Penn St. football sexual abuse scandal

Originally posted by ninerlifer:
Just shocking.

Joe Paterno is a foundation. All of this was to protect the foundation. It is such a shame how all this is ending. I have adored JoePa ever since I can remember. I hate how this is going down. But this is the end of the foundation. And now it has to end this way.

As far as the assistant, not one person can say what they would do....because we dont unless we are trained. Especially if you are a grad student who played and were coached by these guys including Sandusky. I know if it were me, my world would be turned upside down at that very moment, If Sandusly and the kid saw this dude Im sure it stopped right away at that very moment. Many of the players, former players, had their parents play for JoePa. Everyone will go through extremes to protect JoePa's name, this is what happened. Unfortunately the complete and utterly disgusting way about it.

I agree with this. None of us know how we would react. I posted that I was horrified how the GA handled it but reading that he was a former player had me take a step back. He spent four years with this guy and had a totally different image of the guy. Imagine if you walked in on your father doing something like that. I think we all would hope we would spring into action but who knows we may be so freaked out that we run just like this guy did.

40 counts? I just don't understand how this could be held under wraps for around a decade. Just unbelievable.

WOW they are having a pep rally outside Paternos house and he is posing for pictures and smiling. WTF man!!

I cut this from a blog I was reading....I agree 100% with this....

"If PSU's top people had taken a stand when Paterno told them about it, then Paterno would have been called a HERO. Now they want him tossed for the lack of action by his superiors. I don't know that his actions were enough, but as I say, it could have been much different if they had simply come out then."

Yeah Paterno could have followed up .... but was Im sure told they were handling it.

Originally posted by ninerlifer:
I cut this from a blog I was reading....I agree 100% with this....

"If PSU's top people had taken a stand when Paterno told them about it, then Paterno would have been called a HERO. Now they want him tossed for the lack of action by his superiors. I don't know that his actions were enough, but as I say, it could have been much different if they had simply come out then."

Yeah Paterno could have followed up .... but was Im sure told they were handling it.

He is the most powerful person at the school. It was his assistant coach and he should of taken care of it! And he knew about it and still was okay with Sandusky hanging around the school!

Originally posted by jimrat201:
WOW they are having a pep rally outside Paternos house and he is posing for pictures and smiling. WTF man!!

False. Students showed up and started chanting outside of his house so he came out for a few minutes and basically said that he is sorry this is happening but he is proud of the students. He also said the focus should be on the victims and also to remember to cheer for the football team on saturday. He is by no means posing for pictures and hanging out

Originally posted by jimrat201:
WOW they are having a pep rally outside Paternos house and he is posing for pictures and smiling. WTF man!!

damn jiimmy you are misguided with you assertions. check the previous page and my last post and read a bit

Originally posted by spizzy:

Originally posted by jimrat201:

WOW they are having a pep rally outside Paternos house and he is posing for pictures and smiling. WTF man!!

False. Students showed up and started chanting outside of his house so he came out for a few minutes and basically said that he is sorry this is happening but he is proud of the students. He also said the focus should be on the victims and also to remember to cheer for the football team on saturday. He is by no means posing for pictures and hanging out

The video I seen was him getting out of a car and people mobbed him and he was smiling and looked like he posed for a picture with somebody

Originally posted by jimrat201:

Originally posted by spizzy:

Originally posted by jimrat201:
WOW they are having a pep rally outside Paternos house and he is posing for pictures and smiling. WTF man!!

False. Students showed up and started chanting outside of his house so he came out for a few minutes and basically said that he is sorry this is happening but he is proud of the students. He also said the focus should be on the victims and also to remember to cheer for the football team on saturday. He is by no means posing for pictures and hanging out

The video I seen was him getting out of a car and people mobbed him and he was smiling and looked like he posed for a picture with somebody

Must have been from a different time

Taken from another website:

