Penn State & Syracuse Scandals

[MisterOJ]

I disagree. What allowed this to continue to happen was the culture of Football First at that university. Yes, almost any major college is guilty of that but not to the extent of this morass of slime. There was a code of silence there not to do anything to mess with the program. Two janitors witnessed child rape but were terrified they would be fired if they crossed JoPa. The student body rioted when Paterno was fired. Board members also failed by allowing the football program to run rough shod over the rest of the university. I'm not sure that the current coaches are exactly innocent. Many of them were around when Sandusky was doing all this. The report stated there were numerous warning flags yet nobody said anything.

I think the NCAA can allow the current players to transfer to other colleges without losing a year of eligibility. Frankly, that would be a mercy. You are right that those players are innocent in all this but they are the ones that are going to feel the real wrath of the rest of the country when they travel to away games. I think Penn State should get a two year ban and the entire program started up from scratch.

You're absolutely right when you say that the culture of the football program at Penn State is what caused that. But, everyone that made up that "culture" is gone now. They're not there anymore, so the culture is gone. If one or two holdovers remained in charge, then, yes, I would agree that the death penalty would be needed to change that culture. But, it's already been changed by sweeping out everyone who was in charge. You don't need to shut the program down in order to change that.

Now, I'm not saying the university should get off with no penalties. There should be something done. But shutting down the program is too harsh considering the perpetrators are no longer there.

[TerraPrime]

But, everyone that made up that "culture" is gone now. They're not there anymore, so the culture is gone.

You did not see the outpour of anger and disbelief from the fans and the students when the story broke?

The football culture is not just about the top-tier managers, imo.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

MisterOJ,

Paterno was fired late last year. The student body rioted late last year. You really think the "culture" is gone?

[Eponine]

I'm generally not a fan of handing down punishments to folks who had nothing to do with the transgression.

What Paterno and the rest of the administration did was sickening. But, they are not at Penn State anymore. Everyone that had anything to do with the coverup is gone from Penn State. They all need to be punished.

The folks in the football program now (players and coaches alike) had nothing to do with the actions of Paterno and company. They really don't deserve to be punished.

Just my two cents.

It's an institutional failure as well as a cover up by specific people. The Freeh report made it clear that many of the university policies for internal reporting were broken, that background checks weren't performed correctly and that compliance to important policies was spotty, both in the athletic department and in the administrative offices. Those problems extended well past 4-5 people. The death penalty shouldn't just be a punishment on the football program, but an opportunity for the school to fix all these problems.

[Jaxom 1974]

When people talk about "killing" the program, do they mean a year or two without football at Penn State or Penn State is no longer a school that has a football program, and that is not going to change ever?

Because I would support suspending the program for a couple years and letting all the scholarship athletes go elsewhere if they so desire. Then let Penn State football try to recover from this PR hit as best they can, they'll be wallowing in misery or mediocrity for years, if not decades. That would be a clear lesson to other football programs not to let football get bigger than anything else, and would be a constant reminder of how the great can be laid low.

If we're talking a true permanent "death" of the program, that seems almost too convenient, college football could just ignore that Penn State even existed.

Some would tell you that there should be no football at Penn State for at least 14 years...

That being said, this is a case that is unprecedented in its scope. The lack of institutional control is staggering. Anything less than 4 years would be wrong in my opinion. The athletes should be given the opportunity to transfer elsewhere without losing elegibility for the year, but know that there is no chance they'll play football over the course of a 4 year college career. The better to air out the situation and gain some true distance from it.

I'm generally not a fan of handing down punishments to folks who had nothing to do with the transgression.

What Paterno and the rest of the administration did was sickening. But, they are not at Penn State anymore. Everyone that had anything to do with the coverup is gone from Penn State. They all need to be punished.

The folks in the football program now (players and coaches alike) had nothing to do with the actions of Paterno and company. They really don't deserve to be punished.

Just my two cents.

As others have already indicated, this shows a significant lack of understanding as to what's actually happened. Please read the linked Freeh report on the previous page.

I do not follow college sports, so I am in no place to guess, but it seems that NCAA losing credibility is only going to happen if the majority of the fans value a principled stand against a program that seems to have run amok more than value a great and famous football program. Do they?

The NCAA does have that kind of history. Here's their opportunity to do the right thing and take some control back from the universities that run amok.

