NCAA Sanctions: "DP" for Penn Football, or...?

[elmomom]

I have spent most of my career working for large companies, and a few universities. When there is an incident that brings unwanted outside attention, such as the 1998 incident at PSU, it normally causes numerous ripples and changes. This is what responsible corporations should do, IMHO. Even if no impropriety was found, there should have been an immediate and clear signal from the administration that the conditions that would ALLOW for any PERCEPTION of impropriety must be changed. New guidelines, such as no boys in the showers, or no juveniles accompanied by a single male... Etc. there were numeroous ways to change the conditions that allowed the acts to occur, and that allowed the possibility of the acts to occur. And even if they did not occur, my god, the authorities were in there investigating our program, our coach. No way would any responsible corporate environment look the other way, and move on. No company should risk this situation repeating itself, and the possibility of legal liability in the future. So I truly believe that 1998 was really a cover-up, because the university did not even move to protect itself. Instead, it looked to hide and cover up the appearance of a scandal, which only grew much worse over time.

 

[J. J. in Phila]

First, yes, I meant 2001.

BBM 1 - No, that is not what I meant by 'seeking cover', I meant that the guys at PSU used the fact that no charges were filed and [incorrectly] no finding of abuse made, to NOT follow up as had been indicated even by Seasock, and as Freeh said, that the LEAST they could have done was talk to Sandusky and advise others in the football program to watch what he was doing with boys.

They basically could say, **But the experts, and a hard hitting DA, cleared Sandusky in 1998. There was nothing to it.**

Unless there was something more that happened in 1998, I don't see what they could warned Sandusky about.

BBM 2 - Very much aware of the findings terms having worked child abuse in the past. What I'm very puzzled about in this 1998 investigation is how the Chambers report was ignored, since she had the REAL professional opinion plus consulted with her colleagues, and no conflicts with working for CPS. She also DID make a report to the child line.

Neither report was admissible in court at the time, but DPW could have used it.

Why was her report kept from Lauro and why did DPW go ahead and do the
2nd evaluation with Seasock even after Karen Arnold asked them to hold off for more investigation? It seems like they got what they wanted to clear JS from Seasock and didn't want to share the Chambers report so they had an excuse to drop the charges, IMO...

There is no suggestion that the Big 4, Sandusky, or Gricar, had anything to do with bringing Seasock in to interview Victim 6. Further, unless they could have a good idea of what Seasock would do, they could not know before hand that his report would be favorable. Likewise, they couldn't know what weight Gricar would give the Seasock Report.

One very good question is why neither report was given to Lauro.

There has to be something more that happened in 1998.

 

[Reader]

I really think O'Brien has shown good leadership through all of this. I hope it continues.

Bill O'Brien Extends Contract For Four Additional Years

http://www.blackshoediaries.com/201...en-extends-contract-for-four-additional-years

After what has been by most accounts a stellar round of media interviews, head football coach Bill O'Brien was granted four year extension to his contract today, keeping him ostensibly in State College through the 2020 season.

Reportedly a direct offset of the four bowl-less years that O'Brien will coach, there's been no clarification as to whether this changes any buyout amounts if the coach decides to buy out his contract and leave Penn State.


More at link....

 

[BigCat]

First, yes, I meant 2001.

They basically could say, **But the experts, and a hard hitting DA, cleared Sandusky in 1998. There was nothing to it.**

Unless there was something more that happened in 1998, I don't see what they could warned Sandusky about.

On one of the Penn State football boards yesterday, a poster wrote that "if law enforcement had done its job in 98, Penn State wouldn't be in this mess today". Oh, the irony! If law enforcement had actually done its job in 98, the same guy would have been demanding the recall of Ray Gricar and spouting wild conspiracy theories about how Tom Ridge was out to destroy Joe Paterno.

Neither report was admissible in court at the time, but DPW could have used it.

There is no suggestion that the Big 4, Sandusky, or Gricar, had anything to do with bringing Seasock in to interview Victim 6. Further, unless they could have a good idea of what Seasock would do, they could not know before hand that his report would be favorable. Likewise, they couldn't know what weight Gricar would give the Seasock Report.

