<p>McQuery now wont coach at the next fb game- he has received “threats”</p>
<p>I wonder why?..</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/11/sports/ncaafootball/mcqueary-wont-coach-in-game-vs-nebraska.html[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/11/sports/ncaafootball/mcqueary-wont-coach-in-game-vs-nebraska.html</a></p>
<p>One of the things that I have found most deeply disconcerting is the apparent dissonance between Paterno/Penn State, the squeaky clean, and the utter vileness of what, apparently, has been overlooked and/or covered up by that administration and staff.</p>
<p>This article does a nice job of getting to the heart of that, in its comparison to the fictional place of Omelas: [Omelas</a> State University ? Whatever](<a href=“http://whatever.scalzi.com/2011/11/10/omelas-state-university/]Omelas”>Omelas State University | Whatever)</p>
<p>The language is strong, by the way.</p>
<p>It could be said that the child was beyond being able to be saved. He was already abused and who knows how many times before. I don’t know what happened afterwards but the abuse may have stopped because McQ saw it by accident. I heard one rumour on why McQ is not fired so far because he is protected under whistle blowing law.</p>
<p>“annasdad- 28 not 23. You have a propensity to misstate information and claim facts from inference.”</p>
<p>I’ve seen both of these ages reported. Don’t know why.</p>
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<p>Yes, that makes a real difference, doesn’t it?</p>
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<p>annasdad, the GA was 28 years old at the time. A grown man pushing 30 ought to be able to gather himself enough to at least call for help.</p>
<p>And I wonder whether the threats are against McQ because of what he didn’t to do help the boy, or because he testified against JoePa & Co?</p>
<p>^ probably both</p>
<p>
I agree with you. There are some things we know into our souls about what kind of people we are. If I absolutely knew that was happening, I would interfere. If I suspected, I’m not sure what I would do. Probably raise a ruckus, ask some questions, but if I only had a small suspicion, I’m not sure I would call the police.</p>
<p>“As a volunteer coach, we were all told it was out legal responsibility to report.”</p>
<p>Reporting doesn’t even come close to what would seem to me to be ethically required in this case, and can be a copout. If you see something like this happening, it would seem to me to be ethically incumbent to try to stop it. Hey, this is a naked old man in a shower!</p>
<p>And then, after reporting, it is ethically incumbent to make sure something is done with the report. Or so it seems to me. </p>
<p>And if I am JoePa, I’ve made plenty of money and feathered my reputation by harboring a pedophile - one who happens to be my friend, one who I hired and promoted and won championships with me, and one whom I provided an office, and served on his board. Now THAT’s the face of evil.</p>
<p>CanynCreek- WOW!!!
(p.s. we all need to watch linking to blogs- I do not want this thread to get locked.)</p>
<p>Annasdad–yes, you’re right. 23 or 28 makes no difference. Either way, he’s an adult who walked away from a sixty year old man attacking a child.</p>
<p>^ Honestly, 28 makes it worse.</p>
<p>One of the victim’s moms was quoted as saying, “He had to run home and tell Daddy?”</p>
<p>The GA admitted seeing a child being raped. He should have stepped in or at the very least called the police.</p>
<p>McQueary should have done more, and no doubt knows that and has to live with his failing. However, I do not believe that anyone can say for certain what they would do in the same circumstances unless they have already been tested in a very similar way. Even if they have, and have come through with flying colors, that does not mean that they necessarily will do so again. </p>
<p>I hope that there is not a significant gap between my intentions and my actions in a crisis, and there has not been in the crises I have been through so far, but certitude about “bravery” under pressure seems like posturing. Courage is demonstrated by actions, not by hypotheticals and blusters about what “I would do.” I agree with Garland that I would be very disappointed if my 20ish year old, 6’, 5" son did not intervene to help the child and confront the perpetrator. But, a young man could be stunned and overwhelmed by such a shocking scene and fall short of the honor his father might wish for in the exigency of the moment. </p>
<p>The victim McQueary saw in the shower was already a victim. McQueary was not going to “save” him from harm, perhaps he might have saved the child from further harm by confronting Sanduskey. We do not know what happened, but I find it difficult to believe that Sanduskey simply continued the act in the shower once discovered by McQueary - though that is possible. </p>
<p>I find it harder to explain the lack of follow up on McQueary’s report than McQueary’s lack of nerve in failing to go “Clint Eastwood” on Sanduskey in the moment. McQueary’s failing is far less culpable in my estimation, though he does not deserve a pass.</p>
<h2>tom1944 - my thoughts exactly. This is a letter that I sent to the NY Times OpEd page. It didn’t get printed (and I didn’t expect it to be, honestly), so I’ll just post it here. Sorry so long.</h2>
<p>One of the biggest problems I have with the child molestation tragedy at Penn State is the distinct lack of heroism on the part of Mike McQueary.</p>