[Former Lord of Winterfell]

I disagree. What allowed this to continue to happen was the culture of Football First at that university. Yes, almost any major college is guilty of that but not to the extent of this morass of slime. There was a code of silence there not to do anything to mess with the program. Two janitors witnessed child rape but were terrified they would be fired if they crossed JoPa. The student body rioted when Paterno was fired. Board members also failed by allowing the football program to run rough shod over the rest of the university. I'm not sure that the current coaches are exactly innocent. Many of them were around when Sandusky was doing all this. The report stated there were numerous warning flags yet nobody said anything.

The highest up people most directly responsible are Athletic Director Curley, and VP for finance and business Schultz. Their purview extends well beyond the football program, and much of what Sandusky did was after he left the football program but was still affiliated with the university outside the football program. So why should the punishment be limited only to the football program? Seems to me the entire athletic department should be shut down.

[lokisnow]

When people talk about "killing" the program, do they mean a year or two without football at Penn State or Penn State is no longer a school that has a football program, and that is not going to change ever?

Because I would support suspending the program for a couple years and letting all the scholarship athletes go elsewhere if they so desire. Then let Penn State football try to recover from this PR hit as best they can, they'll be wallowing in misery or mediocrity for years, if not decades. That would be a clear lesson to other football programs not to let football get bigger than anything else, and would be a constant reminder of how the great can be laid low.

If we're talking a true permanent "death" of the program, that seems almost too convenient, college football could just ignore that Penn State even existed.

I don't think there should be a permanent death of the program, but I would inflict the 'death penalty, which I mean that they suspend the football program for a set number of years. I think they should have no football for every year that Sandusky was affiliated with Penn State. so if that's fifteen-twenty years without a football program, so be it. What happened at Penn State is EASILY fifteen-twenty times worse than what happened at SMU. By far.

[Kalbear]

You're absolutely right when you say that the culture of the football program at Penn State is what caused that. But, everyone that made up that "culture" is gone now.

No. Not remotely the case, no. Not even close. No.

People are still going up to the JoePa statue and doing his 'thumbs up' pose and taking a pic. About 75% of PSU fans do not believe JoePa had anything to do with it. His son came out today and said that the Freeh report 'was just an opinion'. The coach was dissed widely by other PSU alums as 'not being a PSU guy'. Most of the board of directors that was there during these incidents is still there.

The culture survives. The culture thrives. PSU alums are still about the Penn State Way.

The Penn State Way needs to die. And in order to do that, you must punish the culture. You must make it so that no janitor is ever afraid that they will be fired if they do something damaging to the football program because they know that if they do stay silent what will come down will be much worse. You don't want any other program to even think about weighing the costs and benefits of staying silent. That is the culture you must introduce - and you cannot introduce that if the institution gets away scot free.

Yes, it sucks that some of those people are gone now but PSU gets punished. It sucked when Lehman brothers got hosed because of prior executive action. That's what accountability as an institution means, however, and without it you will have this happen again and again.

Destroy the fucking institution. Make everyone else understand that this is what is coming down if they do not comply. Make sure they understand that the moral thing is always the correct thing regardless of how it benefits them, because the drawbacks are simply too severe. This is how you force moral behavior from corporations and institutions; failure to do this will simply result in repeat behavior whenever it makes more pragmatic sense not to.

Put it another way: you are stating that most everyone would do the right thing normally. Well, 4 fairly normal people decided that they would allow a child rapist access to their players, facilities, stadium and coaches for 7 years after one of them literally saw him raping a child. What kind of culture do you think promotes that kind of moral calculus to apply? That is what must be destroyed, and it is not only those 4 people.

[S John]

If anyone is interested, here is the letter from the NCAA to Penn State - http://cbschicago.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/pennstatencaaletter2.pdf

[Kalbear]

Awesome. The NCAA basically said exactly what I did earlier. I love it when that happens. The whole thing is about institutional control and what violates it - and what doesn't.

I normally think that the NCAA is a bunch of fuckwits, but in this respect they got it 100% right.

[Bronn Stone]

The highest up people most directly responsible are Athletic Director Curley, and VP for finance and business Schultz. Their purview extends well beyond the football program, and much of what Sandusky did was after he left the football program but was still affiliated with the university outside the football program. So why should the punishment be limited only to the football program? Seems to me the entire athletic department should be shut down.