There is very little in this story that I have a stronger opinion on than Joe Paterno. For those of you who think Joe Paterno is to blame and was knowingly covering it up for 15 years, I am sorry but that is something I am not willing to accept at this juncture and there is no real evidence beyond speculation to support that. I read the report, I know what it says, but there is nothing in there to make me believe he knew of it the whole time and just did nothing. He did do something. He reported it to the PROPER people literally the day after he had talked to McQueary. It is then in the hands of Curley, not Joe Paterno. If Joe Paterno had in fact immediately went above his superiors (which has happened before, and in any normal working environment, is NEVER advised) and went straight to the police, the police would have asked him this question, "Did you witness it?" His answer would have been no and they would have worked with McQueary and the parties involved to investigate, so Paterno would be again out of the legal equation. It still would have been a huge story, but Paterno's integrity would not have been in question. He is REQUIRED since he did not witness said event to turn it over to the proper persons so they may conduct an investigation and decide what the best course of action is. If he did not do so he would be in as much crap as the rest of them. That then falls in the jurisdiction of the Penn State Administration, NOT Joe Paterno. Joe Paterno is a football coach, not a detective, not an investigator. If he truly thought this happened he needed to report it to Penn State authorities because in a work environment it isn't his decision to make, it NEEDED to be investigated by Penn State FIRST before the police, and he IS NOT the person to do that job. While he represents Penn State and IS Penn State, HE IS NOT PENN STATE. There are however, moral implications, and this…

Yes this will unfortunately end Joe Paterno's career in my opinion, not because he is wrong in his actions, and most certainly not because he was covering anything up for the state of the program (I truly do believe that, and if that turns out to be the case, my world will be shattered), but because Paterno has said before that when he starts to become a distraction and hurts the program he will step aside. This will more than likely turn in to that situation because in the court of public opinion he has already been hung. The majority of the pessimistic public thinks this is a MASSIVE cover up from the ground up and some tend to think Paterno was behind it all because he wanted to maintain the positive view of the program. Look, I understand "The Grand Experiment" is important to Joe but Penn Staters and general public alike ask yourself this, Do you HONESTLY think Joe Paterno would hold the state of the program above the welfare of children? There is absolutely no way, you can not hide the fact you are a bad person for 60 YEARS and not have one thing to question your integrity or honesty up to that point then all of a sudden turn back around and hide molestation of children. He has been cooperative and has been cleared by the State (for now) and at this point is not a target, yet he remains a target by the general public and by the media because of the simple fact it happened within Penn State football which is regarded with a squeaky clean image that people outside of Penn State simply can not stand.

For years Paterno has been regarded as an almost God-like figure within the public eye, who stands for everything right in College Football. However, he is in fact human. He cannot see all. I absolutely can see Curley and Schultz telling Paterno (as any HR dept. or administration would) that the matter is being investigated and handled internally, as Paterno was not present at the meeting between McQueary and Curley/Schultz. At this point the matter is between McQueary, Curley, and Schultz. The only thing Paterno can do is say, "Hey Mike, is that situation being taken care of?" To which Mike probably said yes as I am sure he believed it was. Now, all of this happened over spring break, and for those of you who are football fans, you understand after spring break comes spring practice. At this point I am 100% positive both McQueary and Paterno's focus was on spring ball, nothing else. After hearing the incident was reported to the Second Mile and Sandusky's keys were taken away, what could McQueary, or even Paterno really do? In their mind it was being handled, his keys were taken away and he was asked not to bring kids on campus, however the tough question remains,

Did that solve the problem of the boy being raped in the shower?

Short answer, no. And that is what most people struggle with. However, is it entirely out of the realm of possibility to think that Paterno thought it was handled and decided to focus on his job and the football team? No. Now details will soon emerge as to Sandusky's role after this incident in the program and whether he did still bring kids around the program after the incident. (It should be noted that it is generally believed Paterno and Sandusky were not each other's biggest fans around the time of Jerry's departure, so contact between the two was most likely minimal if this were the case.) If Paterno was suspicious and Sandusky was around and STILL bringing kids around, he should have reported it, no question, but we don't know that to be the case for a fact. And none of this means that Paterno knew of what was going on and just turned the other cheek for the sake of the program, and to assume so is, while human, wrong. This system doesn't always get it right, but it does a good majority of the time, so until something happens to tell me other wise, Paterno did nothing more than make a mistake a pretty big mistake in judgment, which we all are subject to. He is not out of the water, but also should not be judged as harshly as he currently is being.

