Posted on 09/23/2014 7:20:57 PM PDT by FlJoePa
Penn State students and fans Saturday showed support for late coach Joe Paterno with a “Joe-Out” – wearing clothing or displaying images of the Hall of Famer at the Nittany Lions' football game.
As a Penn State alumnus, I am proud of my university and I remain proud of the work that JoePa did on and – more importantly – off the football field, with respect to inspiring students and improving academics at the institution.
Yet there remains in the public sphere this erroneous belief that JoePa was a conspirator in the alleged cover-up of the Jerry Sandusky scandal. Sandusky, a former Penn State coach, was charged in fall 2011 and convicted in 2012 of molesting boys over the previous 15-plus years.
Three years later, I await someone to show proof that JoePa was culpable. Even the infamous Freeh Report that looked at the scandal has not given any evidence that JoePa was a conspirator.
In talking to non-Penn Staters about the scandal, I have discovered that many of them have a tremendous misunderstanding of JoePa’s role in the matter. That does not sit well with me, considering JoePa did as much as – if not more than – to advance academics at Penn State University. Yes, that’s academics, not athletics. (For more, read this column written in 2007.)
None of this, of course, exonerates Sandusky or the three former Penn State administrators charged in an alleged cover-up. Sandusky is a monster. The others await their day in court.
Rather, this is an attempt to clear up misunderstandings about Joe Paterno and his role in the Jerry Sandusky scandal. Here are 12 things that most people do not know about JoePa and the scandal:
1 – Jerry Sandusky was not a coach at the time of the shower assault in 2001 in the Penn State football building. Sandusky was retired. JoePa was no longer his boss.
2 – Sandusky, as a professor emeritus, had access to any building that he desired at Penn State. In other words, he didn’t need permission from JoePa or anyone else to go into the football building.
3 – Sandusky targeted his victims through his charity, The Second Mile, and not through Penn State or its football program. The Second Mile, much more than Penn State, deserves blame for this tragedy.
4 – JoePa did not cover up the shower assault, and this is what investigators and the authorities have said and continue to say.
5 – JoePa, in fact, told his boss about the incident, which is the law.
6 – JoePa actually went one step further and also told the man who is in charge of Penn State’s police force about it.
7 – Penn State’s police force is an authentic police force, with about 50 armed police officers, arrest powers and with official jurisdiction over the Penn State campus. It has the same powers and responsibilities as any municipal police force in the state. In other words, Penn State police officers are not like security guards at a mall; they are the real thing and have made thousands of investigations and arrests over the years.
8 – JoePa didn’t just tell his boss and the man in charge of the police about the incident. JoePa also asked them to look into it.
9 – The Freeh Report was commissioned by Penn State’s trustees, who were looking – and still looking – to justify what they did. The Freeh Report has been proven to be faulty and is an interpretation based on supposition and circumstantial evidence – not a finding of fact or a verdict rendered by a jury. For more, click here.
10 – There is not one shred of evidence in the Freeh Report or anywhere – that we know – that shows JoePa covered up anything with respect to Sandusky.
11 – To this day, JoePa is the only person to have apologized for what happened, saying that in hindsight, he wished he would have done more. The key word is hindsight, as JoePa did not know at the time that Sandusky was a predator.
12 – Does anyone honestly believe that if he had known Sandusky was a serial molester that JoePa would have been silent? Furthermore, how could JoePa have known? Trained professionals in child abuse and law enforcement officials did not know.
Having said all of this, it is important again to note that Penn State, the institution, is not absolved of any wrongdoing. Innocent children were irreparably harmed, and a jury will determine whether the former administrators charged with a cover-up will be convicted of those charges.
But one thing is certain, and few non-Penn Staters in the public know it: By all evidence that we have seen, JoePa did not cover up any crime.
Annoying? I presume you meant “anything”.
Are you claiming that “McQuarty” (sp?) fellow never claimed he saw Sandusky buggering a boy in the shower?