Whereas I think the biggest blame lies with Paterno himself. Not for what he did, but for what he didn't do,

There is one curious fact. Sandusky's name never again came up in regards to another job. If you don't follow the sport religiously, you can't easily appreciate how odd this is. Successful coaches (and Sandusky was very successful) cannot quit and be forgotten. Their names keep coming up for job after job. But it never happened. The most logical conclusion is that somehow Paterno passed word that Sandusky had 'a problem' and suggested others keep away. But he didn't do that to the folks at Second Mile, despite several of them being former players who worshipped the ground over which he hovered by sheer force of awesomeness. This is his legacy. He protected the sport. He protected the organization but left the children's charity to their own devices.

[TerraPrime]

Whereas I think the biggest blame lies with Paterno himself. Not for what he did, but for what he didn't do,

There is one curious fact. Sandusky's name never again came up in regards to another job. If you don't follow the sport religiously, you can't easily appreciate how odd this is. Successful coaches (and Sandusky was very successful) cannot quit and be forgotten. Their names keep coming up for job after job. But it never happened. The most logical conclusion is that somehow Paterno passed word that Sandusky had 'a problem' and suggested others keep away. But he didn't do that to the folks at Second Mile, despite several of them being former players who worshipped the ground over which he hovered by sheer force of awesomeness. This is his legacy. He protected the sport. He protected the organization but left the children's charity to their own devices.

Fair point, but could be countered if it's Sandusky refusing to leave the good gig he's got going. Do we know? Whether Sandusky had been approached for a coaching job?

I'd rather argue that the Athletic department allowing Sandusky access to Penn State facilities after the first failed attempt to hold him responsible is more damning. After that first investigation, all the key players, including Paterno, knew what's what, and they collectively decided that allowing someone who had been alleged of sexual molestation of children should still have access to those facilities to enable his behavior.

[Eponine]

Fair point, but could be countered if it's Sandusky refusing to leave the good gig he's got going. Do we know? Whether Sandusky had been approached for a coaching job?

It's not the refusal but the lack of gossip and rumors. At Va Tech, the beloved defensive coordinator (same position as Sandusky's), probably the second most popular person in town, is still invited to interviews for other schools even though he's refused all other offers so far. If it was known that Beamer told him that he wouldn't be the next head coach and all that interest dried up and his name never came up again for a head coaching position, it would be incredibly odd. But I didn't know that Sandusky wasn't being invited to other schools, how did you find that out, Bronn?

[Kalbear]

Sandusky at one point was thinking about taking the HC job at I believe Virginia, this was in 1999. But at the last moment turned it down. Yep, here it was. After that there's no sign that he was approached at all.

[kairparavel]

I don't think there should be a permanent death of the program, but I would inflict the 'death penalty, which I mean that they suspend the football program for a set number of years. I think they should have no football for every year that Sandusky was affiliated with Penn State. so if that's fifteen-twenty years without a football program, so be it. What happened at Penn State is EASILY fifteen-twenty times worse than what happened at SMU. By far.

I feel that for every year they kept Sandusky and his actions covered up is a year without football. So, a decade at least.

[lokisnow]

A decade without football really would change the campus dynamic. Since part of the problem was the campus attitude of 'king football' that led to the riots, it'd be really great. You'd cycle through undergrad and grad students that remember football and get through several classes of undergrad that wouldn't have football at all. You could use the stadium for concerts and benefits.

Sanctions along the lines of a 14 years without football, and 14 years without any athletic scholarships and 14 years without any athletic post season play in any sport (since the whole athletic department was involved in the coverup, they shouldn't have an athletic department while under sanctions) would probably also result in a lot of turnover on the board, would change the behind the scenes dynamics of the moneyed power players of the important donors/alumni etc etc. It really would be enough time for the amount of turnover that needs to happen at Penn State to in fact happen.

I say all this as a huge fan of college football. The scale of these violations is so much more vast than anything else the NCAA has ever dealt with that the punishment should be commensurately vast.

[S John]

Wow, Rick Reilly was pretty scathing - http://m.espn.go.com...Id=8162972&wjb=

What a fool I was.

In 1986, I spent a week in State College, Pa., researching a 10-page Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year piece on Joe Paterno.

It was supposed to be a secret, but one night the phone in my hotel room rang. It was a Penn State professor, calling out of the blue.

"Are you here to take part in hagiography?" he said.

"What's hagiography?" I asked.

