Penn State would rather football than justice for child rape

[Anguirus]

The reason why outrage is focused on Paterno is because he's the one that a bunch of slimy shits are trying to apologize for.

On account of he's famous and made some school millions of dollars and plays a mean game of football. It's so much to expect the brain of this 76 year old pillar of the community to remember and follow up when he hears about a personal friend of his sexually assaulting a child in a place that he supervises.

That said, McQueary is also the target of considerable outrage.

[Havok]

Hav, McQuery testified under oath that the recalled the events to Paterno. The sugarcoating "vague terms" stem only from Paterno's testimony, not McQuery's. Your scenario would require that McQuery told one sanitized version to Paterno and a more graphic one to the other staff. I really doubt this was the case, for it assumes McQuery had an active agenda of protecting Sandusky. Rather, it sounds to me as if Paterno engaged in ass-covering in front of the grand jury.

So who do you believe: The guy who chose to report the rape in the first question, or the guy who failed to investigate or follow up on the investigation? Which one of these has more reasons to lie?


EDIT: Hijack split, please continue.

Maybe I am reading it wrong, but under the section of Victim 2 where it lays out what happens, it seems vague as to what was initially reported to Paterno. I know what McQuarry reported to the GJ, but is that what he told Paterno in 2002. The statements of Curley and Scultz corroborate the vagueness argument, even though the GJ discounts their recollection of events.

As I said in OT...

What sticks out to me is how it goes from the graphic nature of what McQuarry says he saw, to the "fondling or something of a sexual nature" that gets reported to Curley the next day through Paterno. Then the next week McQuarry was summoned to the meeting with Curley and Schultz and supposedly recounted the the same details.

I'm wondering what pressure was being applied to whom here, because something doesn't add up in the chain of the events being relayed.

Remember, this is a 28 year old man that had to call his dad to know what to do in this situation, and when given the completely wrong advice and direction, he went along with it. It's not like he followed up in the 9 years either. I'm not exactly taking him at his word anymore than anyone else in the situation. As I have been saying, too many unanswered questions at this point.

The GJ testimony is also a recent recounting. McQuarry could very well be covering his own ass along with his father's for not coming clean 9 years ago.

[Thanas]

To what end? What is his angle here? We all know what Paterno stood to lose back then - money, fame, recognition, power etc.

But what would McQuery have to gain by purposefully diluting what he said to Paterno?

[weemadando]

And surely at some point, personal responsibility would have come to mind and he'd have gone: "Man, I know I reported this like two years ago, but this guy is still hanging around... I wonder what my superiors actually did? The fact the police weren't involved should have rung some fucking alarm bells.

[ThomasP]

To what end? What is his angle here? We all know what Paterno stood to lose back then - money, fame, recognition, power etc.

But what would McQuery have to gain by purposefully diluting what he said to Paterno?

Could it be simple face-saving? I mean, he's getting a ton of flak now for "not doing something" when he came across an incident of child-rape, in not physically interceding and then not making any effort to call the cops; maybe he's white-washing it after the fact so he doesn't look like a dick?

I don't know; I've been sympathetic to the fuck Paterno side, but I think Havok's making a good point.

[Havok]

To what end? What is his angle here? We all know what Paterno stood to lose back then - money, fame, recognition, power etc.

If even half of what people say about Paterno's character is to be believed, none of that would have mattered now, then or 40 years ago. His who persona is built around turning down the fame and money of the NFL, namely the Steelers among other teams over the years.
And reporting when he first found out in 2002 would have lost him personally, none of those things.
In fact, that would have just made his legend grow as a man that had so much integrity that not even 30 years of friendship could sway his moral compass.

But what would McQuery have to gain by purposefully diluting what he said to Paterno?

This is why I am saying that things aren't adding up.
In 2002, there was no reason not to report Sandusky. No one loses face, or anything of that nature. "A trusted friend has deceived us all and Penn State is going to do everything possible to rectify the situation and help the victims of this heinous act."
They come out of the situation fine and the scandals effects linger for maybe a year or until Sandusky's trial ends. But Penn State is not tarnished and Paterno is even more bulletproof.

