<p>“I just find it difficult to see how “JoePa and the program” was protected by the the actions of Penn State.”</p>
<p>Why is it difficult? It has been rehashed so many times. Sandusky was an important coach and figure on the team. He used the team, the school name, the school facility, and his charity connected to the school as an aid in his child molestation endeavours. If it came out, even without any cover-up shenanigan, the squeaky clean PSU football would be no longer.</p>
<p>I speculate that there is something dirtybin paternos closet. And Sandusky knew. I think there was more then just a cover up of Sandusky. Yes follow the money. Paterno was too powerful to be clean. It might not be a huge thing, but enough forpaterno to not want it to get out, his ego was huge. All those years, there was something rotten in college tow</p>
<p>“Payment arranged (looks like they wanted him to go away).”</p>
<p>Nope.</p>
<p>"We didnt know that Paterno, well aware of every sick allegation, wanted Sandusky in 1999 to stay as Volunteer Position DirectorPositive Action for Youth.</p>
<p>The whole 1998 investigation reeks. Matt Sandusky’s mother was complaining loudly in 1995. 3 of the victims Sandusky was found guilty of abusing were abused between 1994 and 1997. They couldn’t find enough to file charges? Just how incompetent were they?</p>
<p>Reeks.</p>
<p>^Good point. Go to Second Mile and get a list of all the kids and start having the cops interview them one by one.</p>
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<p>Minor point, but the Stanford athletic teams are called “the Stanford Cardinal.” Singular. It’s a color. Like the Harvard Crimson.</p>
<p>"^Good point. Go to Second Mile and get a list of all the kids and start having the cops interview them one by one."</p>
<p>Not likely. Sandusky already faces 442 years. But every day the JoePa statue remains up, the Board of Trustees of Penn State inflicts another wound on each of them. </p>
<p>“The whole 1998 investigation reeks. Matt Sandusky’s mother was complaining loudly in 1995. 3 of the victims Sandusky was found guilty of abusing were abused between 1994 and 1997. They couldn’t find enough to file charges? Just how incompetent were they?”</p>
<p>They weren’t. Gricar wasn’t an idiot-child either. And JoePa likely knew about all of them.</p>
<p>mini, you missed my point, and actually I am making your point. The comment is pertaining to 1998 investigation. They claimed they did not have enough evidence. I thought all they have to do was to interview some of the Second Mile kids and they should be able to find a few abused ones back in 1998. Average paedophile abused several hundreds over their career. Obviously, they did not, so it “reeks”.</p>
<p>Those millions of $$ Second Mile still had should go for treatment of affected kids, including kids who didn’t disclose for this trial. I think we all can imagine how terrible it would be to be abused like this as a kid and then face lawyers, testimony, trials. The victims always feel shamed by the terrible acts of the adult. Someone needs to reach out to the kids “served” by this organization.</p>
<p>LA Times: Yes, this is a football scandal:</p>
<p>[Jerry</a> Sandusky scandal at Penn State can be tied to football - latimes.com](<a href=“http://www.latimes.com/sports/college/football/la-sp-0713-bill-plaschke-penn-state-20120713,0,3648992.column]Jerry”>Reality check for Penn State: Yes, it's a football scandal)</p>
<p>Excerpt:</p>
<p>“Read it and weep. Read it and heed. This is what happens when a university sports program becomes bigger than the university. This is what happens when a coach becomes more important than the ideals and values he is hired to coach…”</p>
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That was sarcasm. :)</p>
<p>Other excerpts from coureur’s link.</p>
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<p>My son says that even at his tiny LAC that puts very little resources into sports in general and football in particular, if there was sexual misconduct on campus, it was surprising how often it was connected with the football team. What also bothers me as a psychologist is the terrible head injuries that can happen. I imagine I’ll get flamed for saying this because there are probably all kinds of wonderful football players out there, but the game is pretty aggressive. I don’t love boxing either. Maybe it’s just me. And of course, this was not misconduct by the team that we’re talking about.</p>
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<p>I agree. This was a case of protecting the brand, PSU Football ™. You know how a lot of companies don’t like employees doing things like putting up drunk pictures of themselves on Facebook and such because it reflects badly on the company? This was the exact same thing. Except instead of this being the case of a guy at the company just unwisely getting drunk and taking stupid pictures, it was a case of a guy at the company raping little kids.</p>
<p>It’s really sad that the higher-ups reaction was not “oh God, let’s turn this guy in. Does anyone know the name of that poor kid?”, but instead “oh God, we’ve got to protect our brand!”</p>
<p>But it is NOT an unusual response.</p>
<p>Please understand that. It’s not unusual at all. If you write this off as being a one-time, crazy pattern of behavior, you will not be alert to situations where it could happen again. Anywhere where something (football, “the company”, a religious institution, a political party) is valued highly, really highly, it can happen. Because the people with power in that situation will be tempted to say, “Our institution/company/party is more important than one person’s pain. There’s no need for this to get out. Just ignore it.”</p>
