If the response to Ashton Kutcher’s Tweet is any indication at all, my measured sympathy and support for Joe Paterno in the wake of his resignation stemming from his failure to report a child rape incident that took place in 2002 will spark a little bit of pushback. I’m not trying to be bombastic; that’s just the nature of these things.
It’s a difficult case – an all-around tragedy. Former defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky, who retired from Penn State in 1999, has finally been charged with sexual assault after spending at least the past 15 years raping young boys. He allegedly raped eight boys in all operating under the guise of a charitable youth organization that he had founded in 1977. If true, and it seems beyond doubt that it is, Sandusky is an evil man who should sit in a pit darker than dark. He’s stolen innocence and planted seeds of shame, guilt, and anger that nobody should have to face – especially as a consequence of a pervert set on getting his jollies. I’d suggest suicide for Sandusky, but that carries the connotation of “honorable death” – something Sandusky does not deserve.
Unfortunately, it seems that an unfair amount of hatred for Sandusky is spilling over onto Joe Paterno.
Some facts: Sandusky was seen anally raping a 10 year-old boy at Penn State football facilities three years after retiring his post on Paterno’s team. Sandusky had access to Penn State facilities as part of his retirement package and was not representing Paterno in any capacity. Joe Paterno himself didn’t witness the incident which is graphically detailed (page 6 through 9) in Grand Jury testimony and claims that he did not know the specific nature of the sexual improprieties. Whether this was a case of plausible deniability is uncertain.
Mike McQueary, the then graduate assistant and current member of the Nittany Lion coaching staff, walked in on Sandusky raping the 10 year-old boy at Penn State football facilities. McQueary, seemingly in shock after witnessing the act, called his father. The father advised his son to come to his house where the two decided to tell Coach Paterno about the incident the next day.
From the grand jury report:
Joseph V. Paterno testified to receiving the graduate assistant’s report at his home on a Saturday morning. Paterno testified that the graduate assistant was very upset. Paterno called Tim Curley (“Curley”), Penn State Athletic Director and Paterno’s immediate superior, to his home the very next day, a Sunday, and reported to him that the graduate assistant had seen Jerry Sandusky in the Lasch Building showers fondling or doing something of a sexual nature to a young boy.
A week and a half later, McQueary, without Paterno, met with the AD and a Vice President for the school who, two weeks after the meeting, informed McQueary that they had taken Sandusky’s locker keys and reported the incident to his charity. McQueary was never questioned by any police authority on the matter, and the AD and Vice President now face perjury charges.
But where does Paterno stand in all of this? That is the big question.
The argument my girlfriend made (and which I see Ulysses is arguing too), and which is somewhat convincing, is that a football coach assumes the position at the very top of the football hiearchy. As such, McQueary and his dad immediately decided to call, not the cops or even the Athletic Director, but Coach. As Coach, Joe Paterno is God to the men who revere him. He carries their burden and their glory. Coaches, the good ones, are showered with praise reserved for deities. But Paterno obviously didn’t see himself that way which is what has ultimately led to his resignation.
There is legal responsibility, which few are arguing applied to Paterno, and then there are the deeper questions about duty, morality, and social responsibility. Joe Paterno may have been the de facto top dog on Penn State’s campus, but he was also a second-hand witness to a crime which he may not have fully grasped the seriousness of. Would it have been nice if Joe Paterno went straight to the police to report what he heard from McQueary? Undoubtedly. Would it have been better if McQueary had done the same, immediately? Yes.
McQueary was the witness to the rape. His word would have been the only one that mattered. The timeline is being reported as “Joe Paterno failed to report the rape of young boy” when what actually happened is that Paterno didn’t tell McQueary to inform the police about what he had seen and didn’t follow up as readily as he might have. Instead, Paterno decided to report to his superiors who, according to the Grand Jury report, held the ultimate responsibility in these types of abuse cases. And unfortunately, by the time the case made its way through the chain of command, everyone thought that someone else had done their part to address the situation. Bureaucratic red tape of the worst variety.
The sympathy for Paterno, which many are getting slapped in the mouth for expressing, is that he was thrown into a situation he had no hand in creating. Something that he didn’t do landed on his doorstep, and he is now suffering the consequences for it. It is all a tragedy, first by a million miles for the victims, but also for Penn State and Joe Paterno.
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If you’re being abused, the abuse is horrible, but on some level what’s worse, what brings about real despair and hopelessness, is how everybody ignores it. People see it, and don’t do anything, people know about it, but don’t do anything, and people hold the idea it’s bad but intervening would cause too much trouble. This boy goes through life knowing a number of responsible adult authority figures knew that the worst thing that can happen to a person- short of murder, but maybe not even that- and choose avoiding conflict over helping him.
Paterno is not stupid, and knows that with the power he holds, he is surrounded by groveling sycophants- that’s the way he likes it. He understood that McQueary was a weak, easily manipulated man, who couldn’t do the right thing without permission. He should have just told him “call the police” but his desire for untarnished public acclaim for his program and loyalty to his underling caused him to choose to cover it up.
I am copying the comment I left on OneSTDV’s blog yesterday:
” The people who did nothing to stop this act deserve the public shame they will receive”
Do they deserve it? There’s a case to be made that they rightly feared they would face progressive rage for “homophobia”.
This is a typical progressive lynching. Joe Paterno and the leadership of PSU Football are all white men.
The fact is, progressives fucked up. They to a great extent normalized man-on-man anal rape and they created a culture where people were afraid to do the right thing, because what if it turned out that the “boys” had been of legal age (16 in PA).
The entire media would be singing a very different tune if the witnesses had, say, beat the shit out of the guy doing the cornholing and it turned out to be a perfectly legal, constitutionally protected cornholing.
Heads they win, tails we lose.
Oh, and by the way, notice there is a total lack of media coverage of the rapidly worsening rape epidemic inside the “occupy” zones or the fact that the “occupy” movement leadership has been pressuring rape victims to keep quiet for the good of the cause.
To put it more succinctly:
Progressives are the reason that a pedophile rapist was allowed to get into a position where he was a mentor and role model to lots of young boys. Progressives are the reason nobody at Penn State did anything to stop this. They deserve the public shame and public rage, not the people of Penn State.
yeah, and I don’t think Hitler actually turned the gas on. Let’s cut him a little slack.
[GLP: Nice handle, but clearly Paterno didn't advise Sandusky to rape that boy.]
I just had this same conversation with my brother last night. I sympathize with Joe too. If someone came to me and told me this about someone I had known for a long time I don’t think I would immediately call the police. I would probably try to get more information, think about it and consult someone whose opinion I really respect.
This is simply not difficult and it boggles the mind how many people want to find the “nuance” in it.
Raping ten year old boys is wrong. Old men doing things of an “indeterminate sexual” nature to ten year old boys is wrong. Paterno knew exactly what was going on, it is beyond silly to suggest he was somehow ignorant.
