Penn State Sandusky scandal

Parent Cafe
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This thread isn’t about child molestation, but about the way Penn State has responded to it. Do you honestly think nobody here cares about the victims - not just Sandusky’s but all other as well? Pert of caring about those victims is ensuring that it never happens again - and part of that is ensuring that an appropriate penalty is issued, to serve as a deterrent to any other college officials who find themselves in a similar situation.

I also support the players, and the student body too - at least those who don’t continue to complain about an appropriate punishment for the school. I feel bad for those who are one year into their program, who face the possibility that PSU could lose accreditation. I don’t think it’s likely, but it is a possibility. The BOT is acting like parents who instead of dealing with their problem child instead argue the “my little Johniee couldn’t have done that.” Well, your little Johnie did in fact do it, and you need to take deal with the consequences.</p>

<p>While I don’t think the “death penalty” was necessary, perhaps an appropriate penalty would have been to play this year’s home games in an empty stadium. That would have served as a reminded or what happened, but allowed the players to continue their games. Those who would have attended the games would be reminded of why they can’t watch their beloved team play. If the game were televised (I’m not sure if they should be - maybe they could be shown on taped delay), the empty seats would serve as a reminder - better than potential pictures of an empty stadium because no game was played.</p>

<p>Naturally is right - most of the changes have been forced upon PSU from the outside. It’s time for PSU (the institution) to accept responsibility for what happened, and make amend on its own. If one of my children does something to a sibling, it is far more satisfying to see a heartfelt apology accompanied by a change in behavior than an apology only offered after being told to do so. C’mon PSU BOT, where’s the heartfelt apology? I can maybe forgive the 10% of the student body that rioted, on the grounds they didn’t know the whole story, but they too need to show some remorse.</p>

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<p>cr2012 - Where’s the “like” button??? :)</p>

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<p>it was a very small percentage of students that rioted. i can believe there were big numbers of kids in the canyon but most were onlookers. if 5000 students rioted there would have been much much more damage . </p>

<p>someone will write a book about how the media threw more fuel on an already volatile situation. they should be charged too.</p>

<p>crosspost</p>

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<p>GRcxx3- I know there should be a “like” and “dislike” button!</p>

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<p>Were the players able to continue to play football while their so-called leaders covered up crimes? Yes
Was the band able to continue to play football while their leaders covered up crimes? Yes
Were the students able to continue to watch football while their leaders covered up crimes? Yes
Were the cheerleaders able to do whatever they do at football games while their leaders covered up crimes? Yes
Were the fans able to continue to watch home games while their leaders covered up crimes? Yes</p>

<p>Penn State should not have been allowed to play today or anytime for several years! But that would have required an ounce of integrity at the NCAA, the Big Ten conference, or at PSU. Since that was way to much to expect from that sorry bunch, any college leader with a backbone who found his school scheduled to play PSU should demand the games to be played in an empty stadium or simply refuse to play.</p>

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<p>xiggi - But the players, the band, the students, the cheerleaders and the fans DID NOT KNOW what was going on. The leaders were at fault, not the students and fans.</p>

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<p>^ And yet Spanier has not been cut loose.</p>

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<p>They already forgot or never cared? You are SO wrong it’s crazy. I was there and noticed firsthand many announcements of ways to support victims, thousands and thousands of T shirts stating “we care”, a moment of silence, people talking and contemplating what they could do to make a difference, students collecting money for victim services and I could go on. You choose to ignore all the good of the day to continue your cause of blaming all but you couldn’t be more wrong. After the game, we spent the day watching college football on TV. Alabama, Michigan, Clemson, Miami, etc. I see a lot of cheering fans! Kind of what we were doing today as well. I think its great that they can all have fun. Am I not worthy of doing that anymore? Because my son goes to a school that had this happen, I can never again enjoy a football game?</p>

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<p>The argument that innocent people - fans, players, coaches, etc. are paying the price for something they didn’t do is completely irrelevant and misses the point. The SCHOOL hired the coaches, the school let Sandusky run amok, the school administrators knew about it all and covered it up, and the school annointed Paterno eternal dictator status so he could give Sandusky a key to the showers, the school gave a statue to a liar and had to take it down…thus the SCHOOL pays the price. </p>

<p>Seriously, what do you think happened to the employees of Enron or Lehman Brothers who had no idea what their executives were doing? Or the pensions of retirees who lose their life savings through no fault of their own? Or a million other instances? Wake up, grow up, and shut up. That’s the way it works when you have INSTITUTIONAL CORRUPTION. The institution pays the price, and everyone and anyone affiliated with said institution, guilty or not, suffers for it. You want to blame somebody for PSU’s situation, blame Paterno, Sandusky and the admins - not the NCAA, not the media, and not everyone else.</p>

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<p>We are talking about innocent STUDENTS people! Are you all that ignorant here? Those who committed the crime and covered up should be punished NOT the STUDENTS! Penn State is an excellent academic institution - are you going to deny that? Really?</p>

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<p>StoneMountain, the victims are getting their day in court. One criminal is in jail for a long time, the others time in court is coming. Paterno’s name and family are being punished. The school has fines and probably lawsuits all over the place and is having their accreditation reviewed. The NCAA has effectively gutted that revenue stream. The institution is being punished in many different ways. If you follow your logic StoneMountain they would have to shut the college down because every single person faculty, students, and support staff are guilty by association with the university. And I wonder if that would be enough to satisfy your blood lust. And your beef is with the football team and the kids that attend and the parents paying tuition? It’s your vitriol that I don’t get. There’s only a handful of posters to date that ‘blame’ anyone other than Sandusky, Paterno and the administration and a few of those blame the sport of football.</p>

