Posted on 11/11/2011 1:25:04 AM PST by Colofornian
The Penn State legend tried to do an end-run around the trustees, but they still fired him for doing nothing to stop the alleged sexual abuse of young boys. Now its time to ditch the rotten college football system, says Buzz Bissinger.
Like everyone else, I cannot get the scandal of Pennsylvania State University out of my mind.
The story is unfolding at the speed of sound, not just the worst sports scandal in modern history but also one of the worst scandals in modern history:
A former Penn State assistant coach for 29 years and alleged sexual predator, Jerry Sandusky, apparently continued unchecked because of the failure of university officials and head football coach deity Joe Paterno to do anything that might have made a difference instead of what they collectively did achieve:
Buck-passing and unconscionable cowardice.
Paterno announced in a statement Wednesday that he would retire as head coach at the end of the football season after 46 years. He tried to sound like a humble martyr, but he was selfish and self-serving as usual. With the hubris and arrogance that has been the hallmark of his career over the past decade, the over-the-hill 84-year-old attempted to do an end-run around the Penn State board of trustees, who have been meeting to decide his fate. Paterno was hoping he could forever claim he decided to leave the football program of his own accord. The trustees called his bluff Wednesday night, firing Paterno and university president Graham Spanier.
Paterno is just a part of this whole sordid, shameful disgrace. He is easy to focus on because of his mythic stature, all false idol, as it turns out. But I find myself not caring about him anymore, particularly now that he has been let go.
What I am trying to fathom is how it ever became possible that so many men of power and intellect did nothing when it became obvious, because it was abundantly obvious on the basis of the findings of fact handed down earlier this week by a Pennsylvania investigative grand jury, that a former assistant coach familiar to all of them was apparently plucking out little boys as young as 10 to f--k up the ass or be on the receiving end of blowjobs.
(Note: we need to stop the daintiness and describe the alleged offenses for what they truly are in the vernacular to somehow try to capture the monstrousness. Not anal intercourse or oral sex, which sounds clinical, but butt-f--king and blowjobs and cock-grabbing and pants-groping and other assorted acts that the 67-year-old Sandusky allegedly inflicted on eight minor victims over a 15-year span, according to the 23-page grand-jury report, and resulted in 40 counts of serial sex abuse of minors.)
I think the answer to the question of inaction is simple. It wasnt a matter of university officials and football staffers in Happy Valley not wanting to deal with it (which they didnt), or not following up (which they didnt), or having better things to do like attending Friday-night football pep rallies. There is no great conspiracy theory at work.
What happened, or more accurately did not happen, goes to the core of evil that major college sports programs in this country have become, equivalent to Mafia families in which the code of omertà rules and coaches and staff always close ranks around their own, even if it means letting someone who was first accused of inappropriate sexual conduct in 1998 continue to roam.
The horror of it all, both in terms of what Sandusky allegedly did and what Penn State officials did not, can be summed up by a single sound.
It is a rhythmic, slapping sound, according to page 6 of the grand-jury report. It is heard by a 28-year-old football graduate assistant named Mike McQueary in the locker room of the Lasch Football Building on the Penn State Campus at 9:30 on the Friday night of March 1, 2002.
McQueary is placing some new sneakers into his locker. At first he finds it odd that the lights and showers are on. Then he hears the sound coming from the showers. He looks inside and according to his grand-jury testimony, sees the cause of the sound: a naked child of roughly 10 years old with his hands up against the wall with a naked Sandusky butt-f--king him from behind. Sadistic, yes. Sick, yes. Beyond disturbing, yes. Deviant, yes. Immediate grounds for calling the police? Of course, yes. The upshot?
Nothing. Nada. Not a goddamn thing but the passing of the buck up the food chain of bureaucratic bullshit where too many people know that something awful has happened and try to bury it.
McQueary, who witnessed the incident, witnessed it, doesnt call the police, although he is 28. He runs to his daddy. His daddy advises him to tell Paterno. He tells Paterno. The great JoePa, who regardless of his noncredible insistence in grand-jury testimony that he was never told the specific nature of the sexual act, does at the very least acknowledge that McQueary did relate to him that Sandusky was fondling a young boy.
Unless fondling of young boys by assistant football coaches at Penn State is commonplace and encouraged, that alone should be enough to make Paterno go to the police. Or being the father figure he supposedly is, tell McQueary that he has to go to the police and will accompany him, given that Paterno is the most popular and powerful man in Pennsylvania, with instant credibility.
But Paterno does nothing beyond fulfilling his minimal obligation. He passes the information he says he has on to athletic director Tim Curley and thats it, the obviousness that Sandusky is doing something terrible apparently far less important than such crucial pursuits as watching game films of the last Ohio State game. And on up the food chain it goesto senior vice president for finance and business Gary Schultz, all the way up to Spanier, the university president. But with each iteration the incident only seems to become more diluted and more muddled or, as the grand-jury report unequivocally indicates, some of those aware of what happened are lying their balls off to try to minimize what they really knew. Which would also explain the action that the university ultimately took against Sandusky:
He had his keys to the locker room taken away, which he had still maintained after he stopped coaching in 1999.