One very good question is why neither report was given to Lauro.

There has to be something more that happened in 1998.

Did we ever learn what specific work Seascock performed for Penn State between 2000-2006? Freeh just stated there was no evidence that it was connected to the 98 incident.

 

[J. J. in Phila]

On one of the Penn State football boards yesterday, a poster wrote that "if law enforcement had done its job in 98, Penn State wouldn't be in this mess today". Oh, the irony! If law enforcement had actually done its job in 98, the same guy would have been demanding the recall of Ray Gricar and spouting wild conspiracy theories about how Tom Ridge was out to destroy Joe Paterno.

I had someone on alumni site telling me that Corbett should have known that there was a ten year old file as soon as he started the case.

Did we ever learn what specific work Seascock performed for Penn State between 2000-2006? Freeh just stated there was no evidence that it was connected to the 98 incident.

It was never reported.

 

[Rlaub44]

One of the members of the Freeh Commission says that the NCAA should not have used the Freeh Report as the sole piece, or even a large piece, of their decision-making.

http://www.centredaily.com/2012/07/27/3275727/freeh-team-member-says-ncaa-shouldnt.html

 

[Reader]

One of the members of the Freeh Commission says that the NCAA should not have used the Freeh Report as the sole piece, or even a large piece, of their decision-making.

http://www.centredaily.com/2012/07/27/3275727/freeh-team-member-says-ncaa-shouldnt.html

http://espn.go.com/college-football...cizes-ncaa-penalties-penn-state-nittany-lions

A source familiar with the investigation into Penn State's response to former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky's child sex abuse scandal is speaking out against the NCAA.

According to The Chronicle of Higher Education, a person connected to the Freeh report, which condemned Penn State's handling of Sandusky's abuse, said the NCAA should not have based its harsh sanctions against the university on the investigation.

'Familiar with' and 'connected to' could mean anything, could be a distributor or a typist or somebody like us that read it and posted about it....does not mean it was a member of the team.

The Freeh team denies this:

According to The Chronicle, members of former FBI director Louis Freeh's investigative team can't speak publicly about the report. On Friday night, a spokesperson for the group denied that any member of the team spoke to The Chronicle.

"The Freeh Group emphatically stated that no member of its investigative team spoke to The Chronicle of Higher Education for its story," the spokesperson said. "The Freeh Group has no comment on the NCAA's use of the report."

 

[costalpilot]

http://espn.go.com/college-football...cizes-ncaa-penalties-penn-state-nittany-lions



'Familiar with' and 'connected to' could mean anything, could be a distributor or a typist or somebody like us that read it and posted about it....does not mean it was a member of the team.

The Freeh team denies this:

good catch...loose lips sink ships and loose designations mean a lot more than they should especially in the media/propaganda world.

"...one of the members....." REALLY ...well, no, not really.

 

[Rlaub44]

good catch...loose lips sink ships and loose designations mean a lot more than they should especially in the media/propaganda world.

"...one of the members....." REALLY ...well, no, not really.

Here is the original article from the Chronicle of Higher Education, in which they clearly refer to the source as a member of the Freeh team. While the Freeh committee is denying any of it's members spoke to the Chronicle, I know from personal experience that is exactly what a body will claim when a member acts outside of the auspices of the group.

I'm not saying I can prove it was a member, just that I wouldn't so readily accept the Freeh commission's denial at face value. Truthfully, how can the committee be certain none of its members broke ranks?

http://chronicle.com/article/Freeh-Group-Member-Criticizes/133213/

 

[Reader]

Penn State's reconcilable differences

http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/8205420/penn-state-needs-work-reconciliation

Nothing is resolved. Sandusky, Paterno, Penn State, the jackhammered statue, the Freeh report, the NCAA sanctions -- all of it rushed, unfinished, provisional. The Grand Experiment fails and the race to forget begins. The contract extension kicks in, the civil suits line up, the opportunists circle the parking lots, and we're talking about money and Hawaii and which players stay and which players go as if it were all over. Tim Curley and Gary Schultz don't have trial dates yet. Jerry Sandusky hasn't even been sentenced.

