What bothers me about Joe Paterno and his 'abrupt firing'

[tawadi]

Sorry if this issue has been beaten to death already. But WTF? Why were there thousands of angry students filling the streets in protest of this seemingly long overdue action by Penn State? How could that man, Paterno, smile and thank his "supporters"?

Are sports figures beyond reproach? Really? Riots protesting his termination?

Really..

:wtf:

Every one of those students, protesting that coach's termination, should be forced to watch the trial. They should be forced to watch every minute, every second, of testimony about the crimes against those young football players and the subsequent cover-up.

I am not only perplexed by the students' outcry, I am disgusted.

[WI_DEM]

1. Sports is way too important in academia and with our nation as a whole

It's all about 'school spirit.' Hopefully those kids will organize a vigil to remember the true victims--and it isn't Coach Paterno.

[savalez]

15. +1

[Remember Me]

26. They're not called

fan(atic)s for nothing.

[jwirr]

44. Or in other words " bread and circuses" - sports are still the circus.

[MADem]

2. Because they're stupid, and they give more of a shit about football than poor little kids

from shitty neighborhoods who were "at risk" and subjected to more risk at the hands of sick fucking perverts.

They have no sense of appropriate shame.

[global1]

12. Just Look Around You - Think About The Repug Debates & Look What People Are Cheering Or Booing At...

This is where the kids are learning this stuff. Our society is screwed up. Think 99% vs the 1%'ers. Think of who gets rewarded these days. Jack Abramoff was on Lawrence last night. He's now being revered for what he did to us. The bankers got rewarded. George W Bush and Cheney aren't in jail. How about Herman Cain the serial sexual harasser. Reality TV. I could go on and on providing examples. I really don't know that we could blame the kids. We have to blame a permissive society that rewards the bad guys and craps on the good guys. What is happening on he campus of Penn State is just another example.

[global1]

47. Just Look Around You - Think About The Repug Debates & Look What People Are Cheering Or Booing At...

This is where the kids are learning this stuff. Our society is screwed up. Think 99% vs the 1%'ers. Think of who gets rewarded these days. Jack Abramoff was on Lawrence last night. He's now being revered for what he did to us. The bankers got rewarded. George W Bush and Cheney aren't in jail. How about Herman Cain the serial sexual harasser. Reality TV. I could go on and on providing examples. I really don't know that we could blame the kids. We have to blame a permissive society that rewards the bad guys and craps on the good guys. What is happening on he campus of Penn State is just another example.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

3. Gladiators were also indulged celebrities and the games were major events

just before the collapse.

[RKP5637]

6. Yep, good observation. Also, some schools value their sports more than academia. n/t

[Raven]

4. They weren't "young football players", they were little boys with

their whole lives ahead of them who were innocents and no doubt adored and trusted their "Coach."

[atreides1]

10. Which coach are you referring to?

[Raven]

14. Sandusky.

[LynneSin]

5. Joe did the classiest thing he knows how to do

I'm not sure if you are from the region but I grew up right on the edge of it. It's a fricking cult in regards to the PSU program and the worship of Joe Paterno.

[Fumesucker]

9. We have similar figures in my part of the country..

I'm way out of date on sports but I can recall Vince Dooley and Bear Bryant being treated as quasi-deities.

[pennylane100]

25. If that is the classiest thing he knows how to do

he is one fucked up moron. The same applies to his supporters.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

7. Its not a surprise to me at all

JoePA is a god like figure in the Northeast and to college football fans everywhere.

As I write this, it far from clear what he really knew. He passed on a complaint that went *nowhere* and apparently had no other knowledge. Hindsight is great, but when the legal system did not take it seriously, I can see why he did not. All that said, it happened on his watch and he owns part of the mess. Given the loyalty a coach feels for his team, I understand his desire to end the season. I also understand him being fired immediately and the student protest. There is rationale for all courses of actions.

