Penn State Sandusky scandal: AD arrested, Paterno, Spanier fired; coverup charged #7

[Dr.Fessel]

I put some trust in Freeh that he will come out in his report and tell what a sham the Second Mile is.

I see charts in the future with arrows showing money going in from Penn State and money coming back from Second Mile to people like Paterno and the football team.

I think we are going to find out they were selling some of the most expensive decks of cards and videos ever sold on the market.

They quit getting grants for a reason back in the 80's and imo the reason they did that is so there was no oversight of what they were really up too.

 

[Steely Dan]

I tend to agree with what you are saying and, frankly, it leaves me dumbfounded. How did this freak have them by the b*lls? Your descriptive term of "bit player" certainly sums up all that I can see about him, so what was his drawing card that caused people not to see or care about what he was flaunting right in their faces? His nonprofit TSM certainly wasn't an income center for a 4.6 BILLION dollar per year University, but something made an awful lot of people stick their heads deep in the sand. I can readily believe the TSM officials fearing a loss of revenue, but what in the hell was the big concern for Spainer, Schultz, Curley, and Paterno? Were they really just sweating some kind of rah, rah, go team go, we are Penn State BS because they had presented this chump as a larger than life defensive guru? I hate to break it to em, but I could go into a few NCAA record books and find any number of defensive coaches whose team statistics made ole Jer's defenses pale in comparison. The complete apathy for this animal's victims is something I've grasped at understanding since he was exposed.

I wish I could ask these captains of industry and intellectual scholars who are now claiming they didn't know or notice a thing, one question. What if it wasn't little boys that tripped this freak's trigger, but instead it was five dollar crack ho's. Would they have noticed him parading that kind of lil darlin to team functions, parties, and the like? Wonder if the missus would still be proclaiming his innocence and her outrage at the besmirching of his hallowed character if he had drug a steady string of crack ho's down to her basement over the past couple of decades?

I believe somewhere upthread (one of the threads about this) someone posted an article about the black players being threatened. A black student tells a reporter that during the threats against black players, that occurred several years ago, a group of black students met with JoePa in his office and wanted to know why he wouldn't publicize the threats. IIRC, his answer was something like he'd never do anything that would put the university in a bad light. Other things may have come up in the past that Sandusky saw covered up and when the situation with McQueary occurred it just assured him that something would never be done about it and he could continue on without any fear. The universities reputation was the most important thing in happy valley.

 

[al66pine]

“Discrimination or harassment against faculty, staff, or students will not be tolerated…”
[emphasis added]
Penn St’s Affirmative Action Office’s Sexual Harassment brochure, p. 4
http://student affairs.psu.edu/women center/AA-SH.pdf

“Examples of Sexual Harassment:
“…unwelcome patting, hugging, or touching of a person’s body, hair, or clothing.”
The U. must really mean it because (ex) President Graham B. Spanier’s name & siggy are on referenced brochure.
After all, the U policy AD-41 states: “Prompt corrective measures will be taken to stop sexual harassment whenever and wherever it occurs.”

Whoops, forgot to ban harassment and sexual assaults against little (non-student, non-faculty) boys
by faculty who like to share U. showers and assault them.
Maybe bans little boys from harassing and making sexual assaults against faculty or staff in U. showers?
Ok, I’ll dial down the snark/sarc. for now.

Not much help for a boy assaulted by faculty or a grad asst. witness on what to do,
if grad asst wanted to do the right thing for the victim.

Maybe other U. pub’s offers guidance.

 

[al66pine]

http://ucr.psp.state.pa.us/UCR/Reporting/RptMain.asp

I linked to this, clicked Centre County, clicked year 2010, clicked Pennsylvania State Univ, then got this:
http://ucr.psp.state.pa.us/ibi_apps/WFServlet?IBIF_ex=RUREP01&MAPAREA=14

Help me interp this correctly.

Last yr,
U had 21 Sex Rel. Off's; Co. had 129 Sex Rel. Off's, or 87.2 per 100,000 pop. Correct?
The County’s 129 figure included the U’s 21 rapes. Correct?

U had 55 assaults; Co had 739, or 499.3 per 100,000 pop. Correct?

Is ANYONE familiar w. these reports?