"It's time to punch back." All due respect coach, but are you out of your mind? The penalties fall and the punishments drop -- none of them even a week old -- and already the language rings defiant, as if there's been a persecution, an injustice done against Penn State football. Who are the real victims here? And who are the martyrs?...........

Where's the effort at reconciliation? The restoration of trust in your own community? Where's the contrition? Financial compensation, no matter how lavish, is not by itself restitution. Money alone heals no one. ............

 

[Rlaub44]

Penn State's reconcilable differences

http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/8205420/penn-state-needs-work-reconciliation

Nothing is resolved. Sandusky, Paterno, Penn State, the jackhammered statue, the Freeh report, the NCAA sanctions -- all of it rushed, unfinished, provisional. The Grand Experiment fails and the race to forget begins. The contract extension kicks in, the civil suits line up, the opportunists circle the parking lots, and we're talking about money and Hawaii and which players stay and which players go as if it were all over. Tim Curley and Gary Schultz don't have trial dates yet. Jerry Sandusky hasn't even been sentenced.

"It's time to punch back." All due respect coach, but are you out of your mind? The penalties fall and the punishments drop -- none of them even a week old -- and already the language rings defiant, as if there's been a persecution, an injustice done against Penn State football. Who are the real victims here? And who are the martyrs?...........

Where's the effort at reconciliation? The restoration of trust in your own community? Where's the contrition? Financial compensation, no matter how lavish, is not by itself restitution. Money alone heals no one. ............

That's an interesting article, and it strikes me that the media is treating all of Penn State as if it is a single solitary person that needs to be punished, rather than an entire university system consisting of thousands of students, professors, maintenance staff, a brand-new football coach and dozens of athletes that were in grade school when McQueary saw Sandusky abusing a boy and the cover-up began.

Sandusky has been found guilty, Paterno is dead and disgraced, Curley and Schultz are facing charges, McQueary is unemployed (and unemployable in football), and Spanier is undoubtably facing more consequences down the road.

The University and its football program have been hit with the most severe sanctions ever given in NCAA history (arguably comparing to the DP), and still articles like this are printed.

Apparently, even if every sentence starts with "We are sorry for the victims of this tragedy...", nobody from PSU can comment on anything, regardless of the fact that Bill O'Brien didn't abuse children or cover anything up. Football coaches need to promote their team, and he has gracefully handled lots of questions about people and problems that he has no involvement with.

It is obvious that this ESPN columnist would prefer that Penn State and its football program lay down and die, but that wasn't the punishment delivered by the NCAA, and the University is living under the constraints of this new reality. He asks,
Has a single plan been suggested for moral restoration? For spiritual restitution? Across hundreds of pages and scores of recommendations for lost scholarships and better bureaucratic checks and balances, neither Freeh nor the NCAA address the heart or the soul or the mission of the institution itself and what it might do to restore our faith in it.

Chapter 10 of the Freeh Report outlines 17 pages of recommendations for the University, and mentions that the recommendations have been shared with and well-received by the Board of Trustees. I question if ESPN's MacGregor read the entire Freeh report, or if he wants President Erickson to personally brief him on how the University plans to respond. I would imagine that the University is engaged in an ongoing dialogue about how to "morally restore", but if MacGregor thinks the answers are so simple, perhaps he should share them?

Frankly, if MacGregor is unhappy with the sanctions given to Penn State, his beef should be with the NCAA. Penn State (and Coach O'Brien) are left to prepare for the uncomfortable future, and like it or not, they do still exist and have an upcoming season to prepare for.

JMO, as always.