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<p><<and i="" wonder="" if="" that="" would="" be="" enough="" to="" satisfy="" your="" blood="" lust.="">></and></p>

<p>I doubt it. For some, the hate outweighs the logic.</p>

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<p>What I noted were the banners that said “Bill-ieve” for the new coach, Bill Belton.</p>

<p>And that’s precisely the problem that led to the culture that some of us on this thread decried. The focus on and idolization of a coach. It’s a freakin’ coach of a football team. PSU would be better served, IMO, by a) not transferring the idolization of Paterno to another coach, but focusing on the team and the teamwork; and b) treating the game as a pleasant event to do on a fall day, instead of something in which the outcome really matters. (Because, frankly, it doesn’t.) </p>

<p>There was a quote above about how would people feel if PSU won vs if PSU lost. And that’s part of the problem too. Caring too much about that. It’s a game. It’s played for amusement. Keep it in its proper perspective. No one has vitriol towards the players, but we do have vitriol towards a system where what should be just a nice fall distraction and social event becomes So Important and Symbolic of So Much.</p>

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<p>gosh, pizzagirl, I agree with you!</p>

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<p>Geez Pizzagirl - can’t you at least get the coach’s name right? It’s Bill O’Brien.</p>

<p>And while you may see the banners as a negative - I see them as a postive. People are trying to move on from the days of Paterno as being coach. They are supporting O’Brien and the various changes that he has made. That’s got to be a “good” thing, right?</p>

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Do you know how many stadiums boast banners like this, praising a coach? I think most of the big schools have them.</p>

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<p>I also agree with you, Pizzagirl (except regarding the new coach’s name; it’s Bill O’Brien).</p>

<p>Where Penn State went off the rails was in allowing football to be elevated from an extracurricular activity for the participants and a pleasant fall weekend diversion for the students, alums, and fans in the community, to . . . well, for want of a better term, a cult. And not just a cult within the university, but a cult that defined and consumed the university. And they allowed appreciation and respect for a successful football coach to morph into veneration and canonization of the high priest of the cult, one Joseph V. Paterno. It became a true cult of personality: JoePa was Penn State football, and Penn State football was Penn State. And it came with a certain smugness and moral superiority: “OUR coach is the legendary St. Joe who runs a squeaky-clean program, perhaps the only program in the country with real integrity, and we STILL manage to beat you, because ‘We Are Penn State!’”</p>

<p>It all turned out to be a lie, of course; it was an utterly hollow and hypocritical claim.</p>

<p>But the moral rot at the center of the football program wasn’t the result of football per se or anything the athletes or band members did. It was the* cult* of football and its inseparable twin, the cult of JoePa, that caused normal lines of accountability to be inverted, so that instead of the football coach working for the athletic director, and the athletic director working for the president, and the president working for the governing board, it was almost universally acknowledged that JoePa was the most powerful figure in the Penn State community. For all practical purposes, the athletic director worked for him, and the president, while not exactly working for him, couldn’t touch him. Neither could the Trustees, who sat quietly on the sidelines as just another group of JoePa acolytes until Penn State was absolutely reeling from the Sandusky crisis, and JoePa publicly announced that the Board of Trustees needn’t worry about him because he had already determined his own future—thereby underscoring in a time of crisis the insubordination that really defined his tenure at Penn State. That p.r. blunder pretty much forced the Trustees to fire him so as to maintain some public pretense that they were still running the show. </p>

<p>It’s the resistance of Penn State students, alums, and football fans to give up the trappings of the cult that’s so disturbing. There’s official acceptance of the NCAA sanctions, even as many, perhaps most Penn State football cultists continue to insist the sanctions were unjust. Nominally, at least, Tim Curley remains the AD, though suspended in favor of an interim AD, with no indication that a normal AD-over-coach line of accountability will ever be created, and some fans clamoring for immediate canonization of the new coach. The trustees and the interim president give every indication of being as bumbling and ineffectual as ever. </p>

<p>And the cult of football, it appears, still reigns supreme in Happy Valley.</p>

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<p>So WHAT? This is where you guys aren’t getting it. It’s irrelevant to Penn State’s redemption that “well, other schools have banners praising their coach, so why can’t we.” Great. Let 'em. Not the point at all. That’s their problem, not yours. </p>

<p>YOUR school suffered a terrible tragedy because a coach was overly venerated and hence rose to the level of god-like status and deference. So maybe, just maybe, one of the steps in making sure it doesn’t happen again is not to venerate the next coach. </p>

<p>And gosh, sorry I didn’t have the coach’s last name correct. That’s just so awful, not to be fully appreciative of the importance of college football coaches.</p>

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<p>No, Grcxx3, it’s not a good thing. It demonstates that Penn State knows no other way to conduct a football program than idolizing the coach. And what changes has O’Brien made which are supposed to prevent football from ever again becoming too important? Names on the jerseys? Players allowed to have facial hair? Scrapping “Sweet Caroline”? And yet “Paternoville” – oops, “Nittanyville” – still flourished on Friday. And “The second he walks out there Saturday, that’s his team,” [Penn State senior Jeffrey] Lowe said. The adoration is merely transferred to a new object, and football worship goes on unabated. Nothing has changed.</p>

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<p>For a great many who have posted tirelessly on this exhaustive thread, there is no commensurate atonement or penance by Penn State (students, BOT, employees, fans, etc., collectively). </p>

<p>Regardless of knowledge, involvement or association, until Penn State institutionally is completely demoralized or ceases to exist, these posters will not be satisfied. </p>

<p>Nazi Germany? Pedophile State? You demean those tragedies and those victims.</p>