Thx in Adv.

 

[J. J. in Phila]

I

I was picturing Lunsford as an old guy so I looked him up. He's about 50?
http://centrecountygazette.com/brad-lunsford-p611-103.htm

47-49, he graduated after me.

 

[Reader]

[/B]

Reader, your point is so well stated that the retirement should have raised some questions. I would guess that Jerry had an answer and reason for his retirement at the ready, if he were asked. But a part of me says, maybe some of these people did not want to know the reason, the real reason. I'm always amazed at intelligent, highly regarded people who often shy away from anything that may render them "involved" in case something illegal comes along.

When I was on the board of directors for a local Boys & Girls Club, if the director even spit on the sidewalk, I wanted to know about it. But then, I was working as a newspaper reporter then so my curosity was always on point.

But sadly there are people who make it a point of not knowing the exact story. And often tell themselves it's just a rumor and they want no parts of it. Great Post Reader.
Just my O

Thanks, azwriter, but that quote came from this link that StellarsJay posted above:

http://www.realclearsports.com/arti...mpt_to_disown_sandusky_is_specious_97543.html

One excuse that JS and others have given for his early retirement were the 'enhanced benefits' that supposedly were available for a limited time.

BBM in your post

I've come to accept that people are just like that most of the time. There are very few heroes for children who need them. Even when child abuse is right in front of their faces they won't report until the child is traumatized, injured or dead. Then they can tell all about the bruises they saw and the screams they heard. I think they are afraid to get involved until someone in authority is there and then they feel somewhat protected from the parents' wrath.

In JS's case, what he was doing was so sordid and unacceptable that even if some had suspicions, people were reluctant to make these accusations against such a prominent person in Penn St. and Second Mile without absolute proof. If they were wrong or it could not be proven then their own reputation would be ruined. The only one who did actually witness an assault by JS on a little boy and reported it, saw it passed around by his superiors without much result and was reluctant to buck the system without their backing.

These crimes thrive on being secret; abuse of children, women, men and animals grows in the darkness of fear of contagion and retribution.

 

[Reader]

PSU case highlights stakes for programs

Read more here: http://www.centredaily.com/2011/12/28/3032935/psu-case-highlights-stakes-for.html#storylink=cpy

Mike McQueary’s words couldn’t have come at a worse time. Paterno was trying to fix the Nittany Lions’ money-making football program he built on a motto of “Success with Honor,” after the low point of his coaching career. The university was near the end of a $1.4 billion fundraising campaign, six years removed from the opening of a $55 million basketball arena and had just expanded the football stadium to the nation’s second biggest.
-----

The dependence of universities on sports to help fund everything including money-losing gymnastics teams and general scholarships has created a system where the needs of coaches and their programs supersede the educational values of their institutions, said Robin Harris, executive director of the Ivy League, whose schools don’t give athletic scholarships.It also creates an environment where a coach like Paterno had the power to tell the university’s president that he wouldn’t help raise another penny if the school’s top disciplinarian wasn’t fired for being too strict with his players.
-----

Penn State football generated $63.3 million in fiscal 2010, about 60 percent of the athletic department’s revenue.Coaches like Paterno are the most powerful people at their universities, including the presidents, said Lewis Katz, a former owner of the NBA’s New Jersey Nets who donated $15 million to Penn State and whose name appears on the campus law school building.“Football trumps everything at Penn State,” Katz said. “There’s nothing that comes close to second.”
------

John Lahey, president of Quinnipiac University, said the biggest headaches in college sports seem to come from the more visible and valuable teams.“When any part of the university, in this case athletics, becomes so important to the university, to the university’s brand, image, resources, as certainly is the case with the Penn State football program, it can cloud the better judgment of people with high intelligence and integrity,” Lahey said at the IMG Intercollegiate Athletics Forum in New York this month.


More at link....

 

[Concerned Papa]

I think the article in Reader's post above does a great job of offering an explanation for why good people turned a blind eye to this animal's actions:

Coaches like Paterno are the most powerful people at their universities, including the presidents, said Lewis Katz, a former owner of the NBA’s New Jersey Nets who donated $15 million to Penn State and whose name appears on the campus law school building.

“Football trumps everything at Penn State,” Katz said. “There’s nothing that comes close to second.”

