Posted on 07/13/2012 12:55:16 PM PDT by PA BOOKENDS
I have to say, I’m disappointed and a little concerned by the reaction of some of my freeper friends to the Sandusky / Penn State scandal. Full disclosure: I graduated from PSU in 1970. Am not a member of the Alumni Association, have been back for, maybe, 5 games since 1970. Very much on the periphery of all things Penn State.
For the class of ‘70, the JoPa phenomenon (“JoPa” hadn’t even been coined, yet.) hadn’t materialized. Nevertheless, living in Pennsylvania, one could hardly be oblivious to the success of the football team or Paterno’s philosophy. We were happy to see someone who was not only successful, but successful with honor and class.
And this is what brings me to this vanity. So many of you seem to resent that very notion. You apparently held so much animus toward Paterno BEFORE ANY OF THIS EVER CAME OUT, that the very second it hit the fan you couldn’t wait to jump on the down-with-Joe bandwagon. Some of you exhibit so much glee at Joe’s downfall that you come very close to behaving as you accuse him – a willingness to throw a few boys under the bus if it can bring down JoPa & Penn State. Why do you take such joy in seeing a man’s lifework – GOOD work - destroyed?
That Joe couldn’t, perhaps, live up to the ideals he espoused doesn’t make the message any less worthwhile nor does it repudiate the good that he did do. In every sense, his life is the classic story of a Greek tragedy – something the Brown English major would understand!
And to those of you who are so cock-sure of how you would react in any given situation, it is with trepidation that I say: I hope you get the chance to find out.
Don't tell that to the ut longhorns. Other than golf, I despise their sports programs. I like Tom Kite and Ben Crenshaw, but they can take their football program and stuff it, since the the coach Royal days.
I don’t see why he hung around for 10 years unless he sold his silence for a job.
Hmm...why did Paterno tell Sandusky in Feb 1998 that he would not be the next head coach? Possibly he had decided to continue coaching for the next 13.5 years...at the same time Paterno apparently had no problem with Sandusky being offered Assistant AD or starting a Division III program at PSU’s Altoona campus (neither of which Sandusky ended up doing). But then why was the “window of opportunity” for starting a Division III football at PSU’s Altoona campus only a few months? Did Paterno know the truth would be coming out?
Well, it did only a few months later. If on May 4, 1998, Shultz writes a memo saying, “Behavior - at best inappropriate @worst sexual improprieties at min - poor judgment” and “other children?” then within the month Curley e-mails Schultz “Anything new in this department? Coach is anxious to know where it stands.” Surely Paterno must have at least suspected Sandusky by then.
By the way, I was born near Pittsburgh and grew up a mild PSU fan.
College coaches are a pretty tight-knit fraternity, I assert that amongst them there was common knowledge that Sandusky was radioactive, even though they may not have known the exact reason why.
Into the fiery furnace for BBQ! Nom! :)
He Zotted Real Good!
Great point. He may have sold his silence without having to ask for the paycheck. Paterno and his bosses knew that McQueary knew. And they knew that McQueary’s father knew. So everytime contract renewal came up there was an automatic pay raise.
Well-played. Somebody definitely has some "issues" here.
I've been meaning to say this for several months but finally got that round tuit!
Viking Kitties will feast tonight. ;-)
Yes, a tasty one.
We need bigger nukes.
Oh gosh. Germany was fun, but Graf, Wildflicken and Hoensfels caused me to avoid cold climates at ALL COSTS. Frostbite will do that.
So much so, that (as a native New Yorker) I live in Florida and deploy ONLY to the Middle East as a security contractor.
Bless you brother.
John McQueary, the father of Mike McQueary, contacted Gary Schultz a few months after the 2001 incident to check up on Mike's "Sandusky report" to Paterno.
I don't know what he was told; I don't know if he followed up again. However, John McQueary did follow up with somebody. Also remember that it wasn't John McQueary who was instrumental in deciding that Mike McQueary shouldn't contact the police, but Jonathan Dranov, M.D., whom John McQueary called over to the McQueary household that night for advice.
Dranov was the medical director of the clinic where John McQueary worked, and to which Joe and Sue Paterno had donated over $1 million.
Dranov testified for the defense in the Sandusky trial. He testified that he asked Mike three times whether he saw actual sexual penetration that night. All three times Mike broke down and couldn't answer the question - he'd start to tell the story and when he got to the 'slapping noise' part of the story, he'd break down and couldn't continue.
The media twisted that into Dranov testifying that Mike McQueary told him he didn't see any sexual acts, when Dranov testified that McQueary couldn't tell him because he kept breaking down.
Dranov advised John and Mike McQueary, as a physician, to call Paterno the next morning and not to call the police.
I went right up the road at Allegheny...
...Meadville, Pa props...I went to some school up the road I can’t remember the name of...it’s now a women’s correctional center...maybe they could send Jerry there...he wouldn’t be interested in them, and maybe vice versa...
...bookends, you’re allowing your love for your school to color your perspective...I can relate to that. I personally have an animus toward PSU for years, because of obnoxious in laws and other fans who rubbed my nose in PSU football until I wanted to gag...I’ve been hoping for a long time that something would occur to bring these people down a peg or two, but in my wildest dreams I wouldn’t have expected anything like this...I’ve always liked and respected Paterno, even though I rejoiced over the rare losses he did incur (still don’t know how Miami couldn’t beat them in ‘86)
and now, after all this, while I think comments about him rotting in hell do litte to advance the situation, I see in full just how flawed a person he was, who seems to have believed all the fawning Pennsylvania press stories about himself, a potentate who thought he was the ultimate authority, controlling each and every little thing regarding football...
...it was never plausible that he knew nothing about the 1998 situation with Sandusky; such a control freak as Paterno would have been right on top of it...since that appears to be true, there is little left to defend him with, regardless of our feelings toward him...he is what the Freeh report claimed him to be...a man who looked to his fiefdom before he looked to the fiefs themselves...
I never cared for him, especially when Alabama was screwed over twice in three years in football games by refs beholden to Paterno...
...I remember the one game up at State College where the bama tight end caught a pass in the end zone for the game winner, and the ref either ruled it out of bounds or some other thing, and disallowed it...how blatant was that? Don’t recall anything else with Bama, but one game against Nebraska where a PSU end caught the ball way out of bounds and it was called complete and placed at the one yard line...that was the only game Nebraska lost that year and it cost them the title...out an out robbery, and really soured me on PSU football...
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