Penn State AD and Sandusky Charged

SumnerH

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Paterno enjoyed, and cultivated, a reputation for moral rectitude. That's one reason the parallels to the Catholic Church are more than superficial.

Among the historic parallels tossed out here, the most apt one is Benedict Arnold. Arnold, renowned as a patriot, was found to be a traitor. Paterno, renowned as a man of great virtue, looks more and more like the opposite of that.
The Paterno-as-morally-superior ship had already sailed, hadn't it? I remember several incidents of him spewing curse-laden rants, and then there was that ESPN expose a couple of years back and the "cute girl comes knocking" dismissal of a player's sexual assault charges already mentioned that got him in hot water in the press.

EDIT: http://www.nytimes.com/1995/09/27/sports/paterno-offers-apology.html for instance
 

dcmissle

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I really think the next revelation is that Paterno used his knowledge of Sandusky's actions as leverage against Spanier for keeping his job.
I believe "J. Edgar" debuts tomorrow, 11/11/11/

With regard to the above, Hoover was Director of the FBI and its predecessor for 48 years. Those who cannot remember Nixon may want to take in this movie for a short version of how Hoover kept his job.

Nothing is beyond the pale to me, and I'll repeat what I said last night. If I'm a federal prosecutor working this, the very first thing I do is put Sandusky in protective custody and, if he refuses, post guards 24/7.
 

Dehere

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And Madden just dropped the bomb, saying Second Mile was a front to get boys to rich donors. If that's true, God help that board.
If this is true.....I don't know if I can follow this story anymore.

I know that we can't just ignore the evil that exists in the world but this story is approaching unbearable depths of depravity.
 

J.McG

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And while I think the "pimping" stories are likely nonsense, I do think we're only looking at the tip of the iceberg. We're going to learn a lot more, and it's only going to get worse for the principals.
Madden was in front of this story months ago and probably received a similar response at the time, only to have his report proven quite accurate. Yeah he's a bit of a jackass, but I'm not so quick to dismiss the rumor. Would anyone have believed a rumor that Joe Paterno will be fired as a result of a 10-year-plus sexual abuse scandal involving children and his own coaching staff a week ago? Probably not, but it happened. It's difficult to completely rule out any possibility at this point.
 

mauf

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As a consequence of McQueary's testimony, the university's president, its athletic director, and its legendary football coach have lost their jobs. Firing McQueary now would look like sacking a whistleblower, even though that's not reality.

The new football coach will sack McQueary this winter. That's soon enough.
 

jmcc5400

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It is - to say the least - a thankless position to be in, but Bradley seems like a tool.
 

Marciano490

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Nothing is beyond the pale to me, and I'll repeat what I said last night. If I'm a federal prosecutor working this, the very first thing I do is put Sandusky in protective custody and, if he refuses, post guards 24/7.
To protect him from himself or from others?
 

Awesome Fossum

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Madden was in front of this story months ago and probably received a similar response at the time, only to have his report proven quite accurate. Yeah he's a bit of a jackass, but I'm not so quick to dismiss the rumor. Would anyone have believed a rumor that Joe Paterno will be fired as a result of a 10-year-plus sexual abuse scandal involving children and his own coaching staff a week ago? Probably not, but it happened. It's difficult to completely rule out any possibility at this point.
As Madden points out in the interview that was linked here, everything he reported back in April was publicly available information, not things he discovered as the result of investigative journalism or having an inside source. That's what I keep telling myself, hoping that he's wrong this time.
 

Kremlin Watcher

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McQueary cannot remain. The process has begun. He and many, many others are going to burn for all this. This interim coach is just a stopgap. They're all going down.
 

HomeRunBaker

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I really think the next revelation is that Paterno used his knowledge of Sandusky's actions as leverage against Spanier for keeping his job.
It comes around full circle now doesn't it? Paterno and Spanier allow Sandusky to provide these "services" for the big Penn State boosters so when 2004 came around Jo-Pa knew that he and Spanier were in this together and he could never be fired. Keep the donors happy and allow the money to keep rolling in.....now it all is making sense why Sandusky still had his office in Penn State's football building.
 

behindthepen

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Ask yourself how this stuff happens over and over again, and for so long, and then look at this map:

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/fp/flashPollResultsState?sportIndex=frontpage&pollId=126716

the numbers have moved, but still more than 40% of the people polled on espn.com think Paterno should not have been fired. Even in Mass, the highest percentage of those who agree, is ONLY 67%. Now I'm sure this skewed by the PSU crowd voting early and often, but it's still depressing to me.
 

mauf

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Madden was in front of this story months ago and probably received a similar response at the time, only to have his report proven quite accurate. Yeah he's a bit of a jackass, but I'm not so quick to dismiss the rumor. Would anyone have believed a rumor that Joe Paterno will be fired as a result of a 10-year-plus sexual abuse scandal involving children and his own coaching staff a week ago? Probably not, but it happened. It's difficult to completely rule out any possibility at this point.