Which may also explain that in the wake of such draconian punishment, Sandusky subsequently gave blowjobs to a minor roughly 13 years old more than 20 times in 2007 and 2008, according to the grand-jury findings of fact.
Joe will mercifully be gone, along with President Spanier. Curley has gone and Schultz stepped down. So should McQueary, who is actually the most gutless in not telling police what he witnessed. The entire Penn State coaching staff, too much under the influence of Paterno, should go.
And so, frankly, should major college football and basketball as it exists now, rotten beyond repair, as has been pointed out a thousand times. Totally disconnected from the academic experience, they are insulated kingdoms with their own rules and reigns of terror because of the money they make, trading in illegal recruiting and illegal gifts and illegal favors, and now, thanks to Penn State, alleged sexual abuse of children by a former coach who must have assumed he would always be protected. Just like a Mafia soldier.
Except that the even the Mafia has higher moral standards.
Be advised: The squeamish or youngest readers should move on to other posts.
Despite the language, I elected to post this because...
...just as we need to SEE actual graphic abortion dismemberments so as to refrain from reducing plural "abortions" as some singular abstract "issue" (vs. seeing him and her as neighbors in the womb)...
...we need at times to look with horror at what other victimized children endure...beyond the womb.
From this editorial 'rant': (Note: we need to stop the daintiness and describe the alleged offenses for what they truly are in the vernacular to somehow try to capture the monstrousness. Not anal intercourse or oral sex, which sounds clinical, but...
From the editorial 'rant': Unless fondling of young boys by assistant football coaches at Penn State is commonplace and encouraged, that alone should be enough to make Paterno go to the police. Or being the father figure he supposedly is, tell McQueary that he has to go to the police and will accompany him, given that Paterno is the most popular and powerful man in Pennsylvania, with instant credibility. But Paterno does nothing beyond fulfilling his minimal obligation. He passes the information he says he has on to athletic director Tim Curley and thats it, the obviousness that Sandusky is doing something terrible apparently far less important than such crucial pursuits as watching game films of the last Ohio State game. And on up the food chain it goes...
From this editorial 'rant': Paterno is just a part of this whole sordid, shameful disgrace. He is easy to focus on because of his mythic stature, all false idol, as it turns out. But I find myself not caring about him anymore, particularly now that he has been let go.
“And so, frankly, should major college football and basketball as it exists now, rotten beyond repair, as has been pointed out a thousand times. Totally disconnected from the academic experience, they are insulated kingdoms with their own rules and reigns of terror because of the money they make, trading in illegal recruiting and illegal gifts and illegal favors, and now, thanks to Penn State, alleged sexual abuse of children by a former coach who must have assumed he would always be protected. Just like a Mafia soldier.”
This is the absolute truth. Collegiate athletics ad nothing to the educational process. They are a worthless distraction from what should be a learning process.
(Ex?) ABC-TV broadcaster Jim Lampley, who covered college football games for a long time, was interviewed on a radio program last night. (Not sure which one) He said his second game was @ Penn State...where the media would be invited over Paterno's house for a meal...how "cozy" the hosts made it for the MSM to "love" Penn State. Lampley said the underlying root problem these days is the overcommercialization of College football...To paraphrase him, he said when College Football began to become its own-purposed self-entity -- vs. being an adjunct of the educational institution -- is what has led to its downfall exposure. Per this forum, Penn State pulled in $50 million from its football program in 2010. Pride "cameth" (if that's a word) before the "falleth" (that's NOW a word)
Saturday's game is NO TIME for Penn State fans to wrap themselves in the "Nittany Lion Pride" flag & logo.
It's better served as a time of sackcloth and ashes. Corporate repentance for creating sub-cultures of idolatry and overcommercialization...with lack of mutual accountability. And most of all, it's better served in intercessory prayer for our children...especially those victimized.
I read elsewhere that Sandusky and the boy both looked at McQueary, they knew he saw them. How could he not help that boy? What did Sandusky say or do to make McQueary go home and not contact police or even Paterno until the next day? Or is that not what really happened?
Dominoes. Bigger than this and going to get bigger.
There is now a new rumor being reported by a columnist who is saying that much more serious allegations are being followed up by investigators. These allegations are that young boys were being pimped to big donors. The next few days will see if these rumors pan out.
Yes...this is in the Grand Jury Presentment (page 6 or 7)
How could he not help that boy? What did Sandusky say or do to make McQueary go home and not contact police or even Paterno until the next day? Or is that not what really happened?
Yes, that is what happened...or better put...what FAILED to happen of import.
#1 McQueary, 28 then, played @ Penn State. Sandusky was his coach.
#2 It went further back than that. McQueary played Little League with one or more of Sandusky's adopted sons.
No doubt there was sheer shock going on. Reeling flabbergasted utter shock.
