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Likely shock and fear. Shock at seeing a former senior coach doing something like that. Fear for confronting him in the act. In hindsight, while not the most heroic thing to do, he did report what he witnessed to the head coach.</p>
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<p>According to an article I posted some pages back, the Board is also very upset about the statements that both Spanier and Paterno made, without their input. They feel that they made things worse by making these statements and didn’t have the best interests of the university at heart. It’s harsh, but I think this is a message from the Board that is about more than just who knew what then. It was the Board’s attempt to wrangle some cannons that had been loose for way too many years.</p>
<p>People are making a lot of suppositions as to what Paterno was thinking or what he knew. Everyone has a theory, and based on a one-sided grand jury report are more than willing to tell us what exactly happened at Penn State. So far, it is a lot of “I think or I suspect” more than anything else. Gosh, I may have my own theories, but I am not ready to substitute my assumptions for what may have actually happened.</p>
<p>The circumstantial evidence that Joe knew is strong. A guy like him hears EVERYTHING. The campus cops investigated in 1998. You think none tipped off Joe?? I’m not a big believer in coincidences.</p>
<p>"Kelly said several times that this investigation isn’t over. A reporter asked if Paterno knew about the 1998 investigation of Sandusky on child molestation charges. She said she didn’t know, because that investigation was handled by university police. (My view is that it is impossible to believe that Paterno wouldn’t have known about that. In fact, it is reasonable to believe that Paterno’s telling Sandusky that he wouldn’t follow in the Penn State head coach slot, thus triggering Sandusky’s retirement in 1999, comes from this.)</p>
<p>Additionally, Board members had different levels of information, and some are ticked about that. Reportedly, some knew months ago about the investigation and some didn’t.</p>
<p>Ughhh…the hits just keep on coming …From the Patriot News</p>
<p>Until 1998, none of the young victims came forward to tell their story — not to the police or to anyone. It is a terrible cruelty that the trauma of sex abuse often drives victims into silence when sharing their story could help them and others.
In 1998, a boy who was 12 at the time told police that Sandusky had showered with him in the Penn State football locker room during a tour. The boy claimed Sandusky assaulted him during the shower.</p>
<p>During our own investigation, years later, the mother told us that she had been specifically instructed by state police not to speak with reporters.
No charges were filed against Sandusky in 1998. With the mother cowed into silence, the incident remained buried.</p>
<p>No further victims or witnesses spoke up until the 2002 incident that involved Mike McQueary, Paterno and other top university officials.
It appears from the grand jury presentment that the school’s aim was to handle this report very quietly. They succeeded. No one who had been directly involved talked about it at the time. No one.
Sandusky flaunted the so-called “ban” on his bringing kids to campus — in fact, he held Second Mile camps on other Penn State campuses as recently as 2008. We never noticed any sanctions against the former coach because they didn’t really exist.
In the years that followed, still more victims maintained their silence.</p>
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<p>There are some things that happen that are so horrible, so egregious, that the people in charge when they happen just look in the mirror and say, “gee, I didn’t really know everything that was going on, but it was damn sure my job to know it so I’m falling on that sword.” When things are so screwed up, at the institutional level, there are always people who were in a position to know. As Spiderman knows, “with great power comes great responsibility.”</p>
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<p>This is what Paterno told the grand jury.</p>
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Paterno could have driven the GA down to the police station Saturday morning.
But Paterno was a busy man.</p>
<p>^ Yes, but exactly what did he know? (Being facetious.)</p>
<p>parents57 said he read that, but it is not convincing enough. I guess it could have been harmless playing around with a young boy naked in the shower at 9:30pm with no one else around.</p>
<p>When you are the CEO, you don’t get the benefit of the doubt. And Paterno was the CEO, make no mistake about it. Curley worked for him. Heck, Spanier worked for him, too.</p>
<p>Paterno got given a pass by the grand jury, which is fine with me because I don’t think he committed any crime. But he richly deserved to be fired, not for what he did one day in 2002, but for what he tolerated after that, for completely failing to anticipate this firestorm and to prepare the Board and the University for damage control, and for how he handled himself this week, attempting to dictate to the Board.</p>
<p>Like many of his supporters, I’m sure he had no idea of the extent of his one-time friend’s depravity. If he had, of course he would have done more about it. So would anyone. But they all stuck their heads in the sand to avoid knowing. (Including Mike McQueary by the way. He needs to experience some more of life outside Happy Valley, too.) That can and should keep them out of jail, but it doesn’t keep them in prominent public leadership positions.</p>
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<p>When I first read this, I thought it meant that Paterno called Curley at home, but isn’t it saying that Paterno summoned Curley to his home that Sunday? If so, that says something about the hierarchy.</p>
<p>Oh, yea, Paterno basically told them to take a hike years ago when they talked to him about retiring.</p>
<p>Sandusky was bringing boys to Penn state footbal practices for years after the 2002 assault, he was coaching high school football, my guess is not just anyone isballowed to hang out at practices and it can really be exciting forna boyntonsee that</p>
<p>Also it appears Sandusky was a bully when it came to his victims and other boys</p>
<p>As for paterno not having an idea of sanduskys depravity,how many times do you need to be told someone has assaulted boys, two or three at a minimum isn’t enough? </p>
<p>I think one time hearing would put up major warning signs for most people</p>