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<p>Cue the slow facepalm.</p>
<p>With second mile they all looked good, see how nice we are to raise all this money for disadvantaged kids?</p>
<p>The second mile money went to a christian and I mean uber religious program in Texas for kids after second mile closed shop. Couldn’t it have stayed in pennysylvania? Again a follow the money.</p>
<p>bethievt: No, you are not the only one. There are more of us out there who just do not ‘get’ the whole sports/hero/we are something so special mentality. Don’t understand it coming from those on the field, nor those on the sidelines or in the stands. I say give it 10 years…the tide is turning and we will probably look back on this manic phase of idol worship and think…wow…what did they put in our water! :eek:</p>
<p>They all haunt me, but Victim 2 especially, the boy whom McQueary saw in the shower. Freeh noted that Penn State officials exposed this boy to additional harm by alerting Sandusky to McQueary’s report, since Sandusky was the only one who knew who he was. I hope I’m wrong but I have a terrible feeling about what might have happened to that boy.</p>
<p>I hope I’m right about this, though: When Mike McQueary closes his eyes at night, I hope he sees that child’s face, every single night, for the rest of his life.</p>
<p>Every institution has people like Sandusky - nobody should blame an organization for just that. The key is how the system detects and neutralizes them or aids and abets them. Paterno certainly deserves a legacy, not in football or anything else he has been recognized for, but in the context of being an enabler of abuse. That’s what his name should represent.</p>
<p>The report is damning to Paterno, Spanier, Curly, Schultz and many, many others there, and I expect there may be some more charges. However, Mini, how can you say with such certainty that Paterno knew about every single one of these cases? THat he knew about some, the evidence is there. THat he knew about a lot of things going on at the athletic center, is certain. But every single thing? Do you have info or is it suspicions that Paterno was actively involved in abuse too? </p>
<p>I am still having a hard time understanding how all fired important it was for Paterno to protect Sandusky. Why would he want him around Penn State? Was Sandusky bringing in that much money to Paterno? THe cash flow seems to be all going the other way. NOne of this makes any sense to me.</p>
<p>I hope a thorough investigation will continue to answer some of these questions. I’d also like that governor get his just deserts too. It looks to me that despite some article and questions about him, he is going to slithe out of this intact. Nothing oilier than a politician, and it seems to me he was the recipient of a good deal of the money. Now he’s panning his sources of funding and being sanctimonious about it. I hope they nail him.</p>
<p>cpt, re why it was so important to protect Sandusky, think about how it looked must have looked to Penn State officials at the time.</p>
<p>Say they hadn’t protected him, and had instead turned him in without delay in '98 or '01. It would have been a big story – “Squeaky-Clean Penn State Not So Squeaky-Clean” and headlines like that. It would have been the leading story of SportsCenter that night. There would have been segments on CNN and MSNBC. </p>
<p>There would have been embarassing questions. Some donors would have protested. There would have been some lawsuits. They might have had to testify.</p>
<p>And – IMO most important to them – it would have been a stain on their reputation. Remember that their claim to fame was winning “with honor” and they had come to believe their own press: Penn State is different. Penn State doesn’t tolerate bad behavior. Penn State is honorable, ethical, filled to the brim with integrity. That’s how they sold themselves, and that’s how the world saw them. As a result, they felt they simply couldn’t afford to be associated with crime, and especially not this kind of perverted crime. Little boys being sodomized just wasn’t an image they wanted to come to people’s minds when they thought of Penn State.</p>
<p>All of that is what they were envisioning in 2001. It seemed like the worst possible outcome. </p>
<p>But of course, they had forgotten what powerful men always forget – it’s not the crime that kills you; it’s the coverup. Their worst-case scenario now seems laughably insignificant. But at the time, turning Sandusky in must have seemed like a big PR problem which could be avoided altogether. So Sandusky was indeed valuable to them, or rather, Sandusky’s silence.</p>
<p>To me, the best way to protect “joePa and Penn State Legacy” would have been to show the bum the door. Call whoever needed to be called: shocked, appalled and saddened but we won’t stand for this behavior.</p>
<p>If supporting 2nd Mile was something they wanted to do (independent of Sandusky, it sounds like a program that could help kids) there is no reason they couldn’t have done that—without giving Sandusky keys. And if they had gone to the authorities, he would have been out of 2nd Mile anyway.</p>
<p>The governor has some questions to answer, 2nd Mile needs to be investigated-- there seems to be a lot of additional questions.</p>
<p>FYI I think a judge stopped 2nd Mile from transferring the remaining assets to the charity in Texas. I think lawyers for one of the victims filed legal papers to halt the transfer.</p>