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<p>You are right. I’m realizing there are people that deep in denial.</p>
<p>Wow, guys, now you’re hurting my feelings. In other words, you still can’t back up what you are saying. Dense? Then why the attacks?</p>
<p>OK, now it’s denial. Really? I’m just askin for some facts.</p>
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<p>I changed that because I decided it probably has no place here.</p>
<p>But yes, you appear to be in extreme denial. You really don’t have to take the fact that your alma mater let the football program and its interests take charge to a felonious degree so personally. Maybe the whole “WE ARE Penn State” explains why so many of them do.</p>
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<p>Cool, then certainly you agree it’s ridiculous for outside groups to protest the sanctions.</p>
<p>What part of “top-ranking university officials, including the president, changed course and deferred to the football coach on a matter that fell into their hands because they didn’t want to curry any disfavor with him” don’t you understand?</p>
<p>Nrdsb4, What? I thought you were arguing that the football program was running PSU. Take charge to a felonious degree? Seems like a shift in sentiment.</p>
<p>Pizzagirl, I gave my opinion on the sanctions. Ask them about theirs. I think it would be ridiculous for me to speak on their behalf. What part of “gimme a fact and I’ll respond” don’t you understand. I guess it is easier to argue with unnamed, unreferenced quotes.</p>
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<p>Of course it was. It was running PSU-i.e. it “took charge of PSU.” ;)</p>
<p>Collegekidsmom has a long posting history of being unreasonably defensive about the schools her kids attend. This goes back at least to 2010 when she attacked me for being concerned that my Penn senior lived right where a movie theater shooting occurred at the edge of campus. Her general thinking was that her Penn son was smarter and safer than other kids because he had a big heavy lock for his bicycle. </p>
<p>Her reaction to this Penn State situation is identical- the school and all its parts can do no wrong. I guess I like to think most of us are a little more evolved than that.</p>
<p>“August 1999: Sandusky is granted “emeritus” rank, which carries several privileges, including access to University recreational facilities.
December 1999: Sandusky brings Victim 4 to 1999 Alamo Bowl.
Sandusky assaults Victim 4 at team hotel.”</p>
<p>I still want to know who paid for the Alamo Bowl trip, who signed the checks, who authorized the checks, what contact the Professor Emeritus had with which recruits. It’s a clear violation of the Mann Act, it’s child sex trafficking under the law, and everyone who was involved was at minimum an accessory, and may have engaged in a criminal conspiracy to commit child sex trafficking. </p>
<p>Of course, I doubt the University has any interest in finding out.</p>
<p>^^^^Oh, I see. The fact that one’s alma mater was being run by the football program to the degree that a child rapist was harbored, hidden, aided, abetted, and even rewarded in order to protect an image of perfection, “honor,” and integrity of said football program would indeed be a bitter pill to swallow. But at some point, you have to take your medicine.</p>
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<p>Does anyone in law enforcement have any interest in finding out?</p>
<p>Can we stop this whole *****fest? PSU made some mistakes, I think it is hardly a surprise that it has been run by it’s athletics for years now, it was quite clear, and it got sanctioned, as it should. Honestly, I was not expecting nearly this heavy a punishment from the NCAA, which normally is too afraid that one of its star school getting sanctioned will get hurt their reputation.</p>
<p>Either way, arguing whether collegekidsmom is being stupid is pointless, as is the insults to her. If she thinks its perfectly fine to let coaches cover up pedophilia, so be it, unless she is a college administrator herself, she is in no position to hurt anyone by her senseless rambling.</p>
<p>Wow, holy heck, MOWC that is impressive!!! I am so very, very sorry for the 2010 attack. Wow, don’t know what I was thinking. I hope your son is okay! To attack you for being concerned is clearly an awful way to be. I don’t have time to go back and check but I’m sure that your guidance helped me to see that the big heavy lock was just a cover for my unreasonable defensiveness. I do have other children. Please, please tell me that I wasn’t cruel to you over their bike locks. Really, I am buying them smaller locks and trying to change my ways. </p>
<p>I said that the school and all its parts can do no wrong? Must be true since you researched back to at least 2010.<br>
Really, you’d be the expert on who have evolved and who hasn’t. Impressive</p>
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<p>I can’t argue with that.</p>
<p>Do you have a prediction on the outcome of lawsuits/appeals vs. these sanctions?</p>
<p>I’m wondering what can happen with these lawsuits in the short amount of time between their filing and the opening games. If a judge found the lawsuits to have merit, what would happen to all the student athletes who have signed w/other schools? Would the sanctions be allowed to stand unless and until a potentially four year litigation process was completed in the plaintiffs’ favor?</p>
<p>Kind of interesting how this is all playing out.</p>
<p>hawkeyes55, Ouch! Maybe you could just skip over my senseless ramblings.</p>
<p>As I continue to read all these posts, it’s clear that there will always be a divide. I think everyone is in agreement that something horrible occurred. Some, like myself, aren’t so much upset about sanctions, etc but really it’s just hard reading some of the demeaning remarks and generalizations made against our children. Regardless, we will never all come to agreement in all of this. There are varying degrees of acceptance - all the way up to denial and misunderstanding. Part of it may just take time - evidence will come out, information will be shared, and for some, there will be acceptance where at this point there is none. Everybody processes differently - and denial is a natural defense when dealing with a tough situation.</p>