[GLP: You can't say for certainty that Paterno knew "exactly what was going on". He says he didn't and he reported to the grand jury that he didn't. He called his superiors, the people who were compelled by law to handle the situation. If Paterno himself had seen the incident I'd be willing to support your argument, but he didn't. If anyone, McQueary should be blamed here. He saw the act go down. He seemingly knows right from wrong, and he's the one who would provide witness testimony to the act in the first place. My main question is, you can't nuance how Paterno was going along living his life when all of a sudden he is pulled into a situation that he had no hand in creating? And then he's ultimately fired and has his career tarnished because some other pervert wanted to have his way with little boys? It's not black and white to me on Paterno's end.]
In the end he is shown to be a fraud, everything his life was about was a lie. He didn’t do anything because in the end, at some level he’s okay with ten year old boys being spread eagled in a locker room and raped.Same thing with people trying to “understand” Paterno and his quandary.
[GLP: Without qualification, utter bullshit.]
Of course, if it was a ten year old girl being raped, people wouldn’t be trying to find sympathy for good ole joe, would they?
[GLP: Chick at Jezebel wrote an article arguing the exact opposite. Who is right?]
Sports “fans” as opposed to those of us who actually play sports are just the most pathetic group of people around. I’ve had it with them, especially football fans, just a bunch of fags when you get right down to it.
[GLP: I'm not sure what sports fandom has to do with this or with my argument here. I'm not supporting Paterno because I like college football - I hardly watch it. The issue is well beyond that. The rioting fans at Penn State is another issue. They're morons.]
It’s time to wake up to reality, football is a corrosive force in society, it corrupts and decent people suffer the consequences, this is just the latest. It is not compatible with a christian ethos and has nothing to do with being a man. Ban it.
[GLP: Shit like this happens in many, many institutions. Someone should investigate Sandusky's non-profit which this case was reportedly relayed to. Where were they? What did they do? Abuse has happened in the Catholic Church and it happens in charity organizations set up to help youth. Now, you might argue that the Catholic Church is a corrosive force in society, but a lot of people would defend it as not the definition of the perverted actions of some of its priests. But I do think that football gets too much glory.]
Mike McQuery estimated the boy’s age to be about ten from the brief glance he got at him in the shower. That is really young and I’m wondering if maybe he was older than that. I’m not excusing it at all, it is still wrong even if he was older, but I do question if he was really ten since the other victims were older.
@ anon what a moron
Check this out:
http://www.nesn.com/2011/11/jerry-sandusky-rumored-to-have-been-pimping-out-young-boys-to-rich-donors-says-mark-madden.html
Mark made the point that Jerry retired at age 55 which is young for a football coach.
Just FYI, Chuck, you *empathize* rather than *sympathize* with Joe Paterno. You would only be able to sympathize with him if you had previously been accused of molesting children.
[GLP: If I used the wrong word it isn't for the reason you cited. Empathy is something you feel when you can identify with a person's plight. Sympathy is something you feel when you feel back for something that happens to them. Both words could be used to describe my feeling in this situation. Also, Paterno was not accused of molesting children. He had nothing to do with the molestation.]
@GPL,
full-bodied analysis packaged succinctly. Thanks.
I hate this so much. First this, now news that a ballplayer for the Nationals has been kidnapped in Venezuela.
Sports is supposed to be fun and escapist, but now it’s turning into some Hobbesian nightmare.
By the way, I don’t think Penn State ever recovers from this. Colorado has never been the same since their sex scandal a few years back, and that was a he said/she said situation that was about 1/10 as worse as this.
Every time I see those white helmets, I’m going to think of that awful visual of Sandusky in the shower with the boy.
and , to bring the sermon home,
Have any of us, we morally sanctimonious readers here, ever been too cowardly to address a senior authority or to rock the boat? Have we not intervened because it would be to much trouble? Have we ever been to afraid to do the right thing?
Well, I’m occasionally haunted by a failing. Next time I’ll do right.
Penn State is finished. I think they should consider getting rid of their football program, because PSU=Paterno (even after he goes) and now Paterno=pedophile rape cover-upper. No way the program can really recover from this, and if they were honorable they would just can it completely and call it a day — give themselves the death penalty.
Paterno without question should have reported it to the cops — the off-campus cops. McQueery should have done as well, but as the head coach, Paterno has the ultimate authority here (and, as a practical matter, at the time probably was the second most powerful man in the state of Pennsylvania behind the Governor). That he did not use that power to protect these kids is a reputation-ending character flaw, and something that overshadows completely any and all “accomplishments” he had as PSU’s head coach. In fact, the entire football success of the university in toto is completely overshadowed by this, given how much of a role the rapist played in that history. The program is a horrorshow of pedophile rape, and it should be shut down, period. If PSU doesn’t do it, the NCAA should.
I have zero empathy or sympathy for JoePa or Pedo State U. Those guys were enabling, to say it most mildly, a pedophile for a decade or more.
I don’t know exactly what I’d do if I thought a little-boy fucker was working in my organization, but I damn sure wouldnt hive him an office for him to run a ‘foundation’ for nubile an vulnerable boys.
@Brendan
“The program is a horrorshow of pedophile rape, and it should be shut down, period.”
Totally ridiculous statement. The people involved have been fired and it may take a while to recover, but it would be silly to shut down the entire program.
Brendan:
You go from arguing that Penn St. should shut down its football program for practical reasons to arguing that it should be forced to do so for moral reasons. Which is it though?
I am operating off of the assumption that Paterno didn’t fully know what happened. In two different places he said that he only knew that something “inappropriate” happened.
But you say that Paterno has “ultimate authority” but then suggest that he should have called off-campus cops. I do agree that he should have called the cops (though McQueary, who still holds his job, had more of an obligation to do so), but you contradict yourself by saying that Paterno had ultimate authority. If he’s calling the cops then the cops, and the DA, have the ultimate authority.
I can’t agree with you Chuck. Paterno should have informed his immediate boss as he did, but also told him he was gonna tell the eyewitness coaching assistant McQueary to go to the police, and then told McQueary to in fact do that.
That he didn’t might or might not be illegal – it was hearsay to him so I doubt that he can be hit with accessory after the fact or even obstructing justice. But he sure as hell opened U Penn up to a big civil law suit by the parents of the boy Sandusky was anally raping, and possibly by any he subsequently did.
In many ways I think the homosexual consensual but statutory rape of a young boy is worse than the consensual but statutory heterosexual rape of a young girl of the same age. Only about 3% of the population grows up to be homosexual under normal American circumstances. This early sexual training however very possibly makes it highly likely those boys would be turned gay, even though they probably weren’t before Sandusky got a hold of them. At the least it’s likely to be deeply troubling and shameful for them down the road.
“In two different places he said that he only knew that something “inappropriate” happened.”
That’s where I’m thinking there was some confusion. Most of the stories I heard were about inappropriate touching and Jerry being way too affectionate with these boys. That is in a completely different ballpark than anal sex.
Bendan–
I nearly always agree with your often very insightful and well reasoned posts but this is beyond over the top.