I was going to compare Madden's coverage here to Matt Drudge's coverage of the Lewinsky story (which was phenomenal, but doesn't make Matt Drudge a reliable source of information generally). Then, I realized that's unfair ... to Drudge. Drudge had an incredibly well-placed source; Madden mostly reported what was in plain view. Kudos to Madden for reporting on a story the rest of the sports press chose to ignore, but let's not paint him as the Bob Woodward of this story until we see some real evidence. The facts are sensational enough.
 

Spacemans Bong

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Bonger, no president is ever going to be adored like a successful NCAA football coach; that's a stupid straw man comparison. There is ALWAYS going to be a vocal minority who hates every president's guts. Nixon's was vocal. So was Clinton's. Bush's. I can keep naming presidents, there are almost fifty more who come to mind. :rolleyes:

It is an objective fact that claiming Nixon was "disgraced" before Watergate is like saying that OJ was universally reviled before murdering his ex-wife. It's simply not true. It's stupid to pretend otherwise, no matter how great HST's articles skewered him.
But that's why it's not a fall from grace. A large section of the country loathed him, always did, and the stereotype of politicians as power-hungry and corrupt was well in place before 1972.

There were some people who didn't buy Paterno's old-school, here-for-the-kids act, just like there were probably some people who hated Nordberg and thought OJ was a phony for whatever reason (there's always people who hate guys who have that easy of a smile). But nowhere near as many that hated Nixon or any other President.
 

MiracleOfO2704

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It is - to say the least - a thankless position to be in, but Bradley seems like a tool.
To be fair, 15 hours ago, he was still planning on being an assistant coach today. To now have to stand in front of a slightly more ravenous, anti-Paterno press corps than Surma faced last night with almost no prep time is going to result in a guy looking like a school stooge. This is beyond an unenviable postion.

Bradley, when asked if there was anything to senior players boycotting the game: "No, they're not going to do that."
 

mabrowndog

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Bradley, you guys should know, is an extreme hard ass.

I'm guessing he hasn't met with the interim AD about McQuery yet.
He was asked if he'd been involved in any discussions with administrators about McQueary's status or asked for his opinion on the matter. His answer was an immediate and direct "absolutely not."

It is - to say the least - a thankless position to be in, but Bradley seems like a tool.
He doesn't seem like a tool at all. Poised and stonefaced, but that's certainly no flaw. He's handling himself extremely well, giving direct answers without a hint of nervousness, no "umm"s or "uhhh"s, and calmly yet unequivocally dismissing any questions about the child rape issue while citing either the ongoing investigation or that it's an administrative or AD decision.

He also just said he hasn't slept after getting the call at 9:45 pm last night.
 

Delicious Sponge

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Bradley: "McQueary will be coaching this weekend."

Wow.
That's nuts.

They don't get it yet - everyone associated with this in any way needs to go right away. That they can't decide to actually do this for real makes me wonder how many people with clean hands are there in the leadership of Penn State?
 

terrynever

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I believe a lot of people in State College had a chance to turn Sandusky in before Paterno looked away. How about the Second Mile partner who worked with Sandusky since 1977? Isn't he indictable? He could have ended this in the early 1990s after the first known incident took place. Lord only knows what was going on in the previous decade. The State College police blew it in 1998, as did the Centre County D.A. Paterno and his flunkies first flubbed it in 1998, too.

It takes an entire village to hide a pedophile.

The real lesson of Penn State, to me, is that pedophiles live among us, putting themselves into positions of authority over youngsters. They can be in the pulpit or coaching your children on the local soccer field. Fortunately, this is not a new issue and most youth sports coaches are now vetted before they are cleared to work with kids. But even now, we have a case going to trial in Pawtucket of a husband-and-wife team who abused children in a youth football program.

Here's an interesting opinion piece from a North Carolina newspaper located in a town about the size of Mayberry, N.C. It tells about the deception of pedophiles.