 

[Pensfan]

Penn State's reconcilable differences

http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/8205420/penn-state-needs-work-reconciliation

Nothing is resolved. Sandusky, Paterno, Penn State, the jackhammered statue, the Freeh report, the NCAA sanctions -- all of it rushed, unfinished, provisional. The Grand Experiment fails and the race to forget begins. The contract extension kicks in, the civil suits line up, the opportunists circle the parking lots, and we're talking about money and Hawaii and which players stay and which players go as if it were all over. Tim Curley and Gary Schultz don't have trial dates yet. Jerry Sandusky hasn't even been sentenced.

"It's time to punch back." All due respect coach, but are you out of your mind? The penalties fall and the punishments drop -- none of them even a week old -- and already the language rings defiant, as if there's been a persecution, an injustice done against Penn State football. Who are the real victims here? And who are the martyrs?...........

Where's the effort at reconciliation? The restoration of trust in your own community? Where's the contrition? Financial compensation, no matter how lavish, is not by itself restitution. Money alone heals no one. ............

The students/staff at PSU are not responsible for the actions of Sandusky and 4 evil enablers.

Using Macgregor’s (ESPN writer) personal "theology", he (Macgregor) should immediately stop writing articles and contritely atone for the death of Trayvon Martin.

 

[Reader]

Penn State hit hard, but is it enough?

http://www.jsonline.com/news/opinion/penn-state-hit-hard-but-is-it-enough-a267qe9-163605706.html

............For an organization that is usually as slow as molasses, it moved with astonishing speed; ......... Perhaps it was motivated, as Mark Emmert, the NCAA president, claimed, by the unprecedented nature of the scandal. Or perhaps it was because the organization needed to get this out of the way before the upcoming football season.

I had advocated that the NCAA impose the death penalty on Penn State, and that didn't happen. I still think Penn State should stop playing football for a while - not so much to atone, but to remind its fans and its community that football had become too important at Penn State; that football had, in fact, corrupted Penn State. I wish Rodney Erickson, the Penn State president, were willing to follow Lo Schiavo's footsteps.

But he's not going to do that; even now, football remains too important in the Happy Valley. Nor, of course, did the NCAA impose the death penalty - Emmert claims it was, in part, because innocent bystanders would be hurt. But that's a silly excuse; its sanctions invariably hurt players and others who have done nothing wrong. That is the nature of the beast............

The notion that the Penn State case is going to change all of college sports is absurd. College football almost can't help but corrode academic values. Nothing that happened Monday is going to change any of that.

Except, perhaps, at Penn State itself. Without question, the school has been shaken to its core by this scandal. It used to pretend it was better than other football programs. It can't anymore. The combination of the scandal and the sanctions create, at least, the possibility that a school that once placed football above everything else may finally learn perspective.

 

[costalpilot]

Here is the original article from the Chronicle of Higher Education, in which they clearly refer to the source as a member of the Freeh team. While the Freeh committee is denying any of it's members spoke to the Chronicle, I know from personal experience that is exactly what a body will claim when a member acts outside of the auspices of the group.

I'm not saying I can prove it was a member, just that I wouldn't so readily accept the Freeh commission's denial at face value. Truthfully, how can the committee be certain none of its members broke ranks?

http://chronicle.com/article/Freeh-Group-Member-Criticizes/133213/

"...A member of the team that produced a 267-page report condemning the response of Pennsylvania State University's leaders to a serial child molester believes that the NCAA's use of that document was insufficient to justify the punishment it handed the university this week....."

as Reader pointed out, based solely on the loose wording in the article, the "team member" could have been anyone associated with the 'PRODUCTION " of the report, including but not limited to the interns from anywhere (Penn state maybe) that may or may not have carried copies of the report out of the offices. In any case, the 2A President plainly explained that THE NCAA had never conducted an investigation as thorough, as extensive, and as expensive as the Freeh report. so who cares what one member of the "production team" thinks about what the 2A did with it. It was a pretty large team, there was bound to be a KING FOOTBALL zealot in there somewhere. The zealots dont like it that KING FOOTBALL has been attacked. everyone is entitled to their opinion, especially anonymous "team" members. there are thousands of sportscasters across the country just as aghast as this unnamed "team member" that the 2A dared chastize KING FOOTBALL in any sort of meaningful way. Its not exactly news that many football diehards dont like a member institution like the great psu being attacked in any sort of meaningful way.