The pedophilia was by one man, retired now for 10 years. Yes Paterno made a grave error in judgement in not telling the eye witness who worked for him as a coaching assistant to report it to the police. Paterno should be, and has been, fired for this. The athletic director Paterno told about it as well. That’s been done.
UPenn is also gonna lose a civil suit.
But that’s it.
Shutting down football at U Penn would be a disastrously wrong decision. And not the NCAA is not remotely gonna force and end to UPenn football participation. Absurd.
What I saw on the Newshour was that Paterno claimed that when the eyewitness started to get specific, Paterno said something like “woaah. That’s getting to be way more detail than I want to or need to hear. Go the athletic director and tell him, not me.”
GLP–
He had a lot to do with it continuing. Given his status at Penn State it’s highly understandable that the eyewitness who worked for him feared going to the police if Paterno didn’t tell him to. That’s just the real world power reality.
I’ll narrow down my point here and say that Paterno did make a horrible error of judgment and should have lost his job. However, I don’t think we can unequivocally say that he is a bad man or that what he did (or didn’t do) doesn’t allow room for us to consider the circumstances and investigate the “what he knew and when he knew it” aspect of this.
I wonder if anyone would agree that this is a tragic event. Obviously and most importantly for the victimized boys. My post isn’t centered on them because I think that me writing about them would be a.) uninformed and b.) gratuitous, redundant, and verging on sanctimonious. But it is also tragic for Paterno who *actively* did nothing wrong. He was passively negligent. An idiotic simp came to him with something he saw and didn’t have the gumption to report to the police. In truth, McQueary could have gone and told anyone about the incident and they’d have as much legal standing as Paterno (I reject the claim that Paterno had more of a duty to report just because he was so powerful. The voice of any eye-witness to a child rape carries weight.) What lies at the heart of this is that Joe Paterno is now suffering because he was Joe Paterno. I see a little bit of tragedy in that, and I sympathize that he wasn’t willing to match the weight of his own high standing.
The only way UPenn football won’t recover quite quickly form this is if Paterno deliberately failed to build up strong subordinates who could replace him, so that that he wouldn’t be. I suspect he felt secure enough in his adulation to not be worried about that.
Doug is right that Paterno is ultimately responsible for not reporting this due to the fact that a graduate assistant (McQueery) would have likely done whatever Joe advised him to do.
The program probably won’t recover because no good coaches will want to go to the program which will deplete the level of the recruits who sign on to play there. It’ll have knock-on effects until the program is running on fumes at which point, after the scandal has become a scab for the university – 20 years down the road – a resurgence of pride and nostalgia will lead to a glimmer of hope in a coach who wants to rebuild the program. It will be a nice special interest story for ESPN to run with. They’ll surely capitalize by making a 30-for-30 documentary.
Yeah and regardless of what it says on an organization chart, in no way was the athletic director real world Joe Paterno’s boss. Paterno was undoubtedly paid on hell of a lot more, had way more job security, and could in fact have gotten Curley fired any time he wanted to.
Lara:
I’m thinking “I’m not my brother’s keeper” here. It just fucking sucks that McQueary didn’t have the sack to handle it on his own – either by confronting Sandusky or by going straight to the police himself. jz had it right earlier though; McQueary or Paterno aren’t bad men. They dropped the ball in a big way which should make us wonder how we’d perform under similar circumstances.
GLP–
I think a lot depends on how strong the coaching talent is in place under Paterno. Yeah recruiting a head coach from outside will be tough if Penn doesn’t do well the rest of this year.
McQueary was the eye witness and therefore he needs to be willing to testify to what he saw. However, McQueary went to Joe because he is a well respected, long time coach and he wanted to know how to handle it. I think they both should be fired in all fairness.
Yes, Chuck, McQueary and Paterno are both wrong here.
I think Chuck is right that the football program is going to suffer for a while because of this.
Yeah and regardless of what it says on an organization chart, in no way was the athletic director real world Joe Paterno’s boss. Paterno was undoubtedly paid on hell of a lot more, had way more job security, and could in fact have gotten Curley fired any time he wanted to.
Which is what I meant when I referred to Paterno as the ultimate authority. Certainly at Penn State he was. Escalating to the AD and hiding behind that, while it may be technically okay legally, is absurd from the practical perspective because not one single thing happened at PSU’s football program without it coming from Paterno. He couldn’t prosecute Sandusky himself, but he could have easily seen to it that he *was* prosecuted, if he wanted to. He didn’t. It was a cowardly act, a horrible reflection on his character. And frankly given the involvement of so many others from coaches to AD officials and so on (and it bears noting that Sandusky himself, the rapist, basically created “Linebacker U” when he was the defensive coordinator), this is a scandal that blackens the entire record of PSU football, for good reason.
I stand by what I said. At the very minimum they should get a mandatory break. Other teams have gotten the death penalty for far lesser offenses than allowing pedophiles to continue to rape at their facilities.
Anytime you find yourself on the same side of an issue as a douche like Kutcher, you really need immediately to retrace your steps to find out where you went wrong…
[GLP: Touche. Though Kutcher tweeted about Paterno's firing without knowing anything about the child abuse incident.]
Well, if the rumors of Sandusky pimping out little boys to Penn State Donors through his foundation proves true, and it turns out that everyone at Penn State knew about it, then the Penn State football program will have to be shut down/get the death penalty.
Temujin:
Yeah, that would venture into death penalty territory. For some reason death penalty of a program only centers around money and financing which would be an issue if Sanudsky was providing boys for program donors.
@Brendan
“Which is what I meant when I referred to Paterno as the ultimate authority.”
I 100% agree with this statement. Joe would have had the final word on this. Only maybe the governor would have had more say.
A break for Penn State football wouldn’t be a bad idea. I made my son take off his Penn State football shirt this morning and wear something else. Not exactly sure how they would do that and when they would decide to start it back up again.
College football and basketball are so corrupt in general it’s not surprising that people involved in such corrupt institutions have problems with moral judgment. Unqualified “students”. semi-pro players getting payola, “courtesy hostesses”, etc. Look at the parade of players that end up in a police line-up. The average coach would play them in a minute if he thought they made a major contribution to victory and that he could get away with it from a PR standpoint. Outing Sandusky would have been bad for the “program”, and you can bet that was the major reason this was handled as it was.
Imagine yourself in Paterno’s position when he found out about this through McQueary.
By reporting the incident, as honest and right the action may be, you risk jeopardizing the program you’ve built for the last forty years. Are you willing to tarnish your legacy by reporting a crime that you were not involved in? Remember, Paterno was still chasing the title of the collegiate football coach with most wins at the time.
Even if you do report the incident, there is no guarantee that people will praise you for doing the right thing. The program will take a hit, recruits will go elsewhere, and you will become the scapegoat.
In a way, fans brought this upon themselves, too. They demand their football teams to win at any cost, and when that cost turns out to be dishonesty, the fans turn on the program and want to point their fingers at someone.
The country created this corrupt system where the fans eagerly overlook the coaches’ illegal activities (recruiting with questionable expenses, special treatment of athletes through assisted grades, etc.) for cheering on their teams every Saturday.
