Penn State Child Molestation Scandal...continuing discussion

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Be proud that you are one of the PSU community members being a thoughtful analyst of the situation rather than a bloody reactionary.
 
PhilsFan said:
He was dead on, though he was actually rehashing a news story that came out in March and basically editorialized it.

The vast majority of students have condemned the rioting. Most of those people are also defending Paterno. I can't wrap my head around. I've never felt more Philadelphian and less Penn State in my life.

I sent a tweet out today about what I said to a reporter when asked about the riots, and it's been circulating. Many circulating it are doing it as a "We Are" rally and continuing to defend Paterno. This whole thing makes zero sense to me.

Your quote was right on though.
 
New Jerry Sandusky Rumor Threatens To Make Penn State Scandal Much Worse - SBNation.com

more than just madden reporting the rumors that the second mile was pimping out kids to big donors...

this is the type of story I prefer not to spend several hours researching and fact checking

over the next few days good (correct) information will come out

there will be a lot of rumors and gossip, a friend of a friend said, and with social media being what it is today, I got to believe a lot of exaggerated or false stuff will proliferate.


I find it hard to believe he was pimping little children and they were not telling their parents, guardians, friends, etc.


if he had a 'rent boy' thing going with willing 'of age' gay students, that is still wrong and bad
there have been many instances of female call girl rings operating on campuses, if a teacher or coach was involved he or she should be prosecuted

logically a willing sex worker seems more likely to have gone unnoticed and /or unreported for so long

as I said I have not done much checking on this, I do expect in the next 2-3 days this will be a lot more clear.
 
The idea that the whole Second Mile foundation was a huge, elaborate front for multiple men preying on defenseless little kids makes my skin crawl. I know I shouldn't jump to conclusions...I don't know shit...I'm just an idiot with a laptop...but reading between the lines here gives me the sinking feeling that these investigations will expose Second Mile as one of the most disturbing criminal organizations, potentially, in the country's history. Some seriously fucked up unprecedented shit going on here.
 
I could also be naive, and that kind of shit has gone on at many other places.

I guess I just don't want to believe that.

I'll be happy here in my blissful, ignorant bubble eating frozen pizza and watching old sitcom reruns.
 
GirlsAloudFan said:
that's the best article I've ever read on there. Not at all funny, but very strong.
Headache in a Suitcase said:
New Jerry Sandusky Rumor Threatens To Make Penn State Scandal Much Worse - SBNation.com

more than just madden reporting the rumors that the second mile was pimping out kids to big donors...

I'm getting tired of the way the media is teasing this new story as though it's the plot of next weeks episode. He'll, we've even got industry insiders spoiling some info for us now!
 


she seems to think it does have something to do with sport

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....
But Penn State is no more guilty than other powerhouse athletic departments and universities. Believe this: These things could have happened anywhere. It's the protective cocoon of big-time athletics.

The longer you reside within that cocoon, the more entrenched you become in the culture. Administrators and coaches often morph from humans who react with humanity into vassals charged with protecting the institutional image. Preserving legacy and mystique are placed ahead of a child's - or a woman's - pain.

When we are finally allowed to ask questions of Paterno and Curley and Penn State president Graham Spanier, we should be less concerned with precisely what they knew and when they knew it. We should be concerned with understanding the answer to only one answer: why?

Why not go to the police immediately? Why endanger additional innocent children?

I think when you wade through the rhetoric, you'll find a very frightening answer, one that mirrors my flawed thinking while pacing, waiting, for that NBC interview.

They couldn't see the humanity standing outside their blue-and-white athletic gates.
 
iron yuppie said:
Yes, and sports are power. They are one and the same at major universities. Trust me, having been around universities with these behemoth programs for many years, the athletes and coaches get what they want when they want it, and the reason that they get it is the fervor, and, hence, money, that they are able to drum up amongst the student body and the alumni. I firmly belief that sports influence the culture of universities far more thoroughly than they do the general population. If I am upset at the corporatization of the NFL, I can just not watch the game. Students at big-program universities have the sports programs forced down their throats at every turn.