 

[Twindad]

There is no legal requirement for PSU to be a member of the NCAA nor to follow its rules or accept the sanctions. If they don't like it, they can take their ball and go play elsewhere. However, PSU was quick to accept the sanctions which may be due to their belief they are getting off easy i.e. expediency . The full consequences won't be realized for several years.

 

[waltzingmatilda]

http://www.wralsportsfan.com/ncsu/story/11372354/

Raleigh, N.C. — NC State head football coach Tom O’Brien has announced that safety Tim Buckley has joined the Wolfpack football program. The Cardinal Gibbons High School graduate, who red-shirted last season at Penn State, will begin practice at the team’s first workout on Tuesday afternoon.

I can't say that I blame the young man since he is a Raleigh native. ....and...he won't have any trouble learning his new coaches last name! (couldn't resist the dry humor, I crack me up:floorlaugh

moo

wm

BTW, I wasn't sure where to post this and haven't seen it in National news yet so I hope this is the correct thread.

 

[Tipstaff]

Read the following on ESPN this morning - the exodus begins following Penn State sanctions.

Silas Redd, PS running back, is thinking about going to USC . Redd also didn't report back to PS for this mornings workouts.


A band and a 1,000 + fans carrying signs and shouting their support for Penn State football showed up Tuesday morning to greet players as they came for offseason workouts. Local business are also putting signs in the window supporting PS Football.

WRAL in Raleigh is reporting that backup safety Tim Buckley became the first player to transfer from Penn State and is returning to his native North Carolina to play for N.C. State.

Penn State also confirmed Monday that former starting quarterback Rob Bolden had left

ESPN also reports that several other players are at least considering transferring.

 

[rlc]

That's an interesting article, and it strikes me that the media is treating all of Penn State as if it is a single solitary person that needs to be punished, rather than an entire university system consisting of thousands of students, professors, maintenance staff, a brand-new football coach and dozens of athletes that were in grade school when McQueary saw Sandusky abusing a boy and the cover-up began.

Sandusky has been found guilty, Paterno is dead and disgraced, Curley and Schultz are facing charges, McQueary is unemployed (and unemployable in football), and Spanier is undoubtably facing more consequences down the road.

The University and its football program have been hit with the most severe sanctions ever given in NCAA history (arguably comparing to the DP), and still articles like this are printed.

Apparently, even if every sentence starts with "We are sorry for the victims of this tragedy...", nobody from PSU can comment on anything, regardless of the fact that Bill O'Brien didn't abuse children or cover anything up. Football coaches need to promote their team, and he has gracefully handled lots of questions about people and problems that he has no involvement with.

It is obvious that this ESPN columnist would prefer that Penn State and its football program lay down and die, but that wasn't the punishment delivered by the NCAA, and the University is living under the constraints of this new reality. He asks,
Has a single plan been suggested for moral restoration? For spiritual restitution? Across hundreds of pages and scores of recommendations for lost scholarships and better bureaucratic checks and balances, neither Freeh nor the NCAA address the heart or the soul or the mission of the institution itself and what it might do to restore our faith in it.

Chapter 10 of the Freeh Report outlines 17 pages of recommendations for the University, and mentions that the recommendations have been shared with and well-received by the Board of Trustees. I question if ESPN's MacGregor read the entire Freeh report, or if he wants President Erickson to personally brief him on how the University plans to respond. I would imagine that the University is engaged in an ongoing dialogue about how to "morally restore", but if MacGregor thinks the answers are so simple, perhaps he should share them?

Frankly, if MacGregor is unhappy with the sanctions given to Penn State, his beef should be with the NCAA. Penn State (and Coach O'Brien) are left to prepare for the uncomfortable future, and like it or not, they do still exist and have an upcoming season to prepare for.

JMO, as always.

I completely agree with this. I do not think a day has passed since last November that I do not think about the victims and feel my heart break for them a little more each time.