By inaction, McQueary, and consequently Paterno, are guilty. However, all of us are guilty, too, for allowing this system to exist and sustain itself in the first place.
@h.
Unqualified “students”. semi-pro players getting payola, “courtesy hostesses”, etc.
None of which come remotely near child rape in terms of sheer awfulness, but I agree with your basic point. College football is thoroughly corrupt, and has been for a long time. Every once in a while the NCAA makes a show of going after a school like OSU for recruiting violations just to make it look like they’re enforcing their rules. The whole system is rotten top to bottom due to the enormous amounts of money involved.
This, however, is a special case. NO organization should be so corrupt that it will look the other way when children are raped. Paterno deserved to get canned, as did the university president. That weasily little grad assistant should go too for not immediately calling the cops. I mean, jeez, a child was getting raped right in front of his eyes and he did nothing to stop it, or dial 911? That poor kid probably thought he was saved, and in addition to having to endure a sweaty old man sticking his cock up his butt also had to watch McQueary walk away without having done a damn thing to help.
And yes add my vote for canning the Pedo State football program, for at least the next 10 years, if not permanently.
That’s how it adds up though, isn’t it?
Coaches get away with small details like recruiting violations that go unnoticed, losing any moral judgment in the process. So when something like a child rape occurs, they’re blinded by their own power and fail to act righteously. I don’t think anyone just wakes up one day and thinks that child rape is okay aside from the very few who are sick.
Yeah, I’ll say that a guy like Paterno was probably so focused on football that he mentally marginalized the whole thing. Sports guys, especially at the college or high school level, are so insulated from the outside world. It’s pretty crazy when you think about it. These guys eat and breathe football all day long. You hardly ever hear of them confronting or being confronted by the real world.
@GL
“You can’t say for certainty that Paterno knew “exactly what was going on”. He says he didn’t and he reported to the grand jury that he didn’t. He called his superiors, the people who were compelled by law to handle the situation. If Paterno himself had seen the incident I’d be willing to support your argument, but he didn’t.”
The problem with this that McQueary was unequivocal and positively certain about what he had seen. So, either McQueary is deranged or a pathological liar who makes up horrible falsehoods about his fellow coaches, or Sandusky is predator pedophile. There’s really not a lot of room for in between on this. If JoePa thinks there is any chance McQueary just made it up, why is McQueary still on staff ten years later, having moved up the ranks? If he didn’t believe the story, wouldn’t he want to know why the investigation seemed to stop, so he can figure out what to do with McQueary?
So, he must have believed it at some level (not to mention that Sandusky had surprisingly retired 3 years earlier while at the top of his profession shortly after a prior allegation).
To make matters worse, Sandusky’s continuing ability to recruit kids to that program to molest is substantially bolstered by his long time association with the program (JoePa’s program) and with JoePa himself. Surely Paterno understood this – he knows any association with him in that town is a golden ticket. He was allowing his own name and power to be leveraged for this activity.
So, yes, he did a terrible thing by not pushing this further. With the kind of power that he and his name could wield comes responsbility.
Brendan–
I don’t think it was cowardly exactly. People would not have come down on his telling the eyewitness assistant coach to take it to the police. Sandsuky was long retired at the time, well three years retired. I think it was misplaced great loyalty to his former head defensive coach. He also may have told himself it may have been a one off etc., which clearly would have been lying to himself about the likelihood of that.
Maybe it was also a calculation that this would hurt the football program at Penn, given what Chuck said happened at Colorado, even if there was no coverup of it which did in fact happen. There’s a different dynamic though with male female claimed date rape by athletes. That’s a huge feminist issue and boy do they make a big deal of such. While there’s a big gay lobbing thing as well, that doesn’t extend to statutorily raping a 10 year old.
Lara–
This is so over the top. All but one of those in anyway involved in the coverup have been sacked. Yeah McQueary should be sacked too. I understand the dynamics of why he let it go when neither Paterno nor the AD told him to take it to the police but it was still real wrong.
But none of the student athletes had anything to do with this. None of the other coaches did. None of the student body which loves their football did. Well the ones rioting over the news media covering Paterno’s sacking were pretty disturbing.
“mentally marginalized” child rape? Really GL Piggy? It annoys me to no end when people I find to be intelligent & insightful choose to be willfully obtuse. Why you being willfully obtuse GL Piggy? Huh?
Paterno must have thought the graduate assistant was “upset” because he didn’t get any of that sweet ass.
And yes Paterno bears greater responsibility precisely because of his position. No one forced him to be a coach, unlike the boys raped during his tenure, he sought out a position of responsibility so yes he is to behave in a responsible fashion. Noblesse Oblige kind of thing. Only a nigger would think otherwise, or guys who like to rape children (yes I meant to draw the comparison).
Something not mentioned loudly enough, the 10 year old boy raped by a football coach who is best buds of another football coach beloved by football fans, was in the shower, (where he would ultimately be raped), as a result of a charity. I don’t know the charity, but I’ll assume it was something about his being poor. See what I did there? I took some facts I knew, compared it with experience I have and drew a thoroughly reasonable conclusion. Same as I do with Paternos knowledge of just what happened. So not only is it about raping children, it’s about wealthy powerful men raping impoverished children.
All that’s reprehensible. The fact that so many people are just struggling to find a way to defend Paterno, that they’re rioting on his behalf, it’s just disgusting. Penn State should be ashamed. Football fans should grow the fuck up and look at their favorite sport and be ashamed.
When I go back to work tomorrow, if I should mention I think Sandusky is a fag, security will be escorting me out of the building within 30 minutes.
EzE:
what is wrong with “mentally marginalize”? Paterno didn’t weigh the information very heavily. he pushed it to the side. that isn’t a value judgment.
But, no, Paterno does not bear “greater responsibility” than McQueary. McQueary is his own man, and Paterno, even though he might seem this way to some, is not God. Of anyone who had an obligation to do something directly about Sandusky, it was McQueary. If I witness a rape I have the power myself to go to the police and tell them. I don’t need a go-between to do that for me. So when it entered this stupid little hiearchy, Paterno sadly and without foresight or a properly tuned moral compass, passed the buck upwards. He was regarded as God or the top dog but then shirked responsibility when it came knocking on his door. For that I think he should be held accountable. But as a man and not as a legendary football coach, I feel a tad bit of sympathy for him.
I hope they don’t can the program, just so we can all hear the chants of ‘Pedo State’, and the accusations of pedophilia for everyone associated with the program, including fans, which will continue until pederasts eventually becomes normalized.
The idea that Paterno didn’t know is ridiculous anyway. The guy who told Paterno knew for sure. If Paterno didn’t ‘know’ it’s because he chose not to listen, or not to believe. McQueary going to the police without the backing of his superiors could have been extremely bad for him anyway. What if he goes out, makes the claim, and to protect the program they deny, deny, deny?