This is my personal thinking and is mostly assumption.
This has to do with McQuarry's father and his life long friendship with Sandusky. I have a feeling that it is going to come out that the father swayed his son to sanitize his report to Paterno and thus, to Curley and Schultz. I think it will have to do with misplaced loyalty and the personal gain and loss that you applied to Paterno, but more in the fashion of not wanting to lose their meal ticket in Paterno.

I have a feeling that Curley and Schultz are in part telling the truth about what McQuarry told them in 2002, but that they also know more than they are letting on and that this coverup may go further back in the university and may encompass more people. Hopefully not in the heinous manner that some new information is indicating. However, this more explains the sudden retirement of Sandusky in '99.

Disgusting side thought to this... Is this why Sandusky never took a head coaching job elsewhere? So that he could stay close to the child pipeline he set up in The Second Mile program?

[Dark Hellion]

Something that probably hasn't sunk in for many within the institution is that their inaction has the slim but real possibility to quite literally destroy Penn State.

1) The failure of mandated reporters could lose them all federal funding. Which is huge.

2) The University will likely face a class action lawsuit over their negligence which could easily cost the school nearly a billion dollars after damages and legal fees.

3) This has already tarnished the image of the institution among school councilors and for businesses looking to hire college grads, at least from what I have seen across several different news sites. This could lead to lowered admission numbers and to career oriented students transferring.

4) Longer odds, but if the accusation that Sandusky transported children across state lines to bowl games to abuse them then Penn State could be brought up under RICO Statutes.

Think about that for a moment; the school fits the general legal definition of a child prostitution ring under federal law.

Frankly, I am not certain that Penn State should survive. I would feel sorry for the students and faculty who had no connection to this crime but this may be the price society has to pay to shake off the shameful complacency that allowed this tragedy to happen.

[Thanas]

If even half of what people say about Paterno's character is to be believed, none of that would have mattered now, then or 40 years ago. His who persona is built around turning down the fame and money of the NFL, namely the Steelers among other teams over the years.

I doubt that. I fail to see why Paterno cannot be seen as a product of his time when these things were simply swept under the rug and/or regarded as a family matter.

In fact, that would have just made his legend grow as a man that had so much integrity that not even 30 years of friendship could sway his moral compass.

Or it would have shown him as somebody blinded by friendship for allowing it to happen and cast doubt on his football program.


I find it a lot easier to believe that Paterno did not care or did not view it as a pressing matter and that it was all kept hushed up for the better good of the university/program. The fact that he tried to stay on only reinforces that belief - the good of the program mattered to him, little else. Not the victims, for he only mentioned them in a throwaway sentence. The program and his status mattered to him.

Same for the officials. After all, this is the same university that allowed homophobia to reign in the name of winning, so I doubt they cared much about anything else. link. And I find it hard to believe that the values of the officials were so very much removed from those of Paterno.

[SpaceMarine93]

Something that probably hasn't sunk in for many within the institution is that their inaction has the slim but real possibility to quite literally destroy Penn State.

1) The failure of mandated reporters could lose them all federal funding. Which is huge.

2) The University will likely face a class action lawsuit over their negligence which could easily cost the school nearly a billion dollars after damages and legal fees.

3) This has already tarnished the image of the institution among school councilors and for businesses looking to hire college grads, at least from what I have seen across several different news sites. This could lead to lowered admission numbers and to career oriented students transferring.

4) Longer odds, but if the accusation that Sandusky transported children across state lines to bowl games to abuse them then Penn State could be brought up under RICO Statutes.

Think about that for a moment; the school fits the general legal definition of a child prostitution ring under federal law.

Frankly, I am not certain that Penn State should survive. I would feel sorry for the students and faculty who had no connection to this crime but this may be the price society has to pay to shake off the shameful complacency that allowed this tragedy to happen.

Its unlikely they are going to get prosecuted and closed down. I mean, its an entire university that is at stake here. The prestige lost on a national scale and the potential loss of a prestigious institution would be too much for the state to handle. They will intervene and obstruct justice to ensure that it stays. Nothing will be done against the university. They will be tarnished for years, but they will not close. And they will keep thinking that pedophile pimp as a hero who put the university on a map instead of a prostitution ring leader.

Penn state people, you should be ashamed of yourselves for allowing this horrific tragedy to happen.