"The study of saints," he said. "You're going to be just like the rest, aren't you? You're going to make Paterno out to be a saint. You don't know him. He'll do anything to win. What you media are doing is dangerous."

Jealous egghead, I figured.

What an idiot I was. Twenty-five years later, when former Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky was accused of a 15-year reign of pedophilia on young boys, I thought Paterno was too old and too addled to understand, too grandfatherly and Catholic to get that Sandusky was committing grisly crimes using Paterno's own football program as bait.

But I was wrong. Paterno knew. He knew all about it. He'd known for years. He knew and he followed it vigilantly.

That's all clear now after Penn State's own investigator, former FBI director Louis Freeh, came out Thursday and hung the whole disgusting canvas on a wall for us. Showed us the emails, read us the interviews, shined a black light on all of the lies they left behind. It cost $6.5 million and took eight months and the truth it uncovered was 100 times uglier than the bills.

Paterno knew about a mother's cry that Sandusky had molested her son in 1998. Later, Paterno lied to a grand jury and said he didn't. Paterno and university president Graham Spanier and vice president Gary Schultz and athletic director Tim Curley all knew what kind of sick coach they had on the payroll in Sandusky. Schultz had pertinent questions. "Is this opening of pandora's box?" he wrote in personal notes on the case. "Other children?" "Sexual improprieties?"

It gets worse. According to Freeh, Spanier, Schultz and Curley were set to call child services on Sandusky in February 2001 until Paterno apparently talked them out of it. Curley wasn't "comfortable" going to child services after that talk with JoePa.

Yeah, that's the most important thing, your comfort.

What'd they do instead? Alerted nobody. Called nobody. And let Sandusky keep leading his horrific tours around campus. "Hey, want to see the showers?" That sentence alone ought to bring down the statue.

What a stooge I was.

I talked about Paterno's "true legacy" in all of this. Here's his true legacy: Paterno let a child molester go when he could've stopped him. He let him go and then lied to cover his sinister tracks. He let a rapist go to save his own recruiting successes and fundraising pitches and big-fish-small-pond hide.

Here's a legacy for you. Paterno's cowardice and ego and fears allowed Sandusky to molest at least eight more boys in the years after that 1998 incident -- Victims 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 9 and 10. Just to recap: By not acting, a grown man failed to protect eight boys from years of molestation, abuse and self-loathing, all to save his program the embarrassment. The mother of Victim 1 is "filled with hatred toward Joe Paterno," the victim's lawyer says. "She just hates him, and reviles him." Can you blame her?

What a sap I was.

I hope Penn State loses civil suits until the walls of the accounting office cave in. I hope that Spanier, Schultz and Curley go to prison for perjury. I hope the NCAA gives Penn State the death penalty it most richly deserves. The worst scandal in college football history deserves the worst penalty the NCAA can give. They gave it to SMU for winning without regard for morals. They should give it to Penn State for the same thing. The only difference is, at Penn State they didn't pay for it with Corvettes. They paid for it with lives.

What a chump I was.

I tweeted that, yes, Paterno should be fired, but that he was, overall, "a good and decent man." I was wrong. Good and decent men don't do what Paterno did. Good and decent men protect kids, not rapists. And to think Paterno comes from "father" in Italian.

This throws a can of black paint on anything anybody tells me about Paterno from here on in. "No NCAA violations in all those years." I believe it. He was great at hiding stuff. "He gave $4 million to the library." In exchange for what? "He cared about kids away from the football field." No, he didn't. Not all of them. Not when it really mattered.

What a tool I was.

As Joe Paterno lay dying, I actually felt sorry for him. Little did I know he was taking all of his dirty secrets to the grave. Nine days before he died, he had The Washington Post's Sally Jenkins in his kitchen. He could've admitted it then. Could've tried a simple "I'm sorry." But he didn't. Instead, he just lied deeper. Right to her face. Right to all of our faces.

That professor was right, all those years ago. I was engaging in hagiography. So was that school. So was that town. It was dangerous. Turns out it builds monsters.

Not all of them ended up in prison.