My personal opinion is that first and foremost I am glad the abuse was stopped. The rest of it is all lower in priority, and some of it is nothing more than noise.

[tawadi]

13. I don't believe it is unclear. Here is more info for you

http://www.examiner.com/media-culture-in-national/source-joe-paterno-knew-of-penn-state-sex-abuse-cover-up

[Matariki]

18. 15 seconds into reading the article at that link a Chase Bank ad launches

blowing away the article :-(

I hate that shit. Why in the world to websites think people will stay on their site when they pull that shit?

[tawadi]

22. There are many other links detailing the grand jury report

Try this one: http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2011/11/09/bernstein-you-must-read-the-grand-jury-report/

[rocktivity]

32. Here's the report itself.

You're welcome:

http://cbschicago.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/sandusky-grand-jury-presentment.pdf

:headbang:
rocktivity

[Matariki]

51. Thanks!

[Angry Dragon]

16. Someone reporting sex abuse of a child is a little more than a complaint

and others also reported to the school

[Atman]

19. The part about the complaint "going nowhere" bothers me.

He knew what happened, enough so that he felt he had to tell his superiors. Yet, Sandusky wasn't arrested, nothing...he quietly went away. Then he starts a foundation that puts him in contact with more little boys and Paterno serves on the board, working alongside him. Clearly, no action was taken against Sandusky, as he was still a free man, still running his foundation. So Paterno still knew that a child molester was running a foundation for at-risk boys, and what did he do about it? NOTHING. I don't accept the "his complaint was going nowhere" crap. Paterno knew he was sitting at the boardroom table with a child rapist...it was his obligation to take it somewhere if no one else was doing so. Period.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

23. I too found that very odd that nothing was done by the legal system

I can understand someone assuming a complaint was false/unsubstantiated if after it was reported and nothing came of it. Unfortunately false complaints get filed with some regularity which lessen the impact of valid ones that need urgent attention.

[zerox]

41. This complaint never reached the legal system.

Sandusky was investigated by the DA in 1998, but the charges were dropped for lack of evidence. This same DA disappeared a few years later.

The 2002 complaint was kept in-house at Penn State, despite the previous allegation, and despite a direct witness to what happened. That is totally inexcusable.

[dkf]

37. I heard that some were told Sandusky was found "horsing around" with the boy.

I'm not sure he knew the grad student saw the boy being raped.

[melissaf]

52. Joe was probably happily hoping

that there was nothing to the charges and that everything was a misunderstanding. A lot of that magical thinking floats around in such insular places. Plus, one thing many haven't pointed out is that Joe was in his 70s when he learned about Sandusky's actions (supposedly--if you believe him when he says he didn't know about the 1998 stuff). DEFINITELY not an excuse, not by a longshot, but it's possible that his judgement may not have been what it once was. Maybe, had he been a younger man, he would have made a better decision.

Then again, maybe if he were younger, he still would have acted like a company man and booted the whole mess up the chain of command just like he did in 2002. Hard to say at this point.

[aquart]

28. It was not stopped.

The abuse was allowed to continue for ten more years, wasn't it?

[ProgressiveProfessor]

30. I still am amazed at the lack of legal action when it first came to light

I am willing to give Paterno some room here. He reported it and nothing happened. That would lead most of us to believe the complaint was groundless. In hindsight it is clear he should have taken additional action, but there is nothing to indicate that Paterno condoned the behavior in anyway.

I understand those advocating immediate firing, I respect Paterno for wanting to finish the season with the team, and I understand the student protests. All have some rationale for their positions. The only good thing is that the abuse is stopped.

[LanternWaste]

34. oing the right thing, regardless of what others may or may not do.

"but when the legal system did not take it seriously, I can see why he did not..."

I can't.

Doing the right thing is doing the right thing, regardless of what others may or may not do.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

42. Have you ever had a baseless complaint made against you or a collegaue?

Do you remember the McMartin Preschool claims?