[Havok]

Something that probably hasn't sunk in for many within the institution is that their inaction has the slim but real possibility to quite literally destroy Penn State.

1) The failure of mandated reporters could lose them all federal funding. Which is huge.

2) The University will likely face a class action lawsuit over their negligence which could easily cost the school nearly a billion dollars after damages and legal fees.

3) This has already tarnished the image of the institution among school councilors and for businesses looking to hire college grads, at least from what I have seen across several different news sites. This could lead to lowered admission numbers and to career oriented students transferring.

4) Longer odds, but if the accusation that Sandusky transported children across state lines to bowl games to abuse them then Penn State could be brought up under RICO Statutes.

Think about that for a moment; the school fits the general legal definition of a child prostitution ring under federal law.

Frankly, I am not certain that Penn State should survive. I would feel sorry for the students and faculty who had no connection to this crime but this may be the price society has to pay to shake off the shameful complacency that allowed this tragedy to happen.

No, it doesn't. Sandusky has not been an employee of Penn State since 1999. Unless it can be proven that the university at any level was complicit in his actions, before the time he resigned, there is no such definition that can be applied to the university. Everything after that, including what we already know, comes down to Sandusky deceiving the people that trusted them and him taking advantage of that trust.

Also, as much as Paterno, Curley and Schultz are going to take heat for what happened, they had nothing to do with the actual molestation.
It also has nothing to do with the student body of Penn State as it was young boys through The Second Mile organization that has several locations throughout PA that are the victims.

There is no safety issue and it's not like there is rampant molestation going on in Happy Valley. Well, outside of Sandusky.

Also do not underestimate the pride Penn State alumni still have in the school. Or their pocketbooks.

What it will effect is the football program and recruiting. Like it or not, for schools like this, the football program is the life blood that drives them. Not just the football program itself, but all the other sports, and in the case of Penn State, the entire campus, through Paterno.

A few high profile recruits have already decommited or publicly stated that Penn State is now off their list. The thing is, this would happen if Paterno had stepped down with no scandal swirling, so it's hard to gauge which is the real reason.

[Havok]

Its unlikely they are going to get prosecuted and closed down. I mean, its an entire university that is at stake here. The prestige lost on a national scale and the potential loss of a prestigious institution would be too much for the state to handle. They will intervene and obstruct justice to ensure that it stays. Nothing will be done against the university. They will be tarnished for years, but they will not close. And they will keep thinking that pedophile pimp as a hero who put the university on a map instead of a prostitution ring leader.

Penn state people, you should be ashamed of yourselves for allowing this horrific tragedy to happen.

Jezuz christ. Would you shut the fuck up. Idiot.

[Havok]

If even half of what people say about Paterno's character is to be believed, none of that would have mattered now, then or 40 years ago. His who persona is built around turning down the fame and money of the NFL, namely the Steelers among other teams over the years.

I doubt that. I fail to see why Paterno cannot be seen as a product of his time when these things were simply swept under the rug and/or regarded as a family matter.

Because that is not the man he has been. This isn't hero-worship as kanastorous claims, this is eyewitness account of the man for the last 60 years from respected professionals from all walks of life. It is part of why this is such a big deal.

In fact, that would have just made his legend grow as a man that had so much integrity that not even 30 years of friendship could sway his moral compass.

Or it would have shown him as somebody blinded by friendship for allowing it to happen and cast doubt on his football program.

What? Are you even reading what I am writing? As far as we know, Paterno had NO IDEA this was happening at all before 2002, and according to him, he wasn't aware of the magnitude of it until two weeks ago. If, in 2002, they had blown the whistle on Sandusky, how would that cast doubt on his football program then?

I find it a lot easier to believe that Paterno did not care or did not view it as a pressing matter and that it was all kept hushed up for the better good of the university/program. The fact that he tried to stay on only reinforces that belief - the good of the program mattered to him, little else. Not the victims, for he only mentioned them in a throwaway sentence. The program and his status mattered to him.

You are 100% wrong. Paterno has a deep commitment to his athletes, students and the entire school. That is why he wanted to stay on for two more weeks. Not because of any status. He brought these kids in and he made a commitment to them and he was trying to fulfill that commitment.