“There is so much money tied into big-time college athletics that it forces some people to make bad decisions,” Harris said. “They may be people affiliated with a program, or coaches and administrators who do things purposely wrong, or turn a blind eye, because they are focused on generating revenue and not necessarily the integrity of the enterprise.”

“When any part of the university, in this case athletics, becomes so important to the university, to the university’s brand, image, resources, as certainly is the case with the Penn State football program, it can cloud the better judgment of people with high intelligence and integrity,” Lahey said at the IMG Intercollegiate Athletics Forum in New York this month.

http://www.centredaily.com/2011/12/...s-stakes-for.html#storylink=cpy#storylink=cpy

It's difficult to find humor in this tragic situation, but the President of Ohio State University comes pretty close with what likely was a similiar position that Spainer, Curley, and Schultz found themselves in:

Ohio State’s football program had an operating profit of about $18.2 million last year. It hired Urban Meyer, a two-time national title winner at the University of Florida, as coach last month at $4 million a year, more than triple the $1.3 million paid in the fiscal year ending June 2010 to Gordon Gee, the Columbus, Ohio, university’s president.

Meyer, 47, succeeded Jim Tressel, who quit in May in a memorabilia-selling scandal involving top players. Tressel produced a national championship at Ohio State before the NCAA said he kept information about rule-breaking from school administrators for more than nine months. Asked early in the case if he was going to fire Tressel, Gee, 67, responded, “I hope he doesn’t fire me.”

 

[SuziQ]

A teenager says he was raped by Jerry Sandusky inside his office in Penn State University’s football building in 2004 — two years after the ex-football coach was said to have had his campus keys taken away and was banned from bringing children into the building, the boy’s lawyer told FoxNews.com.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/12/3...-sandusky-raping-him-on-campus/#ixzz1i4SZ7w2j

 

[angelmom]

A teenager says he was raped by Jerry Sandusky inside his office in Penn State University’s football building in 2004 — two years after the ex-football coach was said to have had his campus keys taken away and was banned from bringing children into the building, the boy’s lawyer told FoxNews.com.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/12/3...-sandusky-raping-him-on-campus/#ixzz1i4SZ7w2j

Nauseating:

Sandusky’s attorney Joe Amendola said the ban never happened.

“He wasn't banned from using Penn State facilities until November 2011," after criminal charges were filed in the broader case, Amendola told FoxNews.com. "Jerry was using Penn State facilities right up until the week before charges were filed."

Maybe Amendola thinks he's helping Jerry, but in actuality he's just hurting the Penn State crew AND Jerry. If he denied that Jerry had access it might have cast a shadow of doubt on this boy's allegations. Instead they are giving it even more credibility, and Penn State's plausible deniability is slipping even further away.

These people do NOT know when to shut up. I'm glad. It will make it easier to put them all in jail.

 

[willow]

You know, I'm truly surprised that there haven't been more victims coming forward to press charges against this .

You KNOW this just didn't happen over night. What about the '70's, and the
'80's, etc.? I'd like to know about those years, too.:furious:

 

[Quiche]

I think more victims will be coming forward in the near future-- this article would certainly draw more than a few out of silence. mo


Penn State scandal spurs liability coverage examination

January 1, 2012 - 6:00am

...Penn State President Rodney Erickson said the school's liability insurance will cover financial obligations arising from civil suits.

much more at link

http://www.businessinsurance.com/article/20120101/NEWS06/301019984?tags=|338|75|302

 

[ThoughtFox]

You know, I'm truly surprised that there haven't been more victims coming forward to press charges against this .

You KNOW this just didn't happen over night. What about the '70's, and the
'80's, etc.? I'd like to know about those years, too.:furious:

I wouldn't be surprised if you went back to Jerry's late childhood and teenage years to find out that he had victims then who were younger than he was.

Predators just don't change over the years, although obviously he became more and more confident as he learned out to manipulate everyone around him to get what he wanted.

