The scandal should not even be about Joe Paterno or the Penn State Football program. They both played a very minor role in the scandal, sort of like the Quick Mart in the Ferguson, Missouri riots.
Paterno did what he was supposed to do by the book and report the reports about Sandusky to his superiors. He also refused to let Sandusky continue in his position as an assistant coach. Enough other teams in the conference knew enough about Sandusky that he was unemployable.
Sure, JoePa should've gone to the media and done more. He even expressed that regret in the final three months or so between when the SHTF and he passed away.
But the real focus of the scandal should've been the gay friendly atmosphere which PSU President Graham Spainer, his wife and others carefully constructed over the years.
These scandals and the cover-up were a direct result of that construction by Paterno's superiors. It would've been nice if Paterno had blown the whistle early and loud while the gay friendly atmosphere was being constructed.
It might have blown the whole thing up or it might have resulted in Paterno being dealt a similar fate as the founder/inventor of Firefox Mozilla. We don't know.
We do know that Spainer was informed of his termination the morning of the news conference and had the time to prepare a carefully worded statement for the press which "sort of" took responsibility but mostly took the focus off the gay friendly atmosphere he had build at PSU.
We also know that Paterno was informed of his termination about 10 minutes before the meeting/media event begin and had no such opportunity.
He could have been given the same opportunity as Spainer or even been terminated the following day but was not. Which begs the obvious reason why.
The only logical explanation is that sometime later in the day, it was decided by the PSU trustees that the focus could NOT be on PSU's gay friendly atmosphere. And the only way to assure that the topic wasn't even discussed was to blow it off the front pages with Paterno's termination.
See post #35 this thread. Paterno’s own words, (in that June 10th 1974 issue I related to.....Johnny Miller on the cover), tells it all about the man. Cover it up baby!!! Nothing counts but the ‘PROGRAM’ right FlJoePa? In Joe’s own words he states he will not tell about anything.....even if he knew!........and you are gonna see this info every damn time you post regarding this child molesting enabler. (Don’t believe my info?......go to the ‘SI Vault’ where you can look over and read ever issue of SI since it’s launch online.)
Nice obfuscation. What Paterno should really be ashamed of is his actions in 1998/1999. He was not stupid, and he was not some powerless person, as would be required by his apologists.
The only logical explanation is that sometime later in the day, it was decided by the PSU trustees that the focus could NOT be on PSU’s gay friendly atmosphere. And the only way to assure that the topic wasn’t even discussed was to blow it off the front pages with Paterno’s termination.
...quite the conspiracy, isn’t it...but not likely...you are right concerning timing, though...Paterno publicly announced, the day before his firing, that he would retire after the season ended, and the BOT shouldn’t spend any time thinking about him...in other words, telling them ‘here’s what you guys are going to do’...
...Paterno’s days of calling the shots had ended by then, and upstaging the BOT was the final straw...though because they feared rioting, they dithered around, and finally just tossed it out there, like ‘and oh yeah, Joe Paterno is no longer head coach’ almost an afterthought...
...not the finest moment for anyone concerned...