This is ultimately a question of priorities. Paterno was lionized for nothing more than winning football games, which, in the long run, means absolutely nothing. If he had been a tireless advocate of the student-athlete but had never won a national championship, no one would have given a damn about him. My point is that it makes no sense to build someone up as a pillar of the community for something as trivial as being a football coach.

And, finally, I'm not impugning the entire Penn State community by any means. But those who were involved in these ridiculous pro-Paterno rallies deserve to be exposed as the ignorami that they are.

This is a particularly judgmental post from you, iYup. I don't attend Penn State thank God, but Joe Paterno was more than a successful football coach, he was the face for an entire university and had been for decades. He was a football coach by profession, but his power at that school spread far beyond the confines of the athletic program. He's like a slightly dazed grandfather to them, and they're afraid of losing him, as well as what's about to happen next.

The worst part about the rioters is that they drew attention to themselves instead of the victims. It's really quite pathetic and potentially harmful. But I can understand why they happened.
 
iYup is aware that he's more than just a football coach to the PSU faculty, student body, and alumni, but I think the important question he was asking was "Why?" as in why is such a value placed on something so insignificant.

If I ran the world, competitive athletics would be completely severed from the school system and just turned into minor leagues across the board. It has NOTHING to do with higher education.

Also, someone Tweeted that last night's protest was the "Arab Spring for douchebags".

:applaud:
 
lazarus said:
iYup is aware that he's more than just a football coach to the PSU faculty, student body, and alumni, but I think the important question he was asking was "Why?" as in why is such a value placed on something so insignificant.

The question of "why?" is irrelevant to someone who has been part of an institution for 60 years, and it's certainly not safe to load that question with the assumption that he's only benefited the athletic program. He's done a whole lot of shit for PSU unrelated to football by this point. iYup may be aware of this, but his argument doesn't allow any concessions for it.

If college students were paid, I personally wouldn't bother with NCAA. Lower quality performances than pro leagues, driven by cash all the same? No thanks.
 
Well why watch then? What's the difference if people are rooting for a team connected to their school vs. a city/township? It's all local pride bullshit either way; it's not like the people who all support a team have anything else in common.
 
It's the difference between NCAA basketball and the fucking NBA. Paychecks shouldn't be the driving motivation behind performance, and it will tarnish the purity of the league. There's no maybe about it.

(I suppose I'm a bit naive to assume that future paychecks aren't already an influence.)
 
so please forgive my ignorance. i'm one of the few that haven't been following this story that close. i just read a general timeline of events, and i took away that Paterno actually called the AD the day after the grad student reported seeing an incident to report what he had heard.

is there more to it? i guess i don't necessarily see where Paterno did anything wrong. i must have missed something.

again, please forgive me, i really have been living under a rock with this case.
 
I don't think you need forgiveness

I have not spent a whole lot of time on this either
but to be fair, we can/should spent about 20 minutes with google and get brought up to speed instead of asking others to rewrite that information here :shrug:
 
so please forgive my ignorance. i'm one of the few that haven't been following this story that close. i just read a general timeline of events, and i took away that Paterno actually called the AD the day after the grad student reported seeing an incident to report what he had heard.

is there more to it? i guess i don't necessarily see where Paterno did anything wrong. i must have missed something.

again, please forgive me, i really have been living under a rock with this case.

You're right, from a technical, legal standpoint he probably didn't do anything wrong. His inaction allowed a child sexual predator to continue operating unchecked on the Penn State campus for nine years, but he did his due diligence.
 
Paterno's football program harbored a child rapist, and after being made aware of that fact, PSU's chief action was not to report to the police, but only to ban the child rapist from its locker rooms.

"Rape all you want, just don't do it here!"

Either Paterno was out of touch, in which case he should have been fired on grounds of gross negligence, or Paterno knowingly let a child rapist not just evade prosecution, but spend the next 10 years in close contact with at-risk youths through his foundation.
 