If none of the raped boys come forward to coorborate, that guys career is over. It seems pretty likely they’d sell McQueary up a river, and allow the rape factory to continue running to protect the program. I’m sure McQueary knows that, and I’m sure he extrapolates that from all of the other quasi-legal or outright illegal things that he’s supposed to turn a blind eye to among coaches, management and players. This time he saw something he wasn’t sure if he was supposed to ignore or not. He was, apparently
If anyone is interested, I’ve been kicking around my theory of official gay tolerance being (liberal) society’s mechanism for identifying potential buggers and neutralizing them as a lurking threat to boys.
I’ve made several comments about this on OneSTDV’s current Penn post.
How in the world does one not weigh heavily accusations of child rape?
McQueary is worthless and actually, so is his father who knew what the story was as well. He should have gone to the police and if he lost his coaching career over it, so fucking what? We don’t do the right thing for rewards like some woman, all game bs aside, we behave as men should behave because that’s what the fuck we are.
I would feel sympathy/empathy/whatever for Paterno if we were talking about days, at most, if he learned of what happened, hesitated because it was just so shocking and then it came out before he had a chance to adjust, I could feel something for the guy if that were the case, but that’s not what happened is it?
How many respectable “men” in positions of authority valued, what? a stupid game? their checkbook? over children being raped? How much adulation did Paterno,et al, receive while boys were being raped with their tacit approval?
This is very simple;
men who rape boys are bad,
good men try to stop bad men from raping boys,
if the best they do is yell “Stop” like some woman at Mcdonalds, they’re not really good men,
Paterno did not rise to the level of yelling Stop.
Temujin–
That would be way different.
Seems unlikely to me though. Are there really that many high donors to Penn State who are gay? Gays tend to make middle and upper middle class money, not big money.
PA – Interesting concept. I’m not entirely sold, though. A homosexual child molester can’t abstain from boys just because men are freely available. Child molesters never stop hungering for kids, and they will accept no substitutes.
Still… maybe you’re on to something.
I think it’s a theory worth exploring. Yes, predators will always be here or there, and queers/leftists will demand more than just tolerance, but — the critical mass of gays is now identified and corralled to consensual sodomy circles.
In traditional homophobic societies, every man is suspect.
PA–
I thought your idea at OneSTD’s about gays being allowed to go above ground reduces the amount of preying upon straight boys to be pretty interesting. Might be true. The horror over and heavy penalization of pedophilia involving young girls which then get’s gender equalist sort of (in formal ways only not in sentencing) could be the reason too though.
The NCAA is saying that it is closely following the criminal investigation and process and, based on what comes out of that, factually, will then make a determination in terms of NCAA rules and ethical norms about what to do. This is really just the beginning of the process for Penn State. I doubt that the BoT effort to “contain” the problem by firing Paterno and the University Pres. will ultimately suffice in the eyes of the NCAA, but we’ll see.
Also, It’s not UPenn or Penn. That’s what the University of Pennsylvania, the Ivy League school in Philly, is called. I didn’t go to Penn, but I do know people who did, and it’s really bad form, especially in light of this scandal, to refer to Penn State as Penn or UPenn. Penn State is “Penn State” or “PSU”. Just saying.
Thing is, in America you’re either “gay” which is good, or you are understood to be a straight guy who does some inadvertant homo overture, which is really bad socially — both among SWPLs and among regular guys.
In the third world, or third world corners of the West, or pre-liberal West, there is no such thing as “gay” but if you are a slim young man among older, higher status “regular guys,” you better watch yourself.
My theory is premised upon an assumption that a nontrivial number of human males have strong homosexual proclivities, which are constant across time, cultures and maybe races. With this “ten percent” sodomite load amongst men, the assrape ogre is everpresent. What better way to control the problem, than by making these guys “out and proud” and faaaabulouth.
I find the theory interesting but unlikely. I doubt that most pedophile gay men are apt to be “sated” by having sex with male adults. Perhaps on the margin *some* might be, but I doubt that it would generally impact most pedophile gay men. I think this is particularly true of true pedophiles (i.e., attracted to pre-pubescents), rather than those who are attracted to teens (which I would guess is probably as common among gay men as it is among straight men). But I don’t think making sex with adult gay men would make gay men who are attracted to teen boys less attracted to them — it doesn’t seem to work that way for straight men, really.
I dont mean to imply that gays are ten percent of the human population. It’s much smaller than that. But committed fags out themselves, and borderline cases dissociate themselves from homosexuality. Liberal West establishes male sexuality as a polar arrangement (mostly hetero, some homo), than something closer to a contiunnum on which you are never really sure where each guy stands.
Gay men are always going to prefer them really young. The one benefit to him being out of the closet is that at least you would know not to let your 13 year old son take a tour of a locker alone with him.
I think gay men have it even worse than women with aging out of the sexual market place.
“I dont mean to imply that gays are ten percent of the human population.”
I get gay vibes from at least 10% of the men out there.
“Also, It’s not UPenn or Penn. That’s what the University of Pennsylvania, the Ivy League school in Philly, is called.”
And their are good high school teams who could probably beat their football team.
I just got off the phone with someone who has a very valid theory regarding this whole thing. When McQueary came to Joe and told him about the anal rape of a boy in the shower under normal circumstances Joe would have immediately picked up the phone and called the police. However, had he known about Sandusky’s pedophilia for years and done nothing and he hesitated. I do believe Joe is a good man and would do the right thing, but maybe he didn’t realize how sick Sandusky really was until he already had his own hands dirty.
Apparently Sandusky used to take boys to away games and shared a hotel room with them. That’s just weird and people had to know something wasn’t right. Also, some janitors caught him in a sex act with a boy and decided not to call the police for fear of losing their jobs.
Chuck is right about McQueary. He was a grown man at the time and responsible for his own behavior. He has received promotions since discovering this so maybe there was some personal reasons for him not reporting a crime in process. He needs to go too.
I don’t think Paterno and Sandusky were friends. It was more about the football program and its reputation. And football is the most important thing at Penn State.
Away games for Pedd State are going to be awkward. You know how a crowd chants “Bullshit” at a ref, and the producers can’t do anything to mute it, and the announcers deadpan, “The fans are disappointed with that call” ? Just wait for a full college stadium chanting in unison, “You Raped Chil dren clap-clap-clapclapclap”. Good times.
nick digger 11/10/2011 at 10:34 pm “Away games for Pedd State are going to be awkward. You know how a crowd chants “Bullshit” at a ref, and the producers can’t do anything to mute it, and the announcers deadpan, “The fans are disappointed with that call” ? Just wait for a full college stadium chanting in unison, “You Raped Chil dren clap-clap-clapclapclap”. Good times.”
Yeah that’s really funny and quite a mature and profound thing to say BTW. Idiot.
Thank you. Hey, wait a minute.
“I wonder if anyone would agree that this is a tragic event. Obviously and most importantly for the victimized boys.” G.L.
Yes, this is a tragic event. But it’s ONLY a tragic event for the RAPED children & no one else involved, however minor . How can it be a tragedy for those who covered up, looked the other way–for years (Paterno), not days, & enable–for whatever reason–a grown motherfeckin’ man putting his penis into the bodies of CHILDREN for his own (not the childrens’) PERVERSE pleasure?!!
