TruffleShuffle

i think this is a good article (and possibly the only deadspin article ever written that goony has not reposted on nsbb) explaining why paterno failed and why it's so common for people to fail to report abuse. http://deadspin.com/5857014/jerry-sandusky-joe-paterno-and-the-failure-of-adult-institutions-everywhere i've read in numerous places that paterno and sandusky were much more colleagues than friends, but i don't know if that's true or just spin by, as a certain former top journalist would call it, "penn state fanboys."

i will change my screen name to raging anus is psu suffers any kind of substantial ncaa sanctions or the ncaa starts allowing psu players to transfer without sitting out a year. i assume that ID is not taken.

just read this on NPR: WHOOPS

Yeah, run him out of town but save the dude that helped protect a child molester. Pedophile State University, may no act of ours bring shame. uhhh spanier was aware of the abuse in 2002 and signed off on the "don't let him use the school facilities" arrangement.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JXoXdIJQ7I&sns=tw

so reports indicate that joe paterno told his team, or did not tell his team, that he is resigning.

what a farce. they should've just let the press conference go on as scheduled. it's obvious he has some things he wants to say, and a lot of people have questions for him. so now you're left with people yelling questions at him while he's sitting in the window of his home. great work spanier. that moron should be on the next bus out of town.

i recently saw a video about swim coaches who were able to get away with molesting kids for decades. one guy would stay in town until people started asking questions about him, then take off and go to a new town on the west coast. nobody called his previous employers and USA swimming actually certified him as a coach a few years ago, failing to do any kind of background check besides checking with law enforcement and finding that he had no criminal convictions. there are a lot of reasons that people can get away with it for a long time - in this case it appears to be him taking advantage of kids in broken or poorly-run homes, parents permitting their children to be in a compromising situation with an older man they don't know well, an ineffective investigation in 1998 (with numerous parties not being informed that he was being investigated), a janitor witnessing an assault but not reporting it, several people in knowledge of an assault in 2002 with nobody ultimately reporting it to police, and children obviously embarrassed or uncomfortable about reporting the incidents to their parents or the authorities. and then i think a lot of it goes back to the person being "respected within the community," "a faithfully married man," etc., and people just refuse to believe that someone with such a respectable and upstanding exterior could be doing something like this. people just have this idea that all pedophiles are single lonely men in their 40s with a creepy mustache driving around a windowless van.

i don't think there's any point in worrying about it. paterno will be gone after the bowl game at the latest, curley is on leave and won't be coming back, spanier will probably be bought out by the board of trustees, schultz is back into retirement. the only one who might still be around is mcqueary, and even he's taking heat now. most or all of the parties involved will be gone and the ncaa isn't going to do anything.

at this rate he might not make it to 85.

i always assumed that he would kick the bucket while coaching or, if he retired, die within a year of retirement. since he's supposed to be a prosecution witness hopefully they get his statement before he dies.

actually a lot of PSU supporters feel the way that everyone on this board (besides myself) feels. i can't say how i would've felt if this had happened to bowden, but i do remember thinking that FSU handled the situation poorly and should've given bowden one more year like he wanted. i think there were some NCAA violations at FSU under bowden (not positive about that) and didn't get the impression that he did the quite as much work for the school and community that paterno did, but he did raise the profile of FSU quite a bit and i thought that dumping him was the wrong move.

i'd go with someone even more southern-sounding than houston nutt. what's jim-bob cooter up to these days? edit - lol @ his last name being an expletive.

yeah i think clevenger could be a decent backup, but we already have beef welington. i've been on the beliveau bandwagon for a long time, but i wouldn't let a lefty reliever be a deal-breaker (not that there is a deal-breaker at this point since he's our GM)

i said what i wanted to say. if this is your response then there's no point in discussing anything with you any more.

look kyle, i guess this is what it comes down to for me. he's been at psu for 60 years and head coach for 45 years. he's done an enormous amount of good for the school - in how it's grown, donating several million dollars despite always being paid less than most top college football coaches, etc. he and his wife have given a great deal of support to the local special olympics programs, with which i was involved for several years. he's always had a high graduation rate and never had any ncaa violations. he's been a great mentor to thousands of young men. so it bothers me that he's probably going to be forced out, and that this is what he'll be most remembered for. you have all these people, some of them completely self-centered, never serving as a mentor for anybody, never doing a charitable deed in their lives, saying that he's a despicable human being, as bad as sandusky for sitting by and allowing it to happen, that none of his accomplishments matter now. that upsets me because i think he's a good man who's done more good for his community than 99.9% of people out there, and it's unfair to judge or condemn him on one serious error in moral judgement. i know most people disagree, but that's how i feel.