You guys don't seem to understand Paterno and Penn State. This isn't Florida or Alabama where the football program is practically a separate entity from the school. Paterno IS Penn State. Not just the football program, but the scholastic programs as well as the other sports programs. The entire town. He is practically the face of the state of Pennsylvania.
However it's not a power grab or a status issue. He genuinely cares for the entire institution. Again, this is widely known and recognized as fact, which is why this is getting the attention it is, and why it is a Paterno issue and not a Sandusky issue.

If there were any other college in the country the head coach would have made a statement and the only people you would be talking about are the school officials and Sandusky.

Same for the officials. After all, this is the same university that allowed homophobia to reign in the name of winning, so I doubt they cared much about anything else. [url=http://espn.go.com/espnw/commentary/721 ... e-failings]link[,/url]. And I find it hard to believe that the values of the officials were so very much removed from those of Paterno.

Sorry Thanas, but being a homophobe is not the same as allowing child rape. I mean, you do see the irony in saying that a institution that is OK with hating gay people, obviously allowed man on boy sex to happen and protected the perpetrator, and that it is pretty fucking stupid.

[Havok]

I'm tired of talking about this as I feel like I am arguing both sides. Paterno and Penn State fucked up/I'm not sure it is as cut and dry as people are saying.

I'm waiting for the other foot to drop on the second half of this scandal and I'm waiting until there is more clarity in the information before I keep going.

[Spoonist]

I mean, you do see the irony in saying that a institution that is OK with hating gay people, obviously allowed man on boy sex to happen and protected the perpetrator, and that it is pretty fucking stupid.

Agreed that it it is stupid but for cause and effect I'd argue the reverse of what you are saying. Same sex child abuse is simply more prevalent in organizations that claim to be anti-gay. While the opposite is true as well, organizations that are open about homosexuality are more likely to stomp out paedophiles early. I'd also argue the same genericly for cultures as well. This based on a couple of things.
1) Its harder for the victim to report such a thing without getting part of the blame.
2) Its harder for bystanders to accuse because of the increased severity. The "Are you really sure?" mentality have been prevalent in military, church, sports, etc for ages.
3) The added scandal of not only having the crime comitted within the org, but also against a "core belief" of the org, will make it more likely that cover ups will happen.
4) The "in denial and in the closet" type of people do actively seek out orgs where there is an anti-gay culture to 'prove' that they are not.

So it being "stupid" doesn't correlate with it being less prevalent, instead because it is treated as taboo it generates an environment where it is easier to get away with.

Also correlate this to cultures where male on female rape also punishes the victim. In those cultures rape is more common. One of the reasons for this is thought to be that you are unable to report it. Same thingie.

[Kanastrous]

This isn't hero-worship as kanastorous claims, this is eyewitness account of the man for the last 60 years from respected professionals from all walks of life.

The two are not mutually exclusive.

You guys don't seem to understand Paterno and Penn State.

It's funny sometimes how institutional loyalty sounds the same, regardless of the institution. Can't count the number of times I've heard re: abusive priests you guys don't seem to understand the Pope and the Church. If you have been following the coverage of the story, you'll know that I'm not the first to note the parallel.

I'm waiting for the other foot to drop on the second half of this scandal and I'm waiting until there is more clarity in the information before I keep going.

The other shoe to drop (well, maybe unless one lives along the B.C. coast). But yeah, this is wise and I'm going to follow your example and wait for some more clarity before commenting again.

[Anguirus]

Despite Havok's flowery hyperbole, I never heard of the guy before this week, and I don't feel a great void in my life where the state of Pennsylvania ought to be.

Many people no doubt do see Paterno in this way, but very many do not.

[Kanastrous]

On the subject of the foolishness of idolizing sports figures, apparently at least one professional making his living by covering sports seems to kind of see it my way...

Stewart Mandel>INSIDE COLLEGE FOOTBALL

In 2000, the late Myles Brand made the controversial decision to oust revered Indiana basketball coach Bob Knight. Brand, then Indiana University's president, drew the scorn of students and alumni but the admiration of his peers, who named him NCAA president two years later.