<p>As someone who worked with victims for over 20 years and spent over 10 years directly investigation sexual abuse with CPS, I can tell you that denial is rampant. The average pedophile has 212 victims (depending on what source you use you may find 180 or another number but you get my point). How do you think they are able to have so many victims? They’re good at what they do. Not just with their approaches with the children, but how they fool the caretakers and other adults in that child’s life. I would say that probably about 1/2 my cases had adults questioning whether the child was telling the truth. I often had mothers that chose to believe their husbands over the child. Or a babysitter, or a neighbor. “But, they’re so nice” or “They’re so good to hiim/her, they would never do that”. Yes - we also would have that wonder parent who believed their child over anything. But my point is, denial - and lack of follow through on an adult’s part was more typical than you’d want to see. We also often had cases we had to close out as unfounded as we lacked evidence, even though we know it happened. Those were hard - especially when you know that abuser was still out there - and still having contact with children. In high profile cases, they would often have their backers convinced that the child was lying, and they were the victim in it all. Often times when we’d interview the victim, it would come out that they’ve already told multiple people about what happened. They were told to stay quiet, don’t tell, etc. This was not rare at all.</p>
<p>I have no idea what happened at Penn State - and I won’t even begin to speculate. What happened was wrong and there are no excuses at all. But, after seeing what I have for so many years, it’s no different than what happens daily all over the country. Sad but true. Choosing to believe the abuser, turning the other way, deciding the child is lying or that the abuser was “too nice” or “too good” to do that, etc. is part of how the pedophile gets away with it for so long. When we give our abuse prevention talks to kids, we teach them to tell and tell again until somebody believes. We teach them to keep telling, to identify a trusted adult and if that fails, try another. We teach the teachers to not question the disclosere, but to report. As you all know, they’re mandated reported. But, many believe that they’re mandated to report onlly if they know something is happening (i.e disclosure) but they need to know they’re mandated to report if they SUSPECT it. Education is everything. 20 years ago - we were not doing these lectures, training what to do in that situation,etc. </p>
<p>Am I using this as an excuse for Penn State? Absolutely not. There’s no excuse for a cover-up. But, when you think about everything that happened, I do think that it may have played a role. What began as denial, or being fooled, or not knowing how to handle a situation or realizing how serious it was and deciding to ignore it and hope it went away. (bad choice - not saying that’s ok at all) turned into someone realizing that they screwed up and the problem was more wide spread than they imagined. Then they feel it’s too late to do something. Then it snowballs from there. We had this happen often - obviously on a smaller scale.</p>
<p>Again, this long winded post isn’t about making excuses, denying blame or saying what happened is ok. On any level - it’s not. But, what I’m saying is it’s so important to understand sexual abuse dynamics if you want to figure this whole mess out. Everything that happened previously at Penn State - and how everyone is reacting now (guilt, blame, anger, etc.) - is all part of the process. </p>
<p>The sad thing is this is happening everywhere. Not just at Penn State. Not just in the Catholic Church, the Boy Scouts or the local little league coach. This is happening in homes every day - within families. My hope is that instead of attacking each other non-stop, this can turn out positive not just for Penn State but in raising awareness across the country to save others from victimizaiton.</p>
<p>Sorry to ramble - but I’ve wanted to get this off my chest for awhile. I have to run out and pick up my son quickly and don’t have time to proof read this - so please pardon any typos and don’t knit pick my words choices - be nice!!</p>
<p>Too late to edit my post; apparently appeals have been filed, one of which was stated to be a precursor to a federal lawsuit. So I believe that as of now, no lawsuit has been filed. </p>
<p>But once the NCAA denies these appeals and a lawsuit is filed, I’m sure the plaintiffs will ask a judge to enact at least a temporary injunction against the sanctions. I wonder how that will will translate into action, both as it relates to defecting players, scholarship limits, bowl games, etc.</p>
<p>“Does anyone in law enforcement have any interest in finding out?”</p>
<p>I actually doubt it. Really. Why would the feds expend energy and resources on a Mann Act prosecution of a guy who already faces 442 years in prison? And it would only be by prosecuting him that they would find all the other players. </p>
<p>I doubt there will be a law enforcement investigation of the potential quid pro quos, either in the case of Gricar in 1998, or with Second Mile/current Governor much later. There may be civil cases regarding victims in the 1970s and 1980s, but I can’t see why this is going to lead to JoePa and Co., and the cases will likely be settled out of court.</p>
<p>There’s a Pulitzer in it for someone, but it may be 5-6 years down the road. And no, I don’t really believe it is about “denial” or “suspicions” (though it may have begun as that) - I think if/when all is known, it will be seen as intentional criminal conspiracies at the highest levels of Penn State and of the state government. We’ll see. (Actually, we likely won’t.)</p>
<p>collegkidsmom, I’m not quite sure what you’re disputing about the facts here. Are you saying that no child abuse happened at all? Or that child abuse happened, but JoePa didn’t know about it? Or JoePa knew about it, but didn’t block the plan to report Sandusky in 2001? Because all of those facts are clear beyond any reasonable dispute. I don’t understand what you’re still refusing to accept.</p>
<p>And if Penn State lost nothing, then what is everyone upset about?</p>
<p>mini - there already was a Pulitzer in it for somebody…a Penn State grad, in fact!</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/mediawire/170392/sara-ganim-24-wins-pulitzer-for-coverage-of-penn-state-sex-abuse-scandal/[/url]”>http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/mediawire/170392/sara-ganim-24-wins-pulitzer-for-coverage-of-penn-state-sex-abuse-scandal/</a></p>
<p>Oh, I knew that, but she just got the tip of the iceberg.</p>