation. We have the facts (as we know them). None of the fact suggest what you are saying is a reasonable or likely possibility.

@Telemark

His legacy, the Penn State football program should (and will) be dismantled to prevent this from happening again at Penn St and as a warning to other schools where something like this could easily happen.

I sure hope you are not a teacher, or in any position where you teach people how to think about the world. Burying history and facts in order to “punish” bad people is immoral and antithetical to open society . Any thinking person should be troubled that people think it’s okay to rewrite history to make it reflect their morality. Bad people sometimes do great things. Pretending Paterno wasn’t the winning-est coach in history a slippery slope none of us should want to be on. Even if the stakes in this case are not that high, the fact that people are applauding it really makes me wonder if people can see shaky underlying logic.

[brickbacon]

@RaftPeople

But institutional control is one of the very things that nuked USC.

They were paying players, no? Or rather they looked the other way when “agents” paid the players. That affects the product on the field and shifts the competitive balance.

[Labrador_Deceiver]

Did you just ask why Parerno wasn’t cc’ed on the emails? Seriously?

I’m not even sure why anyone is even bothering to respond to someone who a) has demonstrated on multiple occasions that he doesn’t even know some of the basic details of the scandal and b) is forming some of the most nonsensical arguments I’ve heard since the paper towel tube was trotted out.

When you’ve covering up for a football coach who is a pedophile, you don’t need to explicitly state in an email to your peers every single aspect of the university that will be harmed should the cover-up come to light. They all had an education that went past the 6th grade, and could therefore understand that the football program would be one of the departments to take a fucking hit.

[kidchameleon]

@Labrador_Deceiver

They all had an education that went past the 6th grade, and could therefore understand that the football program would be one of the departments to take a fucking hit.

I didn’t seen any specific mention of Penn State, either. Perhaps they were concerned with how this scandal would affect Stanford.

[Labrador_Deceiver]

@kidchameleon

I didn’t seen any specific mention of Penn State, either. Perhaps they were concerned with how this scandal would affect Stanford.

You can’t prove they didn’t!

[RaftPeople]

@brickbacon

They were paying players, no? Or rather they looked the other way when “agents” paid the players. That affects the product on the field and shifts the competitive balance.

You think that Reggie Bush would have quit USC if he was not able to get that money from the agent?

Or Pryor at Ohio State selling memorabilia?

I doubt either of those things changed the competitive landscape at either school, and I think the Penn State thing changed it about the same, not too much.

But even if it didn’t really change anything, there are rules about institutional control and they are there for a good reason.

[brickbacon]

@Labrador_Deceiver

Did you just ask why Parerno wasn’t cc’ed on the emails? Seriously?

Yes, Paterno didn’t use email. I should have said referenced in any emails.

@Labrador_Deceiver

I’m not even sure why anyone is even bothering to respond to someone who a) has demonstrated on multiple occasions that he doesn’t even know some of the basic details of the scandal and b) is forming some of the most nonsensical arguments I’ve heard since the paper towel tube was trotted out.

Feel free to point out anything I have said that is false.