If college athletics held its proper place in the greater landscape of higher education, there would have been no reason to congratulate or criticize Brand. In other walks of life, it's not considered courageous when the head of a business dismisses one of his subordinates for inappropriate behavior. The Brand-Knight incident was only jarring because for the previous 30 years, the power dynamic between Indiana's president and basketball coach had been reversed.

Nothing about college coaches' skewed importance has changed since then. If anything, it's gotten worse. Head football and basketball coaches now make as much as five times more than they did just a decade ago, and the media coverage surrounding them has amplified accordingly.

But if there were ever a time for fans, media members and college administrators alike to get a collective wake-up call, it's following Joe Paterno's dismissal. No football coach has ever lorded over an entire university the way Paterno did during his 45 years in State College. And no university has suffered a more gruesome football-related episode than the ongoing Jerry Sandusky child molestation scandal.

The mess at Penn State has illustrated the danger of putting successful coaches on pedestals. Four wins or 400, coaches are still people, and people aren't perfect. That's why our government employs a system of checks and balances, and why businesses nationwide mimic that distribution of power.

At Penn State, Paterno had all the power. President Graham Spanier and athletic director Tim Curley were technically his bosses, but they held as much sway over him as the guys selling hot dogs at Beaver Stadium on Saturdays. We know this most vividly because in 2004, Spanier and Curley tried to push out the struggling 77-year-old coach, and Paterno told them ... no.

That distorted dynamic is why Sandusky was allowed free rein of the Penn State football complex years after the first account of sexual molestation surfaced. Who was going to stop him if not Paterno?

Many think Mike McQueary should have. According to his grand jury testimony, McQueary, then a 28-year-old graduate assistant, witnessed Sandusky raping a boy estimated to be 10 years old in the locker room showers. How, people ask, could a grown man like McQueary fail to step in and stop this atrocity when he saw it? Why did he not call the authorities?

In McQueary's world, Paterno was The Authority. McQueary, a State College native, former Penn State quarterback and son of a huge Nittany Lions fan, has spent nearly his entire life in a warped world few of us understand. What some view as cowardice probably seemed courageous to McQueary at the time: He went to The Authority's house and relayed bad things about the coach's long-time trusted confidant. He didn't know The Authority would merely pass the information along to his two in-name-only superiors, who then failed to take substantive action.

What's far more puzzling is how McQueary went to work for the next nine years and accepted seeing Sandusky at practice or in the weight room. But the Penn State football complex wasn't a normal workplace; the lone Authority was out to lunch in his last years on the job, but he held such clout that few dared to question his actions. That's not an excuse for McQueary's decisions, but it's reality -- a sick reality in which inaction was the norm.

Paterno and his so-called bosses deserve all the blame we can muster for allowing this atrocity to occur, but the rest of us deserve blame for lionizing coaches like Paterno in the first place. We turn these mortal men into irreproachable icons. We do it with articles portraying them as something more mystical than people who happen to be good at their jobs. We do it by camping out for tickets in tent villages named in their honor. We do it by building statues of them while they're still on the job.

Few actually rise to the realm of idolatry, but any major college football or basketball coach who has sustained success enjoys unprecedented power. The truly revered have presidents and athletic directors who theoretically sit above them but in reality work for them. They enjoy blindly adoring fan bases that would raise arms at the mere suggestion of wrongdoing.

Sports are our escape, so it's not surprising that we treat our favorite figures like movie stars. But as we were reminded so painfully this week, this is real life. And unlike professional coaches, who work for businesses tasked solely with winning athletic contests, college coaches are theoretically part of a greater community, where education is supposed to trump entertainment and leadership is supposed to be more than a Big Ten Network infomercial.

There's nothing wrong with going to a game, painting your face or cheering on your favorite team's coach for hours. There's nothing wrong with me writing an article praising a coach for his inspired gameplan. There's nothing wrong with a school president giving a championship coach a raise.

But there's something inherently wrong with a community in which one person holds an inordinate amount of power. Teachers answer to their principal. CEOs answer to their shareholders. Mike McQueary answered to Joe Paterno.

Paterno didn't answer to anybody. No coach has ever experienced a more painful downfall, in part because no coach had ever been elevated to such heights.