Joe Paterno, hero

Posted on: November 8, 2011 7:27 pm

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. -- More than 1,000 Penn State students gave Joe Paterno the hero treatment on Tuesday night, gathering outside his house to wave supportive signs and chant his name -- and roaring in glee when he stepped outside to thank them.

"You've been great, just great," Paterno said softly, comments that couldn't have been heard by more than 25 people.

Paterno said something else that surely wasn't heard by most of the crowd, which is a shame

:"The victims," Paterno said. "Say prayers for them."

That message didn't get to the outer edges, to people who weren't there to hear deep thoughts. They were there to touch or just glimpse the winningest coach in Division I history -- who is also one of the handful of Penn State officials who didn't call the police in 2002 after learning that an eyewitness on his coaching staff had accused former defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky of sexually assaulting a young boy in a shower on campus.

One Penn State fan outside Paterno's house waved a sign that read, "Two of my favorite J's: Jesus and Joe Paterno."

This scandal has turned campus into Bizarro World, a place where up is down and wrong is right and Joe Paterno is serenaded by students who were roughly the same age, in 2002, as Sandusky's alleged shower victim.

Meanwhile, off campus, people are horrified. It seems to be the dominant opinion elsewhere that Paterno, like the handful of other Penn State officials with knowledge of the alleged assault -- the grad assistant who saw it, the athletics director who was told about it -- concerned themselves only with the minimum legal standards in 2002. The moral minimum would have been to call the police. Nobody did.

I had that very argument Tuesday night with a Penn State student, who apparently recognized me as I stood on Paterno's lawn and asked me, accusingly, "Don't you hate Paterno?"

Me: I don't hate him. But I think he should be fired.

Her: Why?

Me: Because there are eight [alleged] victims that we know about, and who knows how many more, and Paterno had the chance to stop it in 2002 and he didn't.

Her: Oh my god! He did what he was supposed to do! He told his boss!

Me: That was the bare minimum, and if you think that's great, I don't know what to tell you.

Her: I don't think it's great, I just think ... put it this way: Would you have called the police? Really? Would you?

Me: Of course. It's not even a question.

And there our conversation ended. We'd both heard enough, and we'd heard nothing. She wasn't listening to me, and I wasn't listening to her. But I was still listening to the crowd, which was chanting even as it was dispersed from Paterno's yard by police:

"We want Joe!"

Clap, clap, clap-clap-clap.

"We want Joe!"

After that chant died down, another started. It was a chant that showed the priorities of the 1,000 students who gathered outside the house of one of the few men on the planet who had the ability to stop an alleged pedophile in 2002 ... but didn't do it. Paterno told his boss, yes, but he didn't tell the police, even after it was clear that nobody else was going to tell the police. An alleged pedophile roamed State College, Pa., for another nine years. But that wasn't on the minds of the 1,000 people on Paterno's lawn Tuesday night.

This was:

"Beat Nebraska!

"Clap, clap, clap-clap-clap.

"Beat Nebraska!

http://gregg-doyel.blogs.cbssports.com/mcc/blogs/entry/5881996/33197750

Originally posted by spizzy:
Taken from another website:

There is very little in this story that I have a stronger opinion on than Joe Paterno. For those of you who think Joe Paterno is to blame and was knowingly covering it up for 15 years, I am sorry but that is something I am not willing to accept at this juncture and there is no real evidence beyond speculation to support that. I read the report, I know what it says, but there is nothing in there to make me believe he knew of it the whole time and just did nothing. He did do something. He reported it to the PROPER people literally the day after he had talked to McQueary. It is then in the hands of Curley, not Joe Paterno. If Joe Paterno had in fact immediately went above his superiors (which has happened before, and in any normal working environment, is NEVER advised) and went straight to the police, the police would have asked him this question, "Did you witness it?" His answer would have been no and they would have worked with McQueary and the parties involved to investigate, so Paterno would be again out of the legal equation. It still would have been a huge story, but Paterno's integrity would not have been in question. He is REQUIRED since he did not witness said event to turn it over to the proper persons so they may conduct an investigation and decide what the best course of action is. If he did not do so he would be in as much crap as the rest of them. That then falls in the jurisdiction of the Penn State Administration, NOT Joe Paterno. Joe Paterno is a football coach, not a detective, not an investigator. If he truly thought this happened he needed to report it to Penn State authorities because in a work environment it isn't his decision to make, it NEEDED to be investigated by Penn State FIRST before the police, and he IS NOT the person to do that job. While he represents Penn State and IS Penn State, HE IS NOT PENN STATE. There are however, moral implications, and this…