<p>This was already said before, but it’s worth repeating: When McQuery talked to Paterno, if McQuery wasn’t specific it was Paterno’s responsibility to get him to be specific. If someone told me they saw inappropriate sexual behavior between a 50+ year old and a pre-teen, my first question is “What did you see?” And then, “what was he doing?” I want specifics. If Paterno didn’t get specifics, he should have. </p>
<p>And why did he have to wait an entire day to call his superiors? </p>
<p>I don’t have to hear anymore about what Paterno did or didn’t do to believe he did the wrong thing. I read the grand jury report. It’s pretty clear to me he did NOT take responsible steps to stop child sexual abuse. </p>
<p>Same for the rest of the higher ups. It seems crystal clear what McQuery saw, and all the administrators had to do was ask him about it.</p>
<p>As for McQuery – he’s a big guy. He was quarterback his senior year. If I saw a molestation in progress I might run away for fear that the molester would hurt me. But McQuery? He should have marched into that shower and rescued that little boy.</p>
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<p>It wasn’t convincing enough for Joe either.</p>
<p>Joe says that he didn’t know the full details. </p>
<p>Joe says that if he knew Sandusky was *<em>**ing a young boy in the </em>, Joe would have done more.</p>
<p>But all Joe knew was that Sandusky was “fondling or doing something of a sexual nature to a young boy”, in the locker room of Joe’s football team. </p>
<p>That was not enough for Joe to get involved in the matter. Joe is a busy man.</p>
<p>Why would McQueary say that he was more specific with Paterno than he was? It would have been in McQueary’s best interests to play down what he saw. He certainly isn’t looking to get Paterno in trouble and he would come out of this looking better if he had only seen some “horse play.” There is no incentive for McQueary to lie about what he told Paterno.</p>
<p>I am going to reintroduce, briefly, two of my themes from yesterday:</p>
<ol>
<li> What do people think of the AG? She had a perfectly great case against the abuser, Sandusky, on many counts. She could have brought it, and it would have been sensational news in the sports world and in central PA. The news media would have been all over what did Paterno know and when did he know it.<br></li>
</ol>
<p>Instead, she effectively trumped up charges against two administrators, against whom I think she has little or no chance of getting a conviction, in connection with an incident where there is also little or no chance of getting a conviction. (No complaining victim, one brief eyewitness, plus three pillars of the community saying that the eyewitness told them something different at the time = no case.) That let her tell a story that deeply embarrasses Penn State (and Paterno, to whom she gave a pass). And now it hardly matters whether she gets to collect the $200 fine or whatever from the administrators for failing to report an abuse allegation in 2002, because everyone is being roundly punished.</p>
<p>I find that a scary abuse of prosecutorial discretion and grand jury investigative powers. Most people I talk to applaud her for doing it (and somewhere in my heart I do, too, at least a little). She was acting more like the Morals Police than a careful lawyer, but she had a rich target.</p>
<ol>
<li> Mike McQueary. The grand jury found him extremely credible. Three pillars of the community, who were his employers until they got fired or suspended this week, say he is lying. All of us feel conflicted – him, too, almost certainly – about how he responded to what he says he saw.</li>
</ol>
<p>He is the black hole of this case to me. I don’t have a handle on him, and he sucks in all the light. Why are we so sure he’s telling the truth now about what he saw and said in 2002? If he’s telling the truth, how has he stomached coming to work at Penn State every day for the past 9 years? As he grew and gained confidence – I think he’s been Joe’s main sideline guy this season – did he ever say anything to anyone to try to shut Sandusky down?</p>
<p>When you include the other incidences with witnesses, the phone calls, the almost stalkingnlike behavior of Sandusky, his admission to one of the victims mom, his being barred from schools, and the at least 8 victims so far, i tend to believe mcqueary. All the others have know about sandusky since at least 1998</p>
<p>Personally, I think Paterno and the senior administrators knew <em>exactly</em> was Sandusky was doing to little boys on the property in 1998 if not long before that. There’s been no proof of that, so I have to give them a pass on letting the guy hang around campus after the first complaint (for now - I’m sure it will come out just how long they knew full well what was going on).</p>
<p>But in 2002 we know that they knew something bad was going on - by their own words to the Grand Jury. Paterno knew, Curley knew, Schwartz knew. Those in charge of the football program AND the school knew that Sandusky was behaving inappropriately with boys on campus (and I think they knew way more, but all we have is the CYA tapdancing on record). They knew, and yet they let this guy keep coming back on campus. They let him use the athletic facilities, with boys in tow. They let him use the football facilities, with boys in tow. They let his program operate on a Penn State satellite campus. Was that a criminal act? I don’t know, that’s for the authorities to decide. Was that in the best interests of Penn State and its reputation? Most definitely not, and for that the Board of Trustees is well within its rights to fire the people who certainly did not make decisions in the (long-term) best interests of the school.</p>
<p>The courts can take care of the criminal prosecution and I hope Sandusky gets the full punishment he is due. Now Penn State needs to clean house, and the firings of Spanier and Paterno had better only be the beginning. Anyone still working at PSU who was involved in this farce needs to be out on their ear, from the supervisor that didn’t walk that janitor over to the police to report what he saw Sandusky doing, to the GA who walked away from a little boy being raped, right up to those on the Board of Trustees who also knew what was going on and didn’t rip the lid off of this as soon as it came to their attention months (or for some, years) ago.</p>
<p>The sad thing is, all this could have been avoided if those in power had just had the decency to do the right thing in the first place. Hopefully other institutions will learn that lesson, we’d all be better off.</p>