Hopefully, no coach ever will be again.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/w ... ?hpt=hp_t1

[weemadando]

College football is rotten
By David Roth

Big-time college football is home to enough small grossnesses that fans barely notice them anymore. Actually, small may not be the right word for these thousands of legalistic elisions and micro-oversights and case-specific ethical lapses. The millions in tax dollars paid to coaches and assistant coaches and athletic directors for knowing the most effective of those oversights and lapses make them more abstract and farther reaching than the particulars of any isolated incident. Public employee salaries do kick up some froth from the ever-seething Don’t Tread On Me caucus, but whether it’s that set’s genuflective reflex towards people making that kind of money or something else, complaints about those particular salaries are most often seen in poignantly cheesedicked unsigned newspaper editorials, and not seen often even there. It’s all strange, but if you care about college football you have already gotten used to it.

The massiveness of those uglinesses makes them abstract, and thus has the odd effect of turning what are actually smaller – or at least more specific – offenses into the greater grossnesses, at least in terms of how long they persist in public memory. All these queasy hiccupps are symptomatic, but they fit more easily in memories and news cycles than the abstractions of what is actually the larger rot. Those broader scummeries periodically lead to specific outrages like the University of Washington ignoring any number of awful things to keep a rapey menace like Jerramy Stevens out of jail for three terrifying years, or the University of Miami’s signature inability to notice while a creepy booster named Nevin Shapiro funded eight years worth of hookers-on-boats for football players. Those are what we remember long after we go back to forgetting all the endemic uglinesses that make these sexier mini-outrages not just possible, but constant.

The story of Jerry Sandusky and Penn State football – the former being the 67-year-old man charged with 40 counts of the vilest sexual abuse against eight pre-teen boys over a 15-year period, the latter being his employer for 30 years between 1969 and 1999, the last two decades of that as Defensive Coordinator and ostensible head-coach-in-waiting – is not like any of the outrages, abstract or concrete, to which college football fans have inured themselves. It is incalculably sadder and worse and more horrible, for all the obvious reasons. Some sort of insufficient justice is en route – two school officials have been charged with perjury and failure to report a crime in relation to the case, and have left their posts; iconic head coach Joe Paterno, after 60 years at Penn State, has been disgraced by a legally correct/morally awkward response to the graduate assistant who came to him, in 2002, after having seen Sandusky in a locker-room shower with a 10-year-old; Sandusky, who has maintained his innocence, will spend the rest of what promises to be a pretty miserable life in prison if he’s found guilty. All of it is terrible, and terrible to talk about.

And so maybe it shouldn’t be a surprise that it is being talked about terribly. College football’s discourse – a spazzy, shouty shitscape of scientistic wrongness and empty certitude – could not be less well equipped to handle something of this scope, scale or dead-serious nightmarishness. People whose job it is to get huffy about college football – and the long-time-listener-first-time-caller squeakers who do it for free on sports-talk radio – are used to responding to violations that exist along a smallish scummery spectrum to an audience that has grown fat, dumb and mean on the sentimental, empty-calorie pomp that defines The College Football Experience. The NCAA’s vacuous dedication to criminalizing and righteously punishing random picayunities doesn’t help much in terms of moral clarity; Rick Neuheisel, the coach who worked with skeevy ardor to keep the aforementioned Stevens eligible throughout his Rohypnol-powered, x-treme DUI joyride at Washington, finally got in trouble with the NCAA for… betting in an office NCAA pool. This case, again and at the risk of belaboring the point, is beyond the scope of any of that.

Instead, we have a crime so horrible as to make the usual steakheaded hyperbole, weepy-dad sentimentalisms and misplaced seriousness of college football discourse look even more horrible in turn; from Paterno, we have a wrenching and complicated disappointment from a legitimately and justifiably revered leader-of-men, instead of the ordinary gone-in-a-week outrages over tactical miscalculations or the usual recruited-the-wrong-sociopath misjudgments or caught-doing-dirt scuzz bloopers. That Paterno was cowardly in a recognizably human way in his limpish response to the charges doesn’t make his conduct any less troubling or saddening or nauseating, depending on your perspective.