So now it is acceptable to turn a blind eye & allow children to be used as “pump & dumps?”
This needs to be repeated (w/minor changes) for the pedophile enablersplainers::
:
“How in the world does one not weigh heavily accusations of child rape?
McQueary is worthless and actually, so is his father who knew what the story was as well. He should have gone to the police and if he lost his coaching career over it, so fucking what? We don’t do the right thing for rewards like some woman, all game bs aside, we behave as men should behave because that’s what the fuck we are.
I would feel sympathy/empathy/whatever for Paterno if we were talking about days, at most, if he learned of what happened, hesitated because it was just so shocking and then it came out before he had a chance to adjust, I could feel something for the guy if that were the case, but that’s not what happened is it?
How many respectable “men” in positions of authority valued, what? a stupid game? their checkbook? over children being raped? How much adulation did Paterno,et al, receive while boys were being raped with their tacit approval?
“This is very simple;
men who rape are bad,
good men try to stop bad men from raping boys,
if the best they do is yell “Stop” like some woman at Mcdonalds, they’re not really good men,
Paterno did not rise to the level of yelling Stop.” ~EzE
The problem with your theory PA is that the mainstreaming of gay culture is that it is also not politically correct to suggest there is anything wrong with a gay man spending time along with young boys or young men.
It’s wrong to suggest there is any correlation between wanting to bugger post-pubescent, peri-pubescent, and pre-pubescent boys. To suggest there is is homophobia. To prove that it’s wrong, there are endless studies showing that most kiddy buggers are in fact heterosexual white males.
To prove that there isn’t anything wrong with homosexuality, we will engineer society to put more boys under their responsibility. As a thumb into the eyes of bigots like myself.
Not to mention the push to normalize pedarasty is already on. It’s only a matter of time until there is a full court press and we are forced to pretend it’s normal and healthy for 10 year olds to get ass raped by Sanduskys in the shower, and to suggest otherwise is to stigmatize their experiences.
Yglesias and the progressives want kids to be able to vote. If you can vote, you can consent to a dick in the ass.
As far as protecting kids, I’d hazard to guess that liberal democracy produces more buggers as a percentage of the population than the various junta-led and religiously conservative states of the world.
Over at OneSTDV you talk about faggot priests, but it’s a fact that social workers are the bigger group of buggers. Even more damning is that children are more likely to be buggered by a family member than a priest, even among the cohort of children that are at risk by being part of a choir, et cetera. The Catholic Church’s problem is the same problem as PSU. They covered it up. They shuffled priests around instead of stripping their stole, or retiring them to positions without access to victims.
There are always going to be predators attracted to roles where they have access to victims, and that includes the priesthood it seems. Priests are still less likely to rape boys than secular institutions that deal with children. We could talk about why that is, but I’d like to think that the priesthood draws people that are generally more morally upright, including sexual morals.
You also have to look at the recent past. Was a young man or child more at risk of getting raped in the USA prior to the mainstreaming of homosexuality, or now? If your theory holds true child rape should have been more prevalent prior to 1970 than it is today.
You can’t compare 21st century America to modern day Arab Muslim countries (and even still I’m willing to bet we rape more children in the USA). The comparison is between then and now.
M.M.- Hmmmmm……..Hey Joe, listen…..I ….Uh ……well…., I walked in on Jerry raping a nude boy in the locker room yesterday……..
JP- Are you shitting me !!!?! And you waited a day……..And still haven’t called the cops!?! What the hell is wrong with you !? ! Get me the goddamned telephone……I’lll call ‘em myself !
That’s about how that conversation should have went…………….
This whole story just emphasizes how far gone we are as a society. We’re actually debating the responsibility of coming forward and reporting child molestation to the cops…………Fuck Paterno………and the rest.
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it is also not politically correct to suggest there is anything wrong with a gay man spending time along with young boys or young men
Suggesting there is anything wrong with a gay man spending time alone with young boys is an example of gays/leftists pushing for more thanjust tolerance. The original deal is that gays are out and tolerated. Society’s job is to push back when met with additional demands. Though admittedly, it’s hard to push back on leftists whenthey control the means of opinion-production.
Nonetheless, a critical mass of homos is identified as such, and you can easily avoid them. Previously, all those guys with rainbow bumper stickers woudl have been married and passing for nromal men. You wouldn’t know whom to trust.
Given that male homosexuals are really just attracted to teen/young men, and that most of them were i.d.’d as sodomites and channelled to fucking each other in their 20s, 30s, and beyond, is one of the few (accidental?) accomplishments of liberalism.
I subscribe to the same theory of causes of homosexuality as Derbyshire does: it is caused by hormonal abnormalities in utero. Thus, presumably, a portion of male population that has physical interest in boys and young men will always be with us, as a constant.
So there are limited ways of dealing wiht the spectre of buggery:
1) traditional conservatism that drives homosexuals into the closet — you don’t know whom to trust because every man is a potential bugger.
2) eradicating homosexuality through proactive persecution and/or medical/pharmaceutical means — inhumane unless done with a velvet glove
3) accepting homosexuality and its attendant pedophilia per Classical Greece / tribal Afghanistan — um, no.
3) telling homosexuals that they are out out and proud and faaaabulouth and that they shoudl like in separae (fabulouth) neiborhoods and have sex with other adults like themselves — best and most humane solutions, not without its collateral upsides like gentrification and eclectic aesthetic (when moderated from going to faggy excesses, lol), but society must remain vigilant and keep them from pushing for more tolerance, and for supremacy.
Suggesting there is nothing wrong with a gay man spending time alone with young boys is an example of gays/leftists pushing for more thanjust tolerance.
Kyle,
I do believe if Sandusky was openly gay he would not have been allowed to have sleepovers and give private tours of the team locker room to these boys. The fact that he was married was a big cover for him.
I think what you’re more likely to get with openly gay men is them having sex with underage gay teens.
Jerry Sandusky retired 3 years ago, and his career started decades ago. If he were starting out today as an openly gay man, he would be affirmative actioned up the coaching ladder, and I have zero doubt that he would have been denied access to victims.
He could just as easily be co-habitating in a long-term relationship with some other man, which we are told is the same thing as marriage between men and women. Some parents would be suspicious, so only the children of bigots get spared. Now that this Sandusky thing is going down, the media et al will double down in ‘proving’ that Sandusky wasn’t gay, and that there is an inverse correlation between homosexuality and pedophilia.
How can you easily avoid them? Quit my job? Pick up stakes and move away from cities altogether? I’ve yet to work a job that didn’t have homosexuals in the workplace. I’ve yet to personally be approached by homos in the workplace, but other co-workers have, and there is no sexual harassment policy that will protect you from a gay man being too forward. Then there are the gay clients and customers.
All of that tolerance and supremacy you are talking about is already here. I also reject the idea that there was ever any agreement that was to the benefit of society to normalize homosexuality.