except their stories weren't straight. paterno says he knew that mcqueary had witnessed something of a sexual nature. mcqueary claims to have told curley and schultz that a former coach appeared to be having anal sex with a young boy. what i don't understand is why you're so hung up on paterno possibly watering down mcqueary's account from "anal sex with a boy" to "fondling or doing something of a sexual nature" when the grad assistant directly told curley and schultz that he thought he'd seen sandusky having anal sex with a boy. they were told twice that a likely crime had occurred and did nothing except push the guy off campus. I'm hung up on it because it's covering up. It's a light covering up, but it's covering up. It's a piece of the puzzle, and the picture that the puzzle shows is that Paterno and others did the minimum they thought they could get away with because they wanted to protect their friend while that friend was raping children. The reason we're talking about Paterno and not the others is because Paterno is the point of contention. The AD and the President lost their jobs and are facing felony charges. Paterno and his apologists are still angling for a quiet resignation that he planned on doing anyway. The vice president of something or other lost his job (went back into retirement) and Curley is on leave (which will undoubtedly become permanent). The president still has his job (for now) and if he goes it will probably come with a golden parachute. I'd just stick to being angry that he didn't follow up with Curley/Schultz when he didn't hear anything more (and not going to the police himself), rather than being mad that he may have watered down a super-serious sexual offense into a slightly-less-horrendous-but-still-wildly-illegal-and-bad offense.

except their stories weren't straight. paterno says he knew that mcqueary had witnessed something of a sexual nature. mcqueary claims to have told curley and schultz that a former coach appeared to be having anal sex with a young boy. what i don't understand is why you're so hung up on paterno possibly watering down mcqueary's account from "anal sex with a boy" to "fondling or doing something of a sexual nature" when the grad assistant directly told curley and schultz that he thought he'd seen sandusky having anal sex with a boy. they were told twice that a likely crime had occurred and did nothing except push the guy off campus.

What the fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuudge. that could be any number of things. there was plenty of speculation (before this story came out) about various people that gricar had prosecuted and had motive for revenge. there was also speculation about ongoing investigations and why the hard drive was possibly destroyed. then gricar seemed to have some slightly weird things going on in his personal life, and some people think he faked his own death and left the country. seems we'll never know.

Bold added by me for emphasis. Before the investigation you are talking about, Paterno had an opportunity to pass the information along to his immediate supervisor. What Paterno testified to describing was significantly euphamized from what McQueary testified to seeing. "fondling or doing something of a sexual nature to a young boy" is, i suppose, less serious than "anal sex with a young boy" but it's still quite obviously a crime. why did curley fart around for a week and a half waiting to interview mcqueary? and curley was the one who claimed that mcqueary reported to him that they were "horsing around." from either paterno's account ("fondling or doing something of a sexual nature to a young boy") or mcqueary's account ("anal sex with a boy"), curley had the information that mandated he go to police. even if paterno was embarrassed to say "anal sex with a boy" in front of curley or the jury, he still knew that what happened was bad and he did pass that along to curley.

paterno says he didn't know the exact nature of what happened, and nobody (mcqueary, mcqueary's dad, curley) has said otherwise. i'm choosing to believe him; you can choose to not believe him. i suppose if he's lying that it will all come out in the end.

yes, the AD made that change. you seem to be ignoring the fact that the AD sat down and conducted an in depth interview with the grad assistant, which is the most important part of this. you're acting like they did pass-it-down-the-line and by the time it got to the president, sandusky was just horsing around in the shower with a kid. curley (the athletic director) directly interviewed mcqueary. the grand jury's account is based on what mcqueary told them and what mcqueary testified to telling curley. the reason they indicted curley for perjury is obviously that his testimony contradicted that of mcqueary, and they did not find curley's repeated claims credible (that mcqueary had just said they were horsing around in the shower).

not sure why i'm bothering to respond to this. obviously there is a procedure in place to investigate sexual crimes and yet this fell through the cracks for many years. first, there were allegations in 1998 that were investigated but not prosecuted. why was that the case? could more people involved with his charity (the second mile) or the football program have been notified that sandusky was investigated for sexual misconduct, to minimize the amount of time he spent alone around minors. you put in place a new set of procedures mandating that anyone with first-hand knowledge of sexual abuse of a minor is to go immediately to the police. current state law does not mandate this, so you make that a policy for all university staff. that would have made it more likely that the janitor who witnessed misconduct in 2000 would have reported it instead of keeping it to himself and a couple of co-workers. it would have meant that mcqueary or paterno likely would have gone directly to the police instead of passing the information along to administrators, who ultimately failed in their legal responsibility. limit access to football facilities to current staff members. things like that would be effective in preventing future sexual abuse from occurring and, if it did occur, would greatly increase the likelihood that it would be reported immediately by any witnesses.

right and it's certainly reasonable to say that paterno had a moral failing in not following up with mcqueary and/or the administration to get more facts, or to press the parties to get the university police involved. i'm not going to argue that. i'm arguing with kyle's assertions that have been either factually wrong or making assumptions that are based on nothing.

ten years is a bit long.