If Paterno inarguably did more – or was at least more honest about how little he did when the state’s attorney came calling – than the two Penn State officials facing seven-year sentences for their shameful roles in the case, it’s very difficult indeed to say that it seems as if he did enough. It’s also difficult to read the excruciating 23-page indictment and not wonder how Paterno could have known nothing about the similar charges that preceded Sandusky’s departure from the program in 1999. If this doesn’t undo the many admirable things about Paterno’s 46 years as head coach, it also doesn’t really suggest an honorable way out for Paterno, up to and including resignation. That Penn State’s cynical non-response to the charges against the DC-emeritus they’d given the run of the campus resembles nothing so much as the Catholic Church’s similarly shameful handling of similar crimes suggests a whole host of harrowing mis-priorities on the school’s part. It is all very, very bad, for everyone, and very difficult to talk about.

But, for better or worse, we’ll get to all that. There’s no suggestion in the indictment that the charges from 1999 had anything to do with Sandusky not being retained, although of course that’s the sort of story that’s supposed to carry a journalist’s byline, not a prosecutor’s. Eventually it might, but thus far the coverage has been split between recapitulation and dim, dunderheaded Whitlockian all-they-care-about-is-the-money bombast. The discovering of just how many craven and manifestly bad decisions were made by brand-minded administrators in hopes that this story would never break recalls the nauseous revelation, during the end of the Bush years, that the financial industry was built on artifice and graft and the horrific realization that everything it had touched was infected and terribly contagious. That college football itself has become too big to fail is not a new realization to anyone who has followed the sport’s consolidation into macro-conferences and boutique TV networks; that the response to it seems most likely to be vague righteousness and Santelli-style blame-shifting is disappointing, but also perhaps the most we could expect. The college football discourse was never designed to handle something this serious, and is as unprepared for it as the business discourse was for its switch from facile boosterism and clammy wealth-humping to post-crash forensics.

This isn’t the sort of thing anyone wants to talk or think or write about, but even beyond that there is a palpable wish to get back to what has already been proven to work. Soon enough, there will be some passive-positive debate-style discussion of when and whether Paterno will leave Penn State and who will replace him. Further down the line there will be assessments of how the fallout from “the scandal” – the same word used to describe Ohio State players swapping jerseys for tattoos is already being used to describe the horrors Sandusky is alleged to have forced upon needy kids for a decade and a half – will impact Penn State’s program. And finally there will just be what there always is: dense, dead-serious short-horizon noise about next Saturday and the Saturday after that.

This is the business of that particular machine, but it’s a pretty stupid and unilluminating business even in the best of circumstances. Here and now, in what looks a lot like the worst of circumstances, to talk that usual College GameDay shit would be tasteless-unto-pathetic. It would look like a willful, desperate retreat to the usual trivial questions in the face of larger and more discomfiting ones about responsibility and priorities and community values and the perversions and abdications of all three that follow from prizing the survival and success of powerful institutions like big-time football programs over people like the Sandusky case’s Victim 1, Victim 2, Victim 3 et al. To talk about all that now would look like a willful desperate retreat from those painful questions because it would in fact be a willful desperate retreat from them. And it will still be that, when we at last (but soon) get around to it. All that small, silly talk will be just as tasteless and point-missing when it somehow becomes appropriate again, when we go back to tutting at/leering over all those big-small scandals concerning sociopathic tight ends and creepo boosters. It will just be harder to notice how ugly it is, then, because the noise we’ll hear will sound only like what it is: the same blinkered experts talking college football as usual.

[Stark]

Isn't it a bit dumb to be stunned that an organisation cares about a unit that makes a lot of money? If people are going to be aghast at the influence of money in sex crimes, they're going to have to reach a bit further than college administrators.

[Enigma]

Looks like McQueary has been placed on administration leave.

[Patrick Degan]

Screw Paterno. He deserves to be stripped of all records and accomplishments for this great moral cowardice.

It effectively already has been, even if no formal procedure doing so has occurred. Because nobody is going to care ever again about Joe Paterno's 409 wins, his two national championships, five untitled undefeated seasons or record for reaching 300 wins quicker than any other D-1 coach in NCAA history. Nobody will ever quote his now-hopelessly tarnished "success with honour" philosophy. Buildings will not be named for him, nor scholarships, nor charitable endeavours. His pictures will quietly be taken down from the walls at Penn St. when the furor dies down. There will be no statue of him on campus for pigeons to shit upon. Nobody will care about his life story or ever read about it, because his entire life has been reduced to a single line: "morally bankrupt coward fired in disgrace for covering up child rape". That is Joe Paterno —forever.