Pretty sure I never said any such thing. But if calling me names for something I never said makes you feel better, then go for it. Your emotional outbursts all over this thread make it clear that you're extremely invested in this case, and perhaps need the name-calling and venting.
As for me, with Sandusky and Paterno safely behind bars/in the dirt - I'm less concerned.
Of course, as a Paterno worshipper, you’re going to respond in that manner. Please... you’re going to try to convince me Paterno didn’t have an outsized level of personal power at Penn State?
“Opinion?”
After Sandusky left that program following the first known incident in
1998 (and BTW, emails from that year showed Paterno knew the investigation was ongoing), he was STILL allowed back on campus. Why? When years later Sandusky was caught raping that kid, why didn’t Paterno DEMAND the state police be notified? My OPINION is that he should have. But then.. there was a football program to protect, not to mention Paterno’s legacy.
“Nonsense. His exit contract was based entirely on his years in service.”
LOL. Prof emeritus status for a assistant coach that nobody wanted. DUH. It was a payoff to keep him quiet and happy.
“No one knew about any previous “molestation.” Both the police and the PA Department of Public Welfare CLEARED him of that case.”
You mean covered up the molestations.
“You haven’t posted any facts. “
Fact. Joe Paterno said he didn’t know that men could bugger men! DUH. What an idiot.
McQueary reports the assault to Paterno on Saturday, February 10; Paterno tells McQueary, “you did what you had to do. It’s my job now to figure out what we want to do.”
Awaiting your retraction of the "lie" accusation.
He did not.
He did not tell him any such thing, and he has never claimed that he did tell Paterno about a sexual assault.Furthermore, McQueary's later claim before the Grand Jury, that he had witnessed a sexual assault, was not believed by the trial jury. The shower incident, upon which so many irrational Paterno haters base their vitriol, was one of the few charges upon which the jury did not find Sandusky guilty.
McQueary has told a great many stories over the last several years, but one thing that he has never said under oath is that he told Paterno that a child was assaulted in the shower.
Right. The police and the PADPW were both part of a giant conspiracy. But even if we accept your bizarre assertion to advance a hypothetical, the fact is that the people negotiating the exit contract would have known no more than that an accusation had been made, and nothing had come of it.
No. They don't. You need to familiarize yourself with the facts of the case. You're making a fool of yourself here.
I’m not going to try to convince you of anything. Paterno did not have such power, and did not want it. You can believe it or not; I’m not particularly interested in shining any light into the skulls of the invincibly ignorant.
If you’re going to deny the clear text “McQueary reports the assault to Paterno ...” that’s your problem, not mine.
For some reason known but to you, you’re absolutely obsessed with the idea that Saint JoePa is pure as the driven snow.
You were doing good till you got to the ‘But’.
Power? One phone call would have saved many kids.
But in any event, it doesn't matter, neither the old nor the new policy would apply. Sandusky wasn't an emeritus professor, he negotiated an exit contract which entitled him to the same privileges as an emeritus professor. That's right: a contract. Not governed by any then existing PSU HR policy whatsoever; but by the contract law of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
As for why he was allowed to negotiate such a contract, well, because at the time the contract was negotiated, no one knew anything more about the 1998 investigation than that both the PADPW and the police had cleared Sandusky.
That's right CLEARED. We may know better now, but when Sandusky terminated his Coaching job at PSU all that was known was that an accusation had been made, investigated, and amounted to NOTHING. Like Freeh, you're trying to hold people responsible for failing to be clairvoyant.
As I said: the usual feeble nonsense by someone who doesn't know anything about Penn State, its policies, or the history of this case.
Freeh's lying extrapolations (which are also your lying extrapolations) are exactly the reason that Freeh now finds himself in court.
Oh Good Lord, you must be the most gigantic fool on earth. Child protective services people are, if anything, too overzealous in their protection of children at the expense of parents and guardians. NO one in the PA DPW child welfare division would have been the least bit involved in any kind of a cover up. Please stop commenting. You look stupider and stupider with every post.
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