You don’t address the point of contention, in that as a society we rape more children today than we did before homosexuality was normalized; almost certainly. You can’t compartmentalize sexual mores in such a way that Chaz Bono is normal, and Jerry Sandusky is a freak not to be tolerated. If you can already accept that it’s ‘healthy’ for transgendered sickos to cut off their own dicks and buy that Folsom Street Fair is a wholesome expression of…something…then you are already down a path where raping 10 year olds isn’t as appalling as it should be.
The PSU protesters are proof of that. Just a few decades ago there would be no question of how absolutely wrong Paterno, Curley, and Spanier were. Now we seek nuance. A few decades more down the road and a guy like Spanier will be the template for leading institutions.
Gays didn’t get mainstreamed due to some agreement not to rape boys. Pedos were part of the gay movement (and still are in some quarters) when it was first gaining steam. Homophiles were pushing for radical social change, right along with Weather Undeground communism, and the Civil Rights movement and 2nd wave feminism. Mainstream homosexuality was never about protecting children.
Your theory, when applied to anything else shows off how it doesn’t work. In the 50s, it was social, and career suicide to openly be a Communist. There would be intense scrutiny from authorities into your activities. From the fall of McCarthy onward it became gradually more acceptable to be an ‘out and proud’ Communist. If your theory is correct, now that we have transgendered Maoists in full uniform and chicom flag at OWS, has the country slid further toward or away from Communism? We haven’t ‘contained’ anything here, just like homosexuals aren’t ‘contained’.
Everyone was suspect before the 70s, but anyone who stepped out of line was up for a beatdown, and likely lynching. Today you know who the fags are, and the full weight of the government is on their side for them to do whatever they want. That’s not an improvement. There is no mechanism to keep their behavior sequestered. People hid their homosexuality before because of the potential oppression they faced. Now they are eager to be out of the closet because of the benfits it brings.
What do you think would happen if a gay co-worker pushed up on you? If you react violently, taking care of the situation yourself, what happens to you? You go to management, what do you think happens to the forward fag? There isn’t anything you can do under the law.
It’s just like the little cross-dresser that got shot a few months ago, because the school (headed by another fag) gave him carte blanche to sexually abuse a classmate, who eventually snapped and shot him. That’s what our ‘containment’ of fags is. A free pass to do whatever they want. That’s not a success, accidental or otherwise.
Sandusky retired in 1999.
But an important fact is that Sandusky was married. Of course, marriage to a woman doesn’t necessarily mean that a man can’t be homosexual, but I think that it is improper to put pedophiles on the gay/straight spectrum. There is a strong perversion there, as in, something went haywire in childhood. With a name like ‘Sandusky’ I’m going to go out on a limb and say that he was messed with by Catholic priests. Complete speculation though.
However, I think that there would be a link between homosexuality and pedophilia since both at least partially arise from a perversion in childhood. This is the thing that the gay lobby will try to disprove – that homosexuality isn’t often the result of molestation at a young age. To admit that it is would show that homosexuality is not “natural” – no more “born this way” BS. If so, we could stamp out homosexuality.
There is another argument in all of this. If you read the grand jury report you see the tactics Sandusky used. He probably targeted boys without dads. He did this disgusting thing where he would see how far he could get with a boy and the escalate after each stage i.e. rubbing the leg and then hugging and then wrestling, etc. But where are the dads? Sandusky had little to fear because there were no father figures to deal with.
“But where are the dads? Sandusky had little to fear because there were no father figures to deal with.”
In addition to women not being a physical threat to these abusers, women cannot pick up on subtle clues of homosexuality the way men can. We also are not as quick to realize what behavior is inappropriate. I find it hard to believe that men who worked with Sandusky for years did not realize he was gay.
I have a male friend who is handsome and starting at a young age he was checked out and sometimes harassed by gay men. Now that he’s my age they have lost interest in him, but he can tell when they like someone.
A family story:
My brother worked at a restaurant when he was maybe 16 or 17. My dad knew one of my brother’s co-workers, a gay guy, through AA. Gay guy pops off about my brother being handsome or something really faggoty like that and my dad tells him that if he ever says anything like that again he’ll rip his fucking throat out. Good job Dad!
The ‘born that way’ argument is nonsense anyway. There is a lot of evidence that all kinds of people are ‘born that way’. Depressives, schizophrenics, the whole spectrum of body identity disorders like anorexia. Should we support these people in pursuing their goals of drug addiction, violent crime, and starving themselves to death as part of who they are?
Just because someone is born a particular way doesn’t mean they should receive a societal stamp of approval and encouragement.
Kyle–
Yeah I know that’s how they argue but it’s irrelevant. Of course there will be more hetero men who dream of or do have sex with “underage” girls, which is set at the absurdly high age of under 18 in eleven American states (and damn few foreign countries). After all straights outnumber gay men 97:3.
What matters to any prediction of how risky gay men being with young boys is the respective percentages of gay men who have or dream of having sex with underage boys as compared to straight men with underage girls. I think the former is MUCH higher than the later.
After all there’s no bonus of fully developed breasts and hips/backside for gay men. Instead there’s just the bonus of young boys being more pliable, and it being much easier to corrupt a straight young boy into the “joys” and “true path” of homo, or as they probably most often think of it, “unlock” his true nature before mainstream “propaganda” has had it’s full way with “brainwashing” him into being straight.
There’s also a lot less societal pressure on gay men to not be pedophiles. It just isn’t talked about that much, unlike all the combined feminist and traditional / religious fathers horror of grown men going after their early or any kind of teen daughters, not to mention younger.
What I have a hard time understand in homosexual dominants. My understanding is that they’re pretty rare. I.e. that most gay men are either inclined towards a submissive sexual role or inclined to be switches. I guess I further understand from talking to gay men and some reading that often the switches mostly just are willing to switch to dom as a quid pro quo thing, ok I guess it’s my turn thing, rather than a really want to thing.
But apparently there are some (much in demand at least for causal just sex) gay doms.
That’s a little hard to square with the hormones in the uterus not agreeing with the sex genes in the embryo theory.
As an aspect of the former, apparently there are some alleles which make females especially feminine and sex hungry. There’s a term for this that I wish I was remembering. (No these seems to be different from the having more testosterone thing that Roissy talks about a lot as being a commonality of serious sluts.) There’s a theory that sometimes these alleles get expressed in males => gay.
Kyle–
I really doubt that’s true. I think it’s probably strongly the other way. Where the hell is your evidence??
“I really doubt that’s true. I think it’s probably strongly the other way. Where the hell is your evidence??”
I join Doug in my scepticism. As an illustrative datapoint, Derb once wrote about how all boys in 50s rural England knew of certain older men, often connected to the church in some way, who showed undue creepy interest in them, and maybe even tried to grope them and such. Thier pedophilic proclivities flew under the radar of other adults.
Today, those old perverts would have been living with a “partner” or would otherwise show their gay pride, and other adults would know not to let the kids around them.
Two big factors in the Sandusky rapes were his closeted state, and apparently single motherhood.
But apparently there are some (much in demand at least for causal just sex) gay doms.