Another poster has pointed out that the PSU AD did whatever Paterno told him to and that Paterno reporting it to him was just a CYA move. That is something I had not considered previously and it is worth of some serious thought.

[liberal N proud]

8. None of those students have known the world with out Paterno as coach

They think this is the end of the near sighted world in which they think they live. Then throw Mob Mentality into this and you have the riots.

Makes no sense but neither do the crimes which have cost Paterno his job, they thought they would never have to deal with this.

[TheCowsCameHome]

11. Don't some look for any old excuse to disrupt?

F'rinstance.......

Win a game or championship - riot

Lose a game or championship - riot

WTF is with this mentality?

[JuniperLea]

29. It's "Yay Team" mentality...

Same thing drives TeaBaggers, IMHO.

They don't have to understand anything, all they need do is parrot... and rah rah rah.

It's a symptom of the Idiocracy, IMHO.

[gratuitous]

17. My impressions

You make a decision to join a group, a tribe, a congregation, whatever, you necessarily invest some of your identity in that entity. People choose to register as Democrats, support the Occupy movement, go to Penn State, it becomes a part of them. Remember the reaction at DU when the Anthony Weiner "scandal" broke? There was a lot of back-and-forth from allegedly reasonable and mature people, some of it bordering on what might pass for the internet equivalent of a riot. Why? Because we're invested in the Democratic party and its stalwarts. Seeing Weiner's destruction was a traumatic event.

Some students who chose Penn State as their institution of higher learning doubtlessly did so in part because of the presence of Joe Paterno. His dismissal is a similarly traumatic event for many students, convulsing them in ways baffling to outsiders. I note in passing that not every student was outraged, nor did every student turn out for the demonstrations. But the ones who did obviously had a piece of their identity as a Penn State student damaged. Couple that with the immaturity of people in their late teens and early 20s*, the mob mentality, and the suddenness of events, and the situation was ripe for a cathartic outpouring of emotion, some of which was inevitably destructive.

Were the demonstrating students callous about the victimized boys in all of this? Some probably were. But my takeaway from watching ESPN's coverage was that many of the students felt personally hurt by the sudden events, and the victimized boys didn't enter into their calculation. I don't doubt that some of them regret even now their participation in last night's activities. Others will regret it later. And still others will maintain that their outrage was over Paterno's abrupt dismissal and had nothing to do with the underlying causes leading up to that firing.

*By which I refer to the underdeveloped brain functions that don't achieve full maturity until age 25 or older.

[melissaf]

53. "The ones who did obviously had a piece of their identity

as a Penn State student damaged." YES!!!!! This is exactly what I've been saying for the past couple of days. It's not just stupidity, booze, immorality, Republicanism, or any of half a dozen other easy answers I've seen people throwing around (although I'm sure for some of the students one or more of these reasons is part of it). It's the loss of IDENTITY that's truly at issue.

I grew up in State College. I know how isolated it is. I know how it feels to watch TV and think you're a total nobody because you live in the middle of nowhere. Many students who go to Penn State come from even further out in the middle of nowhere, and probably feel like they're nobodies, too, until they see Beaver stadium on TV and know that's right up the street from their dorms, and they see Joe Paterno, who lives across town, whose house you can probably walk right on up to and ring the doorbell. It's not that the students are condoning anything Sandusky did or anything any of the rest didn't do. It's that the students' feelings that they're people are based around having a football superstar living in their midst. And having a winning football team.

And in case anyone reads this and feels like I'm letting them off the hook--no, I don't think this makes it okay to riot or have a temper tantrum because Joe's gone. I'm also not equating this feeling of nothingness to, say, being dirt poor and having crack addicts for parents and not having a chance in hell of getting into a school like Penn State because you have no money. I'm just trying to add another layer of explanation as to why the students did what they did. When you live in "fly-over country," in a gargantuan university where professors have no chance in hell of knowing your name, you don't give up easily what little fame trickles down to you.