You're right, from a technical, legal standpoint he probably didn't do anything wrong. His inaction allowed a child sexual predator to continue operating unchecked on the Penn State campus for nine years, but he did his due diligence.

i suppose i would need more background on what exactly his position was with Penn State. i just thought he was the head coach. wasn't the incident reported to him after Sandusky retired from Penn State? so it's not like he was working directly under Paterno at the time the incident was reported.

i guess i see everyone's point. it would have been nice for Paterno to go on a crusade to find out the real truth, but i don't know that he should be getting flamed on this as much as he is.

again, there may be more to this than i know about. but on the surface, i don't see anything yet that convinces me that Paterno did anything worthy of being terminated from his head coaching position.
 
Right. He may have reported it immediately, but it's his failure to follow-up or wield his considerable influence that's the big issue here.
 
Paterno's football program harbored a child rapist, and after being made aware of that fact, PSU's chief action was not to report to the police, but only to ban the child rapist from its locker rooms.

"Rape all you want, just don't do it here!"

Either Paterno was out of touch, in which case he should have been fired on grounds of gross negligence, or Paterno knowingly let a child rapist not just evade prosecution, but spend the next 10 years in close contact with at-risk youths through his foundation.

and there's concrete evidence that Paterno knew about this and helped cover it up?

not arguing, just asking for clarification.
 
and there's concrete evidence that Paterno knew about this and helped cover it up?

not arguing, just asking for clarification.

I don't know about "concrete evidence" but the general consensus, I think, is that how could a man that had Paterno's power and influence around campus not know what was going on under his very nose?
 
Right. He may have reported it immediately, but it's his failure to follow-up or wield his considerable influence that's the big issue here.

yeah, i can see that. it's a tough situation. if someone at my work reported to me that they had been abused, i would refer them to the general hotline we provide and expect that they handle it appropriately. the only way i would become involved again is if it involved another employee of mine.

i just wonder if that was Paterno's thinking. i'll report the incident to the AD and trust that it's handled appropriately and get back to my business.
 
Paterno's football program harbored a child rapist, and after being made aware of that fact, PSU's chief action was not to report to the police, but only to ban the child rapist from its locker rooms.

"Rape all you want, just don't do it here!"

I think Sandusky was still allowed in the locker rooms, up until last week.

The action they took in '02 apparently was keeping Sandusky from bringing the kids from Second Mile to Penn St.

So it was more like "Rape all you want, just don't bring the boys you're raping to our campus!"
 
wasn't the incident reported to him after Sandusky retired from Penn State? so it's not like he was working directly under Paterno at the time the incident was reported.

No. This goes way back. There were allegations, whispers, reports of child molestation back in the '90s. Maybe even before.

Let's not get it twisted, Sandusky was on Paterno's staff when the first reports of child molestation came out.

Paterno knew. And, in one way or the other, assisted in covering it up.
 
No. This goes way back. There were allegations, whispers, reports of child molestation back in the '90s. Maybe even before.

Let's not get it twisted, Sandusky was on Paterno's staff when the first reports of child molestation came out.

Paterno knew. And, in one way or the other, assisted in covering it up.

not trying to twist anything, just trying to gain understanding. i guess what i haven't seen yet is evidence that Paterno actually knew and covered up this whole mess. yeah, it looks like he probably did, but was there any evidence supporting that theory......or enough to support terminating him from his head coaching position?
 
I am of the impression that it goes a bit further than that, that when he initially reported to his AD, he watered it down to "fondling" or "touching of a sexual nature" when in fact he fully knew that it was anal rape of a boy of about 10 years of age. So in other words his reporting was even horribly flawed if not an outright lie.

Can anyone expand on this?

Even so, he had a moral obligation to see that allegation through to some sort of disciplinary if not legal end, Sandusky was under him. When the university did nothing, he had at least moral if not also legal obligation to go outside that circle and report it to the police or child protective agencies, and he didn't.
 
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