I'm honestly a bit surprised at seeing a few sports writers calling for the death penalty. And I know this is completely secondary, but I wonder.. if PSU gets the death penalty for more than say, one or two seasons. What does the Big 10 do? Does PSU get kicked out of the conference? No point in them sharing revenue if they can't compete. I'm really, really interested to see what the NCAA does with this one. The implications for the sport could be enormous and the effects could go beyond just Penn State. Unfortunately that's why I think the NCAA will stop short of a death penalty beyond one season (if that). Schedules are made years in advance and all the teams that are scheduled to play Penn State in the future will have to replace them with someone else. Plenty of time to do that, obviously, but dropping an opponent from your schedule is a big deal. When West Virginia dropped Florida State for 2012 it cost the University big bucks to compensate the Seminoles.

[kairparavel]

Wow, Rick Reilly was pretty scathing - http://m.espn.go.com...Id=8162972&wjb=

I'm honestly a bit surprised at seeing a few sports writers calling for the death penalty. And I know this is completely secondary, but I wonder.. if PSU gets the death penalty for more than say, one or two seasons. What does the Big 10 do? Does PSU get kicked out of the conference? No point in them sharing revenue if they can't compete. I'm really, really interested to see what the NCAA does with this one. The implications for the sport could be enormous and the effects could go beyond just Penn State. Unfortunately that's why I think the NCAA will stop short of a death penalty beyond one season (if that). Schedules are made years in advance and all the teams that are scheduled to play Penn State in the future will have to replace them with someone else. Plenty of time to do that, obviously, but dropping an opponent from your schedule is a big deal. When West Virginia dropped Florida State for 2012 it cost the University big bucks to compensate the Seminoles.

I wondered about the same things, and then took a step back and asked myself: the fuck? All this concern for football. Isn't that what got us to this discussion in the first place? No one, not even me, wondered about the implications and consequences in the lives of these boys now young men. We need to stop worrying about football and the other teams or we'll never start worrying about the victims. Nothing, no football program in America, no collegiate athletes are more important or are to be considered over those ignored and held victim for so long. If you keep worrying about the trickle down effect, the problem will never ever ever get fixed or prevented.

You just need to kill PSU.

Cut off it's head, spike it and show it as warning to others.

Period.

Too bad for the rest of football. It's not like they're getting raped in a shower stall or something.

[S John]

I wondered about the same things, and then took a step back and asked myself: the fuck? All this concern for football. Isn't that what got us to this discussion in the first place? No one, not even me, wondered about the implications and consequences in the lives of these boys now young men. We need to stop worrying about football and the other teams or we'll never start worrying about the victims. Nothing, no football program in America, no collegiate athletes are more important or are to be considered over those ignored and held victim for so long. If you keep worrying about the trickle down effect, the problem will never ever ever get fixed or prevented.

You just need to kill PSU.

Cut off it's head, spike it and show it as warning to others.

Period.

Too bad for the rest of football. It's not like they're getting raped in a shower stall or something.

Oh I completely agree. I'm just saying that a severe penalty to PSU will have implications to other programs and I'm wondering what those will be - or if the NCAA will consider those implications in punishing Penn State. I certainly hope those things aren't even considered and the case is dealt with as if in a vacuum, in a justice is blind sorta way, but we'll see.

[lokisnow]

I wondered about the same things, and then took a step back and asked myself: the fuck? All this concern for football. Isn't that what got us to this discussion in the first place? No one, not even me, wondered about the implications and consequences in the lives of these boys now young men. We need to stop worrying about football and the other teams or we'll never start worrying about the victims. Nothing, no football program in America, no collegiate athletes are more important or are to be considered over those ignored and held victim for so long. If you keep worrying about the trickle down effect, the problem will never ever ever get fixed or prevented.

You just need to kill PSU.

Cut off it's head, spike it and show it as warning to others.

Period.

Too bad for the rest of football. It's not like they're getting raped in a shower stall or something.

Exactly.

Heads.

Spikes.

Walls.

I don't give a SHIT if this inconveniences Ohio STate, Michigan, Nebraska, Wisconsin, et al. Find some fucking Sunbelt or MAC or conference USA team and invite them to immediately join the Big 10. It's not hard, any team in those conferences will pounce on the opportunity, and all eleven other Big10 teams will be thrilled because bringing up a team to replace Penn State will basically add a win to their records.

They deserve a one year suspension of football (and probably all athletic department sports) for every year they were affiliated with or covering up with Sandusky.

It's POSSIBLE the trickle down effects of severely ending competitive intercollegiate sports at a University for more than a decade will cause the entire university and community to crumble.

But that doesn't matter. You can't worry about the effects of the death penalty on the economy, you have to administer justice blindly for those boys.