That’s a little hard to square with the hormones in the uterus not agreeing with the sex genes in the embryo theory.
These are the “choice gays”, in my opinion. Why do they choose it? Because, as you say, gay doms are even more in demand sexually in the gay community than women are in the hetero world — getting sex is easy as pie. Of course, that begs the question of why they would be attracted to sex with men in the first place — I suspect quite a few of them are actually bisexual (perhaps more than quite a few of them are … there aren’t many bisexual men, but there aren’t many gays who are exclusively dom, either), and some had an experience or two growing up or in the military or whatever, but are not the classic “feminine gay” in terms of having a sexual persona which wants to be receptive/passive/penetrated. So they were “turned out” to sex with men, but are still masculine enough to want to “top” their partner sexually. That seems like a recipe for the gay dom, and probably explains why they are so rare.
PA:
Your theory does seem interesting, and I can see how it might be true. But pedophiles who target girls are out there despite heterosexuality obviously being the norm.
Pedophiles who target girls don’t stand out from normal men, but they typically have limited legitimate access to girls.
Brendan–
Yeah maybe so. It’s certainly plausible.
Mangan’s just put up a post about the rumors that 1) Sandusky agreed to resign in 1999 in return for covering up his pedophilia and 2) that he was pimping his victims out to wealthy donors (as someone mentioned above).
Apparently a radio talk show host in Pittsburg put that on the air.
http://mangans.blogspot.com/2011/11/penn-state-scandal-widens.html
The NCAA forcing Penn State to drop it’s football program is looking a lot more likely.
God can you imagine the rioting that would cause???
That place lives and breaths football from what I understand.
I actually don’t think the NCAA would order that. My guess is that if stuff like that proves out to be true (or, God forbid, the sex-for-donations rumor, which is probably not true), the NCAA will talk to PSU about it and PSU will take 2 years off. A longer penalty than has ever been given before (twice the “death penalty” of a year off, and with twice the impact in terms of recruiting), but not an end to the program.
I like college football a lot, but I think there are a lot of pointers here that this program has a rotten culture around it, and it may well be that a break is what is needed to flush that out.
Brendan–
It seems terribly unfair to the football players though. From what I’ve read/seen in the news, the team has a clean reputation so far as sex scandals go. There doesn’t seem to be a team culture of allowing sexual abuse.
The manic love of football at Penn State (and a lot of other state universities, mostly) is certainly a cultural phenomenon but not one that’s either illegal or violates NCAA rules. The failure to report that statutory rape to the police was one of several individuals, not a team cultural one or a university one seems to me.
I also think the idea of university losing a civil suit to the tune of 100 million as is being floated at Mangan’s would be grossly excessive in terms of what the UNIVERSITY did or failed to do. Individuals failed to do things they should have and yeah the university has a culture of doing nothing whatsoever to discourage football mania which contributed to the individual failings. But that football mania is not really some wrong in and of itself or something I think either the NCAA or a jury awarding some ridiculously large judgment against the UNIVERSITY ought to be punishing to discourage it.
Haven’t previous NCAA death penalties been about gross violations of NCAA rules, such as paying players lavish gifts and services (high end hookers)?
Yes, that’s true, but as between giving players gifts and allowing someone they know has a history of, ahem, problems with boys to (1) use their facilities with said boys or (2) leave under conditions of secrecy with respect to said boys, and continued access to facilities with said boys, I’d have to say that the latter is far worse than the former. Yes, it doesn’t involve the *players*, but I doubt that will be key for the NCAA when they get around to looking at this. I don’t think that SMU got the death penalty to punish the players — it happened to punish the program. From where I am sitting, allowing a guy you kind of know is a pedo to use your facilities to continue to be a pedo, or agreeing to keep his pedo ways quiet in exchange for an amicable severance arrangement is far worse than paying players gifts (even hookers). No rape involved in the latter case.
Brendan–
It’s not worse to the mission of the NCAA. It’s much less bad for that, except public relations wise. I’d bet the NCAA has no enthusiasm all all for forcing a death penalty on Penn State and will delay any decision as long as possible in hopes of the public outcry dying down. Their saying they were going to look carefully at how the trial proceeds suggests to me that that is just what they want to do – delay, hope this blows over, and hope not to have to dealt penalty the program.
Failing to report it to police is not a crime even on the eyewitness assistant coach’s part and definitely isn’t on Paterno’s part. Failing to report crimes generally isn’t a crime. The AD is being tried for perjury to the grand jury. Nor is any of this probably a violation of NCAA rules.
The allowing the guy to use the facilities was probably the decision of one man, Joe Paterno, from what we know so far. He was canned. It doesn’t seem to part of a general Penn State football program culture, unlike giving lavish gifts and the services of high end hookers to recruit star players, which players and probably about all of the coaching staff know about and participate in. So in a very real sense most of the program in such cases is involved in the fundamental to the NCAA rules breaking. The NCAA cares so much about that because it cares so much about keeping college football formally and credibly amateur. It’s determined to not let college football players get paid, as probably they should be or at least arguably should be.
I don’t understand how anyone can even be excited about Penn State football right now.
Doug,
I think the problem is these guys were given too much power and prestige and they seemed to care more about their reputation than doing the right thing.
We will see, Doug. Only time will tell. The NCAA was talking about looking into its ethical rules and so on. It’s true that this may due down, but then again pedophilia scandals have a way of having a long half-life. In any case, we will see. It is early days.
Lara–
I just don’t see it as a failing of the program. Instead I see it as the failing of the head coach. Yeah McQueary should be fired too and apparently has been but he wasn’t creating any Penn State football culture. Paterno didn’t from what we’ve seen so far create any program culture of winking at homosexual pedophelia. Yeah he winked at himself in one man, but he’s gone as is Sandusky.
Actually if this weekend’s game is on in some NYC cable channel I may watch it, depending on what time it’s on. Well I may DVR it. More likely to since this scandal broke. I think the morale factor could go either way, though certainly he acting head coach has been mondo distracted this week.
Here’s a woman who did the right thing, even though it cost her a job:
http://missoulian.com/news/local/missoula-woman-reported-sex-abuse-suspect-despite-firing-warning/article_48f04356-0ce3-11e1-8762-001cc4c03286.html
IF everything that’s been said is true then Paterno did everything right. His firing stinks to high heaven of scapegoating. It’s also bold faced evidence of the ultra PC dipshits running academia these days, which of course are going to heavily lean to the left. Paterno did everything right. He was told of an ALLEGATION, he didn’t witness the incident himself, and he rain it up the chain of command, so to speak. Paterno did everything right. If anyone had the responsibility to notify the police it was the person who witnessed the alleged crime, at which point he should have informed his employer of what happened. I’ll say it one more time so it’s perfectly clear: Paterno did everything right. Also, firing him BEFORE any guilt is even proven is premature as fuck, again evidence of the ultra left leanings of the dipshits running things.
I think the main reason the board of trustees fired Paterno and the Uni president was to make it harder for the boys/their families to win an humongous lawsuit against the University.