[dynasaw]

20. It's An Insult

to all professors. Sandusky was not a professor. To retire as an emeritus is a way universities honor the services by real professors.

Penn State needs to yank the title from this pervert.

[Freddie Stubbs]

21. Drunk college kids are known to do dumb things

[shanti]

24. i thought he put in for retirement

and then was fired? whatever the case, he's a disgusting POS old fart for not reporting this.

[ScreamingMeemie]

27. He was fired last night, shanti...after he said he would retire at the end

of the year. And I agree with the rest of your post.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

31. He did report it...those he reported it to did not take appropriate action

In hindsight, Paterno could/should have reported to others. There is no evidence that he condoned the behavior.

[itsrobert]

33. Yup, only kept in him on his staff

No condoning there. :sarcasm:

[ProgressiveProfessor]

39. While troubling, if no legal action was taken, would it be reasonable to assume it was unfounded?

That for me is the crux of the matter. How many of us would assume that if no action was taken upon a complaint of that type that the complaint was valid?

[zerox]

45. Not at all.

Mike McQueary, the witness to Sandusky's shower attack, was not just a graduate assistant--he was the starting quarterback at Penn State for two years. This is somebody that Paterno would have known well and must have trusted, at least enough to hand him the reigns to his football team for those seasons.

It was this man who came to Paterno directly and informed him of what he saw. McQueary's description, which is very graphic, is recounted in the public record. Paterno, the figure of absolute authority at Penn State and the father figure for the campus generally then decided, having received from a trusted former player and then-assistant a description of a heinous and terrible crime, to call the police? No. He thanked McQueary for telling him what he saw and then quietly told the school's Athletic Director.

Joe Paterno knew exactly what happened here. What he did was not good enough, not even close.

[zerox]

38. Paterno runs that school.

Athletic Directors at Penn State operate more or less at the will of Joe Paterno. "Reporting" crimes of this magnitude to the AD, whose primary interest is protecting Penn State sports, is a meaningless CYA move, and Paterno knew it.

The investigation went nowhere because that's exactly where the Penn Staters wanted it to go.

[tawadi]

40. Not any longer. eom

[ProgressiveProfessor]

43. That is a position I had not considered...

And an interesting one at that

[TorchTheWitch]

49. He was already planning on retiring at the end of this season

before all this mess came to light. He had the gall to tell the Board that do to the mess coming to light and his role in it he would retire at the end of this season. WTF! I think part of the reason he was immediately sent packing was because of this unmitigated gall.

[KurtNYC]

35. what will they do for an encore when he is arrested? n/t

[tawadi]

55. Doubt he'll be arrested. Maybe a star witness though. eom

[MissDeeds]

36. I'm disgusted by the students' response, too

It's indefensible.

K&R

[provis99]

46. they had mass protests at IU when Bobby Knight was fired.

The asshole had made it a routine to go around campus and assault students, and yet the idiots student body supported him? It made me furious. All that blather about being a "legendary coach", just like they blather about Paterno. Being a legendary coach doesn't give you license to choke random students.

And the "legendary" Knight only won one national championship in all that time, anyways; he was mostly known as "legendary" for his rotten attitude and temper.

[taterguy]

50. Knight won three national championships at IU

And he never choked a 'random' student, it was always a student who pissed him off.

[TorchTheWitch]

48. it makes me sick to my stomach

WTF indeed. It's grotesque.

The crimes were not against young football players. Sandusky founded and ran a foundation for troubled youth where he got his prey (frankly, I think it was the whole reason for the foundation - a treasure trove of young boys with no adult they felt they could rely on). All of the known victims were through his foundation. He even legally adopted 6 children through the foundation 5 of which are boys. I'm sick to think of his possible real reason for adopting them and what they may have suffered.

[cliffordu]

54. A modest reply:

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

That's why.