<p>The charges are so grave, so horrifying, I can see as it went up the chain people might have doubted the increasingly vague “he said, he said” charges. It’s the sort of thing that seems beyond belief and would be a terrible thing to accuse falsely. </p>
<p>Of course it’s also a terrible thing to sweep under the rug, but I thing men are in denial about the existence of this sort of evil. If it had been a little girl, wouldn’t he have rescued her then?</p>
<p>McCreary should have kept on, even at the expense of his job. If he saw what he saw, then that’s all that counts.</p>
<p>He knew enough that he went and talked to Second Mile about the incident. He knew enough to make recommendations and issue order for Sandusky not to come on campus with kids. Yet it was an empty and useless order and he has the power to at least fully enforce his own recommendation. We are not talking about criminal legal threshold, I am talking about simple decency to protect the school, the public and the potential victims.</p>
<p>working with human resources on many reports of inappropriate behavior, first course of action with ANY report, a FULL investigation. That would be the normal process of any workplace in this decade. For any of these top leaders to claim, “all they told me was horseplay” is utterly ridiculous. It was THEIR job to ask, “what do you mean by horseplay? what exactly did S do?” “Have their been any other similar complaints. Why is he on our campus?” They were the leaders of PSU, it is outrageous that they now sit back and claim they weren’t given enough info. That is simply their strategy. and imho it was their strategy all along. To NOT fully investigate so that they could later say, I didn’t know it was so bad.</p>
<p>and Tripoli lost her position when she spoke up about the need to discipline players for aggressive behavior. This was their strategy. And in football isn’t that what they are constantly doing, coming up with a winning strategy, play by play.</p>
<p>tt_ I thought Curley went to the Second Mile. Did Spanier go also? </p>
<p>myturn- do we know that Spanier did not ask what horseplay meant? Do we know what he was told? Are we making assumptions or do we know?</p>
<p>I also do not see why Paterno and Spanier would handle this in the same way since earlier on this thread I read they were in a power struggle with Paterno having the power. Why would Spanier do this if he was fully informed- could he have been mislead by what horseplay was?</p>
<p>first course of action with ANY report, a FULL investigation- maybe Spanier was told there was a full investigation- to the extent horseplay would be investigated.</p>
<p>Yes, Spanier went with Curley to Second Mile. And Paterno was asked to leave in 2004, in 2002, everything could have been great at the time, I don’t think you can assume there is power struggle back in 2002. Penn State football did not do very well in 2003-2004 years and that is probably the main reason why.</p>
<p>And there you go again, you can question that we can’t assume anything but you went ahead and assume a number of things; Paterno in power struggle with Spanier, Spanier was not fully informed, and he was lied to about a full investigation. Same old play book again. Let’s just stick with the facts.</p>
<p>There were no investigation because there is no record of any investigation, no police report, no child welfare report, or any other reports. If there was an investigation then Spanier should have a copy of a report to make his subsequent decision, should he not? Spanier never made such ridiculous claim, why are you making such points?</p>
<p>tt- I may have phrased my post poorly but I am not assuming anything I am asking. I fully acknowledge that I do not have all the information needed to make a decision on what happened and who was at fault.</p>
<p>I guess what I am asking is for those of you so certain you know who are to blame if you can give me concrete examples I can read that are factual and not inference. Now again you all may be correct and I agree you can have an opinion based on what we know. For me I do not see what my having an opinion without all the information helps though.</p>
<p>Are you the least bit concerned that you are excoriating someone that may not deserve it or does the fact that this such a terrible event make it okay?</p>
<p>“Also didn’t Spanier want Paterno out of coaching- so why would he cover up for the football team? Could he have used this incident to push Paterno out?”</p>
<p>Do not know Spanier’s motivation, nor is it particularly relevant, imo. He did not do what was required. Why, is not that significant. It was apparently something they all wanted swept under the rug, if not for the football team, bringing in some $50 million a year (bottom line) then for the school rep as a whole.</p>
<p>“And there you go again, you can question that we can’t assume anything but you went ahead and assume a number of things; Paterno in power struggle with Spanier, Spanier was not fully informed, and he was lied to about a full investigation. Same old play book again. Let’s just stick with the facts.”</p>
<p>Paterno was in major investments with second mile board members, etc. Not sure about the rest but they all are so interconnected even if they personally disliked someone money and reputation often surpasses doing thenrght thing</p>
<p>tt- I may have phrased my post poorly but I am not assuming anything I am asking. I fully acknowledge that I do not have all the information needed to make a decision on what happened and who was at fault.</p>
<p>I wish you were consistent and stick with your position instead of making weird alternative excuses that are usually false and then fall back on claiming you just want everyone to be fair. The two really have nothing to do with each other in my mind.</p>
<p>I am not making any “weird accusations” I am asking questions. That fact is you and many others have made findings of guilt without all the information. You may well be correct and again you have the right to your opinion but again I ask what if you are wrong? Does this help the victims? If so how? Does the fact that something is a real tragedy make it okay to possible smear innocent people. That genie can never be put back in the bottle. Don’t you think that if people made errors and did not cover up something their actions should be judged differently?</p>
<p>So to be clear we do not know for sure who did what and why- we need to find out as much as possible- to jump to conclusions about anyone now does not help the victims. We do need to find out if there was a cover up, human error or even worse some sinister conduct as mini infers.