[Vympel]

It effectively already has been, even if no formal procedure doing so has occurred. Because nobody is going to care ever again about Joe Paterno's 409 wins, his two national championships, five untitled undefeated seasons or record for reaching 300 wins quicker than any other D-1 coach in NCAA history. Nobody will ever quote his now-hopelessly tarnished "success with honour" philosophy. Buildings will not be named for him, nor scholarships, nor charitable endeavours. His pictures will quietly be taken down from the walls at Penn St. when the furor dies down. There will be no statue of him on campus for pigeons to shit upon. Nobody will care about his life story or ever read about it, because his entire life has been reduced to a single line: "morally bankrupt coward fired in disgrace for covering up child rape". That is Joe Paterno —forever.

Hear hear. Andrew Sullivan said something very incisive on this week's Real Time about the issue:- Joe Paterno was the head of a cult. And the thing about cults is that someone is going to get buggered, and no one is going to tell. That's what happens in the Catholic Church, and thats what happened here.

[Todeswind]

I can understand why Paterno decided the way he did. It was wrong and he should not have done it but I can understand where he came from. Football players especially college players are conditioned from a young age to believe you listen to your coach first above all else. And division I football coaches are elevated to the status of minor deities. Remember this is the man who had control essentially over Joe's line, scholarships, and for all intents and purposes Paterno's future. The decision to go against him is not an easy one.

Do I think that he should've gone to the police? Yes, however rate cases unless you have an overwhelming amount of evidence in your support are nebulous at best. At a Division I coach who is an active coach can bring an astounding amount of resources to their defense. So essentially Paterno would have been deciding to give up his entire career and the life he wanted to have for something that he probably couldn't have gotten through. His choice was the wrong one but I'd be lying to say I didn't understand it.

I just want to publicly state that I was misunderstood what was going on when I posted this, I thought Joe Paterno was the player who reported things to the coach, not the other way around. Having been tired and only skimmed the article is a reason but no excuse.... the more I learn about this situation the more having come to Paterno's defense, even accidentally, makes my skin crawl.

I apologize for having defended this disgusting man.

[weemadando]

It effectively already has been, even if no formal procedure doing so has occurred. Because nobody is going to care ever again about Joe Paterno's 409 wins, his two national championships, five untitled undefeated seasons or record for reaching 300 wins quicker than any other D-1 coach in NCAA history. Nobody will ever quote his now-hopelessly tarnished "success with honour" philosophy. Buildings will not be named for him, nor scholarships, nor charitable endeavours. His pictures will quietly be taken down from the walls at Penn St. when the furor dies down. There will be no statue of him on campus for pigeons to shit upon. Nobody will care about his life story or ever read about it, because his entire life has been reduced to a single line: "morally bankrupt coward fired in disgrace for covering up child rape". That is Joe Paterno —forever.

Hear hear. Andrew Sullivan said something very incisive on this week's Real Time about the issue:- Joe Paterno was the head of a cult. And the thing about cults is that someone is going to get buggered, and no one is going to tell. That's what happens in the Catholic Church, and thats what happened here.

A friend made this comment while discussing how ridiculous the whole scenario is:

"Isn't it a little strange that we're holding a football coach to a higher standard than the fucking pope?"

[Atlan]

It effectively already has been, even if no formal procedure doing so has occurred. Because nobody is going to care ever again about Joe Paterno's 409 wins, his two national championships, five untitled undefeated seasons or record for reaching 300 wins quicker than any other D-1 coach in NCAA history. Nobody will ever quote his now-hopelessly tarnished "success with honour" philosophy. Buildings will not be named for him, nor scholarships, nor charitable endeavours. His pictures will quietly be taken down from the walls at Penn St. when the furor dies down. There will be no statue of him on campus for pigeons to shit upon. Nobody will care about his life story or ever read about it, because his entire life has been reduced to a single line: "morally bankrupt coward fired in disgrace for covering up child rape". That is Joe Paterno —forever.

Too late:


Asshole already got a building and a statue.