<p>A marine who drives into a firefight repeatedly to rescue his comrades - that’s a hero. He makes a decision to risk his own well-being, his very life, to help another human being.</p>
<p>McQueary was not a hero. Yes, what he allegedly saw was undoubtedly shocking, maybe even frightening. Sandusky is a bull of a man, a man with the physical stature to successfully handle the defensive end position on an NCAA Division 1 football team. And he’s a man with the charisma and authority to control an entire college defensive unit as a coach. This is a guy who would probably intimidate most people, in many situations. And to find him raping a boy, with enough vigor to produce the “rhythmic, slapping sound” that McQueary says he heard from <em>outside</em> the shower – this in indeed a problematic situation for a young man who was newly employed in one of the most prestigious college football programs in the country.</p>
<p>Yes, Mike Mcqueary had himself to think of. It appears he had the credentials and connections to make quite a career for himself, as indeed he has, at least to this point. He was a young man with quite a bit to lose. But the more you have to lose, the greater the heroic act, when you actually put yourself on the line. McQueary was understandably concerned for himself and JoePa’s program, in that situation. Not to say that he was not concerned about the boy. He was so upset by what he saw that he went to seek advice from the man he trusted most (possibly aside from JoePa), his father.</p>
<p>I find it disturbing that much of the focus in this sickening tragedy is upon the Penn State institution itself, its football team, and the fates of those associated with the team rather than on the victims. What tends to fade into the background now, and what was completely missing then, was the requisite human response to the plight of that boy and the others like him. What that boy needed, at the moment that McQueary saw him and Sandusky together, was for McQueary to take some action to stop the event. Right now. A shout, anything. And if Mcqueary was afraid for himself or his career, intimidated by the coach-in-rut Sandusky, then he could have stood outside the shower and shouted “get away from that boy, I’m calling the police!” Anything, anything, to stop the event. (Rhetorically: Would his reaction have been different, had it been a young girl? I shudder even more, to think of that scene, and wonder why.)</p>
<p>A pre-teen boy, subjected to that type of sexual activity, might be physically injured. Notwithstanding the inevitable emotional/psychic wounds. McQueary needed to step up, to disregard the comparably trivial prize of career-in-college-football, and take an action to protect a young boy’s well-being. He didn’t do that, in fact he apparently did nothing, absolutely nothing, to stop the act itself. That, in my mind, was his first and most serious mistake. He was not a hero, when the events demanded it. But don’t all football people live to be a hero? Isn’t that what they’re trained for? Or doesn’t it translate to real life?</p>
<p>But to give him a pass on the first round of inaction, because the event was too shocking to correctly process, or because he was too intimidated by Sandusky’s and/or the Penn State program’s larger-than-life aura, McQueary failed again and again when he did not follow up. Unfortunately for Mr. McQueary, he alone saw the event, and knew firsthand what actually happened. In my mind, he and he alone, by virtue of being that witness and as a member of the human race, was the sole person accountable for the ultimate follow up. So he failed in not acting immediately, he failed every subsequent day of his life when he didn’t try to identify that boy and help him, and he failed when he learned that his organization effectively did nothing to prevent Sandusky from repeating the act somewhere else , perhaps even against the same boy.</p>
<p>This was a complete and utter failure of McQueary as a human being, as a sports professional, and as an employee of an educational institution. Mike McQueary was not a hero when he could have been, and the consequences from that omission will be stunning in their scale.</p>
<p>There is no excuse for McQueary not calling the police. There is no excuse for his father not advising him to call police. </p>
<p>I can’t see any reason for McQueary to exaggerate what he saw, but if he is ever on the witness stand and is asked why he didn’t call the police, I can’t even think what his answer would be. I can at least imagine an answer as to why he didn’t intervene.</p>
<p>Just read an article the feds are starting an investigation of Penn State and if it violated the “clery” ? Disclosure law…?? (Sorry can’t remember the exact name)</p>
<p>*it is the clery act and the united states department of education is beginning an investigation.</p>
<p>When if ever will we get the complete picture on the follow up. We know Schultz the head of the campus police met with the GA. We do not know what happened from there. What did the GA do after the meeting, what did Paterno do, what were they told happened with what they reported. Were they told there was an investigation. There is still many things not in the public domain yet.</p>
<p>Although he did not call the police, and he should have, he DID report it and although it took WAY too long, it is now being dealt with. All this testimony will help in the Sandusky case.</p>