I do not know what Curley, McQuery, Paterno, Schultz or Spanier are guilty of or not guilty of yet. It is possible some covered up, some made errors, some were mislead or any combination of all of them. But I will return back to the point what if they just made errors or even were mislead how does it help to condemn them?</p>
<p>“That fact is you and many others have made findings of guilt without all the information.”</p>
<p>We are not sitting on a jury. Statements have been made in the press and GJ report. I’ve connected the dots. I don’t care about motivation. I care about results. The men in authority at PSU failed the victims. That’s my opinion and I’m entitled to it. More will come, but I sincerely doubt I will change my mind.</p>
<p>You are absolutely entitled to your opinion- you are even entitled to not change your opinion.</p>
<p>You also should not have an issue if someone challenges your opinion or how you arrived at it.</p>
<p>You see by challenging you that does not mean someone supports child molesters, or cover ups or is only supporting a football coach because they idolize football- it could mean that they think facts and the truth are important.</p>
<p>Look, the use of the word “horseplay” as in " it was just horseplay, that’s all I was told so don’t hold me accountable if it was worse than that" is ridiculous. </p>
<p>What is horseplay?? ask 10 people get 10 answers. For Spanier to use that word when he was interrogated, and to not then provide what HE understood that actually meant, demonstrates he purposefully did not want to be clear. For him to say that’s what he was told and that’s all it was is to demonstrate keeping it murky, unclear. The questions that would have been asked as part of an investigation are these; what specific behavior was observed, ie. was there touching of genitals, was it hugging, was the child screaming. </p>
<p>I believe Paterno told PSU administrators that the behavior McQueary saw was of a sexual nature. Sorry but I think it is crystal clear, that Spanier, Curley and Schultz are feigning not knowing.</p>
<p>Did Paterno discuss this with Spanier- I do not recall seeing that.</p>
<p>If someone told me a kid and a coach were in the shower and there was “horseplay” I think prior to this I would have thought that meant the adult was allowing the kid to do something like run and slide along the wet floor. I do not think I would have asked if horseplay meant the adult was grabbing the boys genitals but maybe back in 2002 others may have thought to ask if horseplay meant something sexual.</p>
<p>Now since we tie the 1998 event to Sandusky we see every piece of information as needing to be clarified and looked at in that light. I have no idea why Spanier did not- maybe he did and was looking for some reason to ignore it and horseplay gave him that out- or so he thought.</p>
<p>“You see by challenging you that does not mean someone supports child molesters, or cover ups or is only supporting a football coach because they idolize football- it could mean that they think facts and the truth are important.”</p>
<p>I never insinuated any such thing. I also think facts and truth are important. </p>
<p>However, I also believe that some people, when presented with facts, are nevertheless extremely naive.</p>
<p>Whether or not the child was screaming is irrelevant; many victims of sexual assault do not scream or aggressively fight their attacker. These guys didn’t need any more excuses to explain their inaction (“well, the kid wasn’t screaming, so it couldn’t have been sexual”).</p>
<p>If you are the president of a university and you are told that a coach and a child were engaging in “horseplay” in the shower on university property, you would have a responsibility to clarify that. It would require minimal effort to ask a simple question.</p>