<p>You keep misreading what I am saying. This to me is not about Paterno if he deserves scorn once all the facts are out I will acknowledge that. It is about making judgments without all the facts and demanding perfection in hindsight. </p>
<p>He reported what he was told from there we do not know what he did or did not do. It is even unclear the severity of what he was told.</p>
<p>I could care less that he is a football coach. I feel the same about anyone charged or accused of doing something wrong. I want to know as much as the factual information before I decide someone is wrong. Maybe it is my 30+ years as a tax investigator. Accusing people with misinformation does no one any good.</p>
<p>tom, a person doesn’t have to be perfect to know that you call the cops on a child sex predator. Especially when you have 9 years to think it over. And JoePa DID know that the shower episode was sexual in nature. How much detail should he have needed, to know that this guy needed to be turn over to police?</p>
<p>Nothing, that’s what the janitors did, nothing…not even a report to an administrator. Forgot about it and moved on–and yet Paterno is to blame?? Everybody needs to blame Paterno more than anybody else because they think he runs Penn State. The more I read, the more I doubt that is the case. I think they gave him preferred status, but I think he was only about the football program and his athletes. If he WAS the man in power, Curley, Schultz, and Spanier would’ve NEVER asked him to retire in 2004, they would’ve let him do what he wanted. They made no bones about the fact that they wanted him to retire last year as well, and not even finish out his contract. Yes, he was revered by many–but I don’t get the feeling that the top administration wanted him around…that will surely be uncovered in the months to come. In fact Spanier & Paterno had a contentious relationship. So all this tightness we think there is amongst the staff, I’m doubting that’s the reality. Not in any way defending Paterno, but I think there is definitely more to be discovered.</p>
<p>LasMas- he turned it into Schultz the head of the campus police who were involved in the 1998 case. Schultz further testifies he though he and Curly turned it into child protective services- is it possible he told Paterno that? So he did call the cops and he may have been told the cops took it further. You keep choosing to ignore that.</p>
<p>mini _ I would like to know what he knew and did in 1998/1999 and 2002. Let all the facts come out. If they reflect poorly on Paterno so be it. The truth is the important thing not conjecture.</p>
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<p>What I find disturbing is that the Attorney General’s office LET him put out this retirement letter and retire knowing full well they were in the thick of investigating him!! They concluded their interviews early this year, but already had enough victims testimony to have grabbed him late last year. I’m not really a football fan, but isn’t it a strange coincidence that they wait to upset the football season to do all of this. It’s grandstanding at its best–and unfortunately at the late expense of the victims and the unfortunate expense of the student body and current football team at Penn State. I know people will say they don’t care about the students–but you know what? They’ve been dealt a horrible hand right now and the victims have also been dealt a horrible hand again by having to deal with the scrutiny at this point in the football season for Penn State–with the dedicated fan base that they have. They waited this darn long to arrest Sandusky–another month or two couldn’t wait?? Or even better, they couldn;t have done this during the Summer?? Am I the only one who thought this timing interesting??</p>
<p>mini- so hiring an attorney automatically signifies guilt? With the bashing he is taking a PR firm is most likely not a bad idea either.
I do not think we should care about the timing- both sides see what they want in that.</p>
<p>I’d be surprised if it goes to trial. Trying these cases is brutal to the victims, assuming they actually agree to testify. I think he’ll plead out and go to jail. Other than that, you could put everything I know about criminal law in a thimble so I shouldn’t speculate.</p>
<p>Soccer315, your sarcasm is noted, however, that article was referring to his interaction with his football team. Obviously, we know differently about how he dealt with a scandal outisde of his team. I honestly think Paterno washed his hands of Sandusky in 1999 and get the feeling that the relationship was contentious, thus leading to his throwing it to the AD & Schultz to take care of. As I mentioned before, I think people overestimate the power he had over higher officials though I do believe he had a preferred status. They let him run his football program as he saw fit because he was the “face” of Paterno, but I don’t think he wielded the power we think he did. This observation based on the myriad of articles I’ve read about him and the administrators.</p>
<p>“They made no bones about the fact that they wanted him to retire last year as well, and not even finish out his contract.”</p>
<p>If true, that suggests even more strongly that Paterno held the reins. In my world, if your bosses want you gone, and they’re really the bosses, you go. If my boss comes into my office demanding my resignation on Monday, stick a fork in me. “Bosses” who want to get rid of an executive, but can’t, ain’t the boss.</p>
<p>lyndeenj, as far as JoePa’s relative power in the Penn State heirarchy – Are you aware that several years ago, the president and several other officials told Joe it was time to resign and Joe kicked them out of his house?</p>
<p>This video will make you a little sick, but it seems to have been done in 2007 as part of “Successful Coaching” series. It is advertised as being Joe Paterno but it was obviously left to Sandusky to do. I can’t help but think the kids in the video may have been from Second Mile and part of the football camp that he was allowed to run on campus. </p>
<p>“mini- so hiring an attorney automatically signifies guilt? With the bashing he is taking a PR firm is most likely not a bad idea either.”</p>
<p>All it signifies (perhaps) is that he doesn’t have dementia. </p>
<p>We actually know a lot of things. We know that JoePa thought fit to serve as an Honorary Director on Sandusky’s Board long after the 2002 incident. We know that he enabled Sandusky’s use of the campus and the facilities after the 2002 incident. We know what little we know of 2002. We know that Sandusky wasn’t a professor before being made “emeritus” after JoePa accepted his resignation. We know the unexpected resignation took place after an investigation of child sexual abuse. We know they were friends for more than 30 years. </p>
<p>This is what we know. The rest will come out in time.</p>
<p>Tom you are correct – in Schultz’s grand jury testimony he states he believed the child protection agency was investigating the 2002 incident - but he goes on to say that he and Curley notified only Spanier of the incident. If he and Curley didn’t inform child protection services, who does he think did? It makes no sense that an agency would be doing an investigation if they had not been informed there was an incident.</p>
<p>No wonderful the grand jury found his testimony not credible.</p>
<p>LasMa, having talked with a prosecutor who clearly understands the laws. Paterno may not have morally done what’s correct, but from a legal standpoint he did exactly as he should have. She pointed out that it is definitely more complicated, coming from second hand knowledge, because it has the potential to create a libelous situation. The person the report should have come from should’ve clearly been McQueary–and if not him, then definitely those with the power to deal with law enforcement in an organizational structure–that would be Schultz or Spanier who are at the highest levels in the organization. As the overseer of University Police, Schultz had no excuse not to tell them. Should Paterno have thrown procedure to the wind and reported it to authorities anyway? Absolutely. But Paterno is NOT the biggest problem in this case and should not be made to be so–it overshadows what should’ve been done by McQueary because in my eyes–that’s huge! That kid could’ve been dead by morning because he failed to act then and there. That’s a major problem in my eyes and definitely a bigger catastrophe than Paterno following policy–it was the next day–not only was the evidence already gone after the players hit the showers but so is the perv coach and the kid.</p>
<p>Friday Night Lights author Buzz Bissinger had a piece yesterday in The Daily Beast which offers an interesting theory on how this horror could have happened. I won’t post the link because frankly, some of it is horrible in the same way that the grand jury report is horrible. But here’s the upshot:</p>