Paterno, Curley, et al covered up for Sandusky because they didn’t want to hurt the football team or the school’s students (and also because it would interfere with making a lot of money*). Now you’re floating the idea that the school shouldn’t be punished … because it would hurt the football team and the school’s students and interfere with making the money.
The football program needs to go -specifically- because the school and the students and the whole damn community needs to come to grips with the fact the first priority is not always “protect the cashflow!!!”
This attitude of “we can’t do anything about this because it might interfere with our fundraising abilities” is precisely what got Penn State into this mess.
I don’t believe for a minute that Paterno and the others weren’t thinking about their wallets when they decided to keep Sandusky’s behavior underwraps. “More humane” my ass.
I’m specifically floating the idea that the school and football team shouldn’t be punished because there are tens of thousands of innocents who didn’t know what was going on that you want to hit with your hammer o’ righteousness, when you should be digging through the top-level staff with a fine toothed comb to determine who DESERVES punishment.
The tens of thousands of innocents who profited off the cover up? Yeah, they can fuck right off. Maintaining their profits and prestige should not be the concern here.
At the risk of quasi-Godwinizing, this is the same argument that says that because the US/Iranian/etc government did something bad it’s okay to punish the civilians that support that government. Not that I’m suggesting that we should bomb State College (although they’re usually all bombed on football weekends anyway - heyooooooo!) but it’s still unfair to take it out on the “tens of thousands of innocents”.
I do however note that Graham Spanier has already landed a nice gummint job doing something in national security. Le sigh.
Given the information now, knowing about the full cover-up, I would change my vote to yes. The cover-up took place because of football. This was a football scandal. I think the NCAA needs to send a clear message.
Okay, so can you explain to me, as a PSU alum who was attending there during the period 1997-2002, how exactly did I profit from the staff of the university putting on a blindfold and ignoring the actions of someone who wasn’t an active part of the university at the time?
We both know that if they’d have come clean with it, right away in 1998 or even when there was a known pattern in 2001, the fallout would have been nonexistent compared to know. So where’s the profit for the students who didn’t know shit?
I mean, it makes me sick as hell to know that shit was going on within a mile of where I was sleeping. How was I supposed to know about it, what was I supposed to do about it, and how did it benefit me in any way?
Sure you benefited, you just didn’t know about it .. the football program kept sucking in all that money as efficiently as can be during those years because of the coverup. You are not in any way morally culpable for what happened, but you probably benefited from a smooth, undisrupted college experience. But the football program still deserves the death penalty.
We would have had just as smooth and undisrupted an experience if there had been no coverup, either–hell, even with shit blowing up all over with the way it actually played out, persons I know on the faculty and administration staff were still far more disrupted by Corbett’s idiotic budget cuts (a debate for another thread) than they were by the Sandusky stuff.
By the standards of PSU, the amount of actual disruption to ongoing functions by the Sandusky trial was significantly less than the annual Arts Fest in a riot year.
The only people who were intended to benefit from, and did benefit from, this coverup were Joe Paterno, Jerry Sandusky, and similar high ranked people who didn’t want it to have happened to their old guy on their watch. The university itself and the football program got no appreciable gain.
Hell, football would be BETTER off if JoePa had blown the lid off of it–he’d’ve been drowned in a tidal wave of sportswriters looking for one more article about his vaunted integrity and evenhandedness when he’s willing to give over his own long-term assistant to the tender mercies of the justice system, and PSU would have had yet another boost to their then already substantial cred as the cleanest program in the NCAA.
Instead, we got a bunch of old boys protecting the old boys network to the ultimate detriment of the school and program.
I won’t make a case out of this here, because it’s the wrong forum, but here’s how I see it: as an American, I’ve always believed that what gets done by my government - of the people, by the people, and for the people - is, in fact, my personal responsibility.
Actually, I don’t know that. If this scandal had dropped in 98 or 01, we might have heard more (and sooner) from those Sandusky molested back in the 80’s and 70’s, when he was an actual member of the staff. Paterno would have been alive during the trial and subsequent publicity nightmare. We might have heard more about those team trips Sandusky used to make where he’d have kids sleeping in his room.
All of that could well have put a damper on Paterno’s cult of personality.
A hell of a lot of money flowed into that school over the last ten years - specifically because of the footbal program and Joe Paterno’s cult of personality. That might have changed if he hadn’t covered up his assistant’s abuse.
You didn’t know about it - I understand that. But you still profited from Paterno’s cover-up because
a) your school had a reputation for excellence and integrity, thanks to Joe’s reputation and
b) your school had national name recognition, thanks to Joe’s football program and
c) your school had more money, again, thanks to Joe’s football program
Those things benefited you both directly, in the quality of your teachers and classroom experience, and indirectly, when you were looking for work afterward.
Also, the money from the football program contributed to the community as a whole, making it an attractive place to live and work.
All of that was made possible because Joe was covering up for a child molester.
How would you go about punishing the ENTIRE university? Stripping it of accreditation so its degrees are the worth of diploma mills? Shutting the whole thing down and telling the students to go get their education somewhere else?
From my perspective the pain from shutting down the football program for a couple years should have enough of an effect, and hurt worst those areas that deserve it most.
Right, so you’re on the record as wanting to punish people who didn’t know about a crime, could not have possibly known about a crime, and when the crime has come to light are in the main acting reasonably for people who are inadvertently associated with a crime (that is, stripping Paterno’s name from the student fan group, holding vigils for the victims, etc.)
Where are you from? I’m sure there’s a murderer from your hometown–so we’ll bulldoze your house to make sure you feel the pain of being extremely loosely associated with someone so vile.
According to the most recent news, it looks like there is a very good chance Penn State will get the death penalty. Probably no coincidence the statue came down this morning.
ESPN is reporting that they’re not facing the death penalty, but that story includes the line, “the penalties, however, are considered so harsh that the death penalty may have been preferable.”
Look, Penn State is a fantastic institution that offers excellent education and has some world-class research facilities and faculty. That’s the purpose of the university, and the school will continue to fulfill those roles. Classes will continue, older students will graduate and new students will enter, and the university will go on as a center of higher learning.
The reason this scandal could happen was because people elevated “Penn State Football” to such a level that the program was accountable to nobody. I don’t want to punish them because, as Evil Captor said, they’re not morally culpable for the abuse. On the other hand, I’m extremely happy if this forces them to re-examine their priorities.