The link: http://www.salisburypost.com/Opinion/111011-edit-penn-state-abuse-qcd
 

Corsi

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Bradley says Sandusky retired because he was offered a retirement package by the state.
 

mauf

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That's nuts.

They don't get it yet - everyone associated with this in any way needs to go right away. That they can't decide to actually do this for real makes me wonder how many people with clean hands are there in the leadership of Penn State?
McQueary is probably a whistleblower at this point. He would likely sue PSU if he got fired. Worse, the decision would be spun in some quarters as a Paterno loyalist (Bradley) firing the man who brought Paterno down. Bradley couldn't fire McQ if he wanted to.

When PSU hires a permanent head coach this winter, his first act will be to fire all the assistants, including McQueary. And that's how it should be. Don't give the guy a chance to play the martyr.
 

BigMike

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That's nuts.

They don't get it yet - everyone associated with this in any way needs to go right away. That they can't decide to actually do this for real makes me wonder how many people with clean hands are there in the leadership of Penn State?
I don't think they could play a game this weekend if only people with clean hands were allowed to participate. Breadley has been there forever, I have no doubt he knows exactly what happened
 
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Paterno enjoyed, and cultivated, a reputation for moral rectitude. That's one reason the parallels to the Catholic Church are more than superficial.
There's a huge part of your motive for the cover-up -- Sandusky knew Paterno cared more about his rep and the school's branding as holier than everyone else in college football and he used it against him. Worked beautifully. Who knows, perhaps the whole moral rectitude thing was crafted and then stoked specifically to deflect attention or insulate it from any suspicion of child molestation.

At the end of the day, we're going to find out that Penn State football was a massive criminal enterprise that operated with the cooperation of many, many people over decades.

 

JBill

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It comes around full circle now doesn't it? Paterno and Spanier allow Sandusky to provide these "services" for the big Penn State boosters so when 2004 came around Jo-Pa knew that he and Spanier were in this together and he could never be fired. Keep the donors happy and allow the money to keep rolling in.....now it all is making sense why Sandusky still had his office in Penn State's football building.
Can we just wait for confirmation? Madden said reputable reporters are looking into this, let's just wait five minutes before accusing everyone associated with the charity and university of being a pedophile.
 

dcmissle

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To protect him from himself or from others?
Both. If the rumor du jour proves out -- believe it or not -- Sandusky becomes much more important as a potential witness than as a deer to be tagged.

Oh, he'll go to jail to be sure -- perhaps for the rest of his life. But the law enforcement interest will go far higher and broader. It will be to tag every guilty booster and expose the entire fraud.
 

Delicious Sponge

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I don't think they could play a game this weekend if only people with clean hands were allowed to participate. Breadley has been there forever, I have no doubt he knows exactly what happened
Indeed ... So don't play a game. The priority is saving the school not a football game but they're worried about the game. Nuts.
 

Hendu's Gait

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I don't think they could play a game this weekend if only people with clean hands were allowed to participate. Breadley has been there forever, I have no doubt he knows exactly what happened
Why can't they have the QB and defensive QB call the plays? Get rid of all the coaches. Have the captains/QB etc. make all the football decisions.
 

BigMike

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McQueary is probably a whistleblower at this point. He would likely sue PSU if he got fired. Worse, the decision would be spun in some quarters as a Paterno loyalist (Bradley) firing the man who brought Paterno down. Bradley couldn't fire McQ if he wanted to.

When PSU hires a permanent head coach this winter, his first act will be to fire all the assistants, including McQueary. And that's how it should be. Don't give the guy a chance to play the martyr.

And they may not even need to fire anyone, most assistants have very short term (1 year) contracts. Maybe as recruiting coordinator McQueary had more power.

They can't let McQueary on the sidelines this weekend.

And they can't let McQueary performing his recruiting duties again. he should visit, call or text anyone
 

jsinger121

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They should put McQueary on administrative leave right away if they want to avoid a potential lawsuit should he sue.
 

Wings

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Dude on ESPN said Paterno badly wants to clarify what he knew and what he saw, just not sure when he'll speak.
I can only imagine the victim's attorneys are praying for this. From Paterno's standpoint he already has a lot of public opinion supporting him. Getting on TV won't help him sway anyone who doesn't support him anyway. Of course he feels the need to control this and do damage control, but I can't imagine he has the ability to spin this in any way that can help him.

It will be must-watch, however, and if there is real media there, it will be feeding time.