But while the outside perspective makes it so that Penn State and Sandusky are synonymous, my perspective as an alumni is that there are 680,000+ alumni, and 40,000+ students, plus the faculty and staff. The individuals acted as individuals, and to say that we all deserve blame and credit for being part of the same community is like blaming an entire city for the transgressions of its mayor.

So many of the people I see blaming the football culture are part of their own football culture, which is significantly worse than the Penn State one, where people value academics more than winning records, and put more of an emphasis on integrity than winning. If they really buy what they are selling, that the love of football is to blame, why are they still posting their own expressions of loyalty for their own teams? If you really believe that loyalty and enthusiasm for football leads to child sex abuse and resulting cover-ups, why would you continue to have loyalty and enthusiasm for football?

Anyway, that's my little rant. Supporting Penn State football is not, IMO, supporting Sandusky, or even the others (MM, JVP, GS, TC). It is supporting the student athletes and fellow alumni who love Penn State for a myriad of reasons that include, but are not limited to, football.

 

[rlc]

For the people who are unfamiliar with the Penn State football fan experience, but who are taking the "seen one overzealous football school, seen them all" attitude, you may have been surprised if your introduction to Penn State football had been a few years ago. One of the reasons the Penn State fan base has reacted this way is that we were one of the few schools who had the degree of enthusiasm and support for our team, without the winning above all attitude. As. J.J. pointed out, we packed the stadium in losing seasons. During those losing seasons, we sat around in the tailgate lot and local bars and discussed what it would take to cause us to lose our pride, and the consensus was that most of the pride in football focused on the way the football program operated not the wins or losses. Things like academics first, our graduation rate, the refusal to recruit great players who could not pass Penn State classes, and the little things like not celebrating in the end zone, politely handing the ball to the ref, treating opposing teams with politeness. My fellow alumni were more angry and disappointed at games we won, but where we witnessed some of the freshmen (who had not yet been indoctrinated) behaving like other schools' fans--trash talking opponents, throwing things at people. If we came out of a loss with no penalties, we were still proud.

Part of the indignation is that we worked hard to have a different kind of program, and a different kind of fan base, and that has been ignored and obliterated in the wake of all of this. We are actually being punished for valuing integrity and academics, but nobody is admitting that. We held JoePa up because he purported to run his program on those values, not because he won football games. While he made mistakes here, we had no way of knowing. Not one inkling. We understood the "king football" that another poster keeps referencing, and we consciously rejected that for ourselves. Now we are being painted with the brush of that mentality because there is an assumption that if we loved our team, we must be just like every other fan base that loved their team, only worse, because one of our former coaches was a pedophile, and the one we admired did not report it.

There have been other sex abuse scandals that were more widespread, involving more abusers and more victims, and I do not see the same level of judgment on the uninvolved members of those organizations. Where are the people calling for the Catholic Church to close their doors for a few years? Insisting that the congregations of the churches created an environment ripe for sex abuse of children and cover-up, and thus every Catholic in the country who does not reject their religion should be called a pedophile? How about USA Swimming? Why aren't we burning at the stake every American who cheers on a USA swimmer?

 

[Twindad]

When a peson is depicted as in the mural, with a halo, people tend to believe those whom created and supported it agreed at some level with the sentiment. Penn State football and Joe Paterno are not holy or righteous, as depicted. To many peoples detriment, they seemed to assign their values and beliefs assuming Penn State shared these. It appears a deeper scrutiny has revealed Penn State, as represented by Paterno, Spanier and others did not share these values. They used others values as a cloak to hide their real intentions.
While the football program gets the most attention, there are other programs of Penn State which have revealed these same intentions. Penn State certainly used the same M.O. to deal with Michael Mann, Antonio Lasada, Kenneth Kyle and John Neisworth for instance, with more to lose than the current situation.
While there have been worse sex abuse cases than this, it would appear Penn State needs to get its own house in order before it goes pointing fingers at others. Otherwise it seems diversionary and an ostrich like head in the sand behavior to those "on the outside".
Maybe one day, "We are Penn State" will stand for more than self importance and self righteousness.