 

[wfgodot]

Interesting attendee at PSU bowl game:

"Pedobear" Showed Up At The Houston-Penn State Game Today (Deadspin)

 

[ThoughtFox]

A teenager says he was raped by Jerry Sandusky inside his office in Penn State University’s football building in 2004 — two years after the ex-football coach was said to have had his campus keys taken away and was banned from bringing children into the building, the boy’s lawyer told FoxNews.com.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/12/3...-sandusky-raping-him-on-campus/#ixzz1i4SZ7w2j

Just unreal ~ they ought to drag Curley back into a Grand Jury room and grill him again because someone is lying about what Jerry was "allowed" to do on campus. :maddening:

The incident allegedly occurred two years after ex-athletic director Tim Curley says Sandusky was banned from bringing Second Mile boys into the football building and had his keys taken away.

*snip* . . .

Schmidt said the university dropped the ball.

“They informed the Second Mile, told him he couldn’t bring boys around the locker room, took away keys to office building, but two years later he’s using the Lasch building as his office for the Second Mile program,” Schmidt said. “They were using part of the Lasch building for Second Mile activities… This is the same office he wasn’t supposed to have keys to—in the Lasch Building.”

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/12/3...-sandusky-raping-him-on-campus/#ixzz1iMEQFGz4

 

[Tipstaff]

It seems indicative of bigger and more public problems yet to come at Penn State that the search committee is having a difficult time hiring a football coach.

Possibly the potential candidates are being made aware or have their own vision of just how bad things are and will be for quite a long time at Penn State.

Watching this process with great interest.

 

[Steely Dan]

Interesting attendee at PSU bowl game:

"Pedobear" Showed Up At The Houston-Penn State Game Today (Deadspin)

:laughcry:

 

[Concerned Papa]

This <modsnip> might be better off just stepping into a cell and shutting the door on himself, at least, saving the expense of the caliber of legal eagles he's hired for his defense.

Jer's newest counselor, Karl Rominger, recently whined :boohoo::

&#8220;Even if this person is a perpetrator, now that this is national news it seems to be that people are coming forward suddenly remembering things&#8230; anyone coming forward in this matter&#8212;you have to question their motivation. Everyone knows about how much money&#8217;s involved here.&#8221;

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/12/3...-sandusky-raping-him-on-campus/#ixzz1iQhNeiif

In other words, "Even if Jerry Sandusky IS a child rapist, it doesn't mean he raped any of these new people coming forward."

Somehow, I just can't imagine Johnny Cochran ever saying "Even if O.J. Simpson DID murder his wife and Ron Goldman, it doesn't mean he killed anyone else." :gasp:

 

[StellarsJay]

Interesting article about teachers proposing clearer reporting requirements in Pennsylvania:
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/12003/1200918-298.stm

"Stuart Knade, chief counsel for the Pennsylvania School Boards Association, said one suggestion calls for a new type of conduct subject to discipline, sexual misconduct, which would include attempts to develop romantic relationships with students. That would cover, for example, the case of a teacher sending romantic or sexual text messages to a student without having to show that any physical activity took place.

Another suggestion would make it mandatory to report if an employee resigns to avoid being terminated. In this case, "you can't let somebody scurry off to another job and not be reported," Mr. Knade said.

Also being considered is wording that makes more clear which misdeeds must be reported and language that covers any uncertified teachers at charter schools."

 

[Tipstaff]

Interesting article about teachers proposing clearer reporting requirements in Pennsylvania:
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/12003/1200918-298.stm

"Stuart Knade, chief counsel for the Pennsylvania School Boards Association, said one suggestion calls for a new type of conduct subject to discipline, sexual misconduct, which would include attempts to develop romantic relationships with students. That would cover, for example, the case of a teacher sending romantic or sexual text messages to a student without having to show that any physical activity took place.

Another suggestion would make it mandatory to report if an employee resigns to avoid being terminated. In this case, "you can't let somebody scurry off to another job and not be reported," Mr. Knade said.

Also being considered is wording that makes more clear which misdeeds must be reported and language that covers any uncertified teachers at charter schools."

Having lived the past 10 years in S. Florida I can remember at least 4 cases where a teacher's past has caught up with them after they were permitted to resign prior to being fired for "misconduct with a student" in another state.

They came to Florida and got jobs as teachers!!! But they were found out by inquiring minds - usually parents of students.

One benefit of the internet and the search tools are these people cannot hide from their past if there was any type of reporting in public forum.