Yes this will unfortunately end Joe Paterno's career in my opinion, not because he is wrong in his actions, and most certainly not because he was covering anything up for the state of the program (I truly do believe that, and if that turns out to be the case, my world will be shattered), but because Paterno has said before that when he starts to become a distraction and hurts the program he will step aside. This will more than likely turn in to that situation because in the court of public opinion he has already been hung. The majority of the pessimistic public thinks this is a MASSIVE cover up from the ground up and some tend to think Paterno was behind it all because he wanted to maintain the positive view of the program. Look, I understand "The Grand Experiment" is important to Joe but Penn Staters and general public alike ask yourself this, Do you HONESTLY think Joe Paterno would hold the state of the program above the welfare of children? There is absolutely no way, you can not hide the fact you are a bad person for 60 YEARS and not have one thing to question your integrity or honesty up to that point then all of a sudden turn back around and hide molestation of children. He has been cooperative and has been cleared by the State (for now) and at this point is not a target, yet he remains a target by the general public and by the media because of the simple fact it happened within Penn State football which is regarded with a squeaky clean image that people outside of Penn State simply can not stand.

For years Paterno has been regarded as an almost God-like figure within the public eye, who stands for everything right in College Football. However, he is in fact human. He cannot see all. I absolutely can see Curley and Schultz telling Paterno (as any HR dept. or administration would) that the matter is being investigated and handled internally, as Paterno was not present at the meeting between McQueary and Curley/Schultz. At this point the matter is between McQueary, Curley, and Schultz. The only thing Paterno can do is say, "Hey Mike, is that situation being taken care of?" To which Mike probably said yes as I am sure he believed it was. Now, all of this happened over spring break, and for those of you who are football fans, you understand after spring break comes spring practice. At this point I am 100% positive both McQueary and Paterno's focus was on spring ball, nothing else. After hearing the incident was reported to the Second Mile and Sandusky's keys were taken away, what could McQueary, or even Paterno really do? In their mind it was being handled, his keys were taken away and he was asked not to bring kids on campus, however the tough question remains,

Did that solve the problem of the boy being raped in the shower?

Short answer, no. And that is what most people struggle with. However, is it entirely out of the realm of possibility to think that Paterno thought it was handled and decided to focus on his job and the football team? No. Now details will soon emerge as to Sandusky's role after this incident in the program and whether he did still bring kids around the program after the incident. (It should be noted that it is generally believed Paterno and Sandusky were not each other's biggest fans around the time of Jerry's departure, so contact between the two was most likely minimal if this were the case.) If Paterno was suspicious and Sandusky was around and STILL bringing kids around, he should have reported it, no question, but we don't know that to be the case for a fact. And none of this means that Paterno knew of what was going on and just turned the other cheek for the sake of the program, and to assume so is, while human, wrong. This system doesn't always get it right, but it does a good majority of the time, so until something happens to tell me other wise, Paterno did nothing more than make a mistake a pretty big mistake in judgment, which we all are subject to. He is not out of the water, but also should not be judged as harshly as he currently is being.

Mostly this

California vs. Pennsylvania

Take into account the two states' different cultures (had this happened @ say, USC 9 yrs ago [supposing that school had a hypothetical legendary coach], would it have been kept swept under the rug and such continuing support for the coach like we saw tonight occured? doubt it)....but still, wrong is wrong.

Originally posted by spizzy:

Originally posted by jimrat201:
WOW they are having a pep rally outside Paternos house and he is posing for pictures and smiling. WTF man!!

False. Students showed up and started chanting outside of his house so he came out for a few minutes and basically said that he is sorry this is happening but he is proud of the students. He also said the focus should be on the victims and also to remember to cheer for the football team on saturday. He is by no means posing for pictures and hanging out

Orilly?

that coach who reportedly did all this was said to be on campus as recently as last week