I'm sure if it had been a stranger, McQueary would have been a hero on behalf of that victim. As it was, he's become the goat (and for good reason). Talk radio in Central PA Wednesday was merciless toward him, followed by death threats enough to now keep him away from Saturday's game.
It became, what one commentator said, a "conspiracy of cowards."
The more it was discussed (with McQueary's father, then Paterno, then the AD & VP), the more they each decided to "lateral" the report rather than face the forces ahead.
The above is not offered as McQueary "excuses," mind you...just a bit to help filter this with a few of the instant emotions he faced.
'Twas a surprising "gut-check" encounter for McQueary. He failed the test, to the harm of that victim, no doubt other victims, Paterno, and the entire Penn State program, administration, and student body...all for DECADES to come.
Yes...these two threads were posted Thursday on this:
* New Jerry Sandusky Rumor Threatens To Make Penn State Scandal Much Worse
* Jerry Sandusky Rumored to Have Been 'Pimping Out Young Boys to Rich Donors,' Says Mark Madden
Pray for the investigative journalists and criminal investigators to root out any others
Or you can get raw with these strings. Either way, the violin is sweet yet lethal.
Do it!
And you can't make this stuff up : his autobiography is titled TOUCHED: The Jerry Sandusky story.
And then hear Lou Holtz try to justify those actions!
Buck-passing and unconscionable cowardice.
These are pretty serious assertions and judgments based on what? -- Righteous anger?
In the context of the homosexual culture being propagated in our universities, encoded in our laws, argued in our courts, their alleged cowed behavior may be explained. If male/male or female/female hookups, marriages are considered to be equal to male/female, then it follows that man/boy or woman/dog liaisons cannot be far behind. I suspect that the paperwork in already in the pipeline.
It is beyond stupid to refuse to connect the dots when you know that male and female genitalia are made for union, and that union can only be obtained between same sexual couples by perverted, unnatural, risky behavior (to both physical and mental health). The resulting twisted and demented thinking has clearly permeated our culture.
Look for more both within and outside of the great state of Pennsylvania.
I think that people are jumping on Joe Paterno because that makes more news than writing about the actual alleged perp, the president of the university, and key staff members whose jobs include ensuring the safety and security, not getting ready for the next football game.
It's not just the sports programs, everything in and of our current "higher education" system has been subverted and turned into a taxpayer funded recruitment, propaganda, and rewards mechanism for the fascist democrat party in this country.
Whether it's the subverting someone into ignoring perversion with the money of the sports program or rewarding a faithful fascist politician who "fell on his sword" for the party, everything associated with the current university systems in this country works to corrupt the morals of those who have them and reward those who have no morals. Those who show "promise" or the right kind of perversion are singled out in high school, granted an easy ride into and through the university system, and then either employed by the fascist democrat political machine directly or as members of the "education system" to further seek out and reward like minded Secular Humanists who have no morals.
The entire education system in this country, from preschool through PhD programs, needs ripped apart and rebuilt in a way that makes it impossible for the institutions that are supposed to educate to ever again become just an extension of any political group and sources of massive funding for a single ideology. Tenure, quotas, preferences of any kind, it all has to be torn down and turned into the very model of a meritocracy that is not based on the current definition of merit whereby the politically correct are granted the credentials that prove their "merit". Look at the number of complete dolts with credentials and it's immediately obvious that it is not the mastering of the material in a particular field that gets someone an advanced degree, it's their ability to play by party rules.
It's all got to be torn down and until it is, the fascist party will always have a source of massive funding through grants and foundations, and will always be able to recover their power no matter how badly they're defeated in elections.
JMHO
Regards
Actually, he does...he avoids using the one word that seems to be missing from ALL the commentary on this 'scandal'...HOMOSEXUAL. You see it on forums such as this, but NOT on more 'mainstream' news/sports sources...a clear nd present indicator of the death grip political correctness has on our culture.
Sandusky is a homosexual pedophile...why is everyone afraid of saying that?
You are on to something. Universities and business are seeking diversity and the legitimization of all cultures. Well in certain cultures man-boy sex is OK. Legitimization of this type of perversion is what NAMBLA is all about.
nd = and. Sorry.
I would argue that the liberalism of the college president tolerating homosex has something to do with it.
This wasn’t all about sports, but college liberalism.
I wonder if he would’ve kept his job back then if it was girls.
[21] Because that, when they knew God, they have not glorified him as God, or given thanks; but became vain in their thoughts, and their foolish heart was darkened. [22] For professing themselves to be wise, they became fools. [23] And they changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of the image of a corruptible man, and of birds, and of fourfooted beasts, and of creeping things. [24] Wherefore God gave them up to the desires of their heart, unto uncleanness, to dishonour their own bodies among themselves. [25] Who changed the truth of God into a lie; and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.
[26] For this cause God delivered them up to shameful affections. For their women have changed the natural use into that use which is against nature. [27] And, in like manner, the men also, leaving the natural use of the women, have burned in their lusts one towards another, men with men working that which is filthy, and receiving in themselves the recompense which was due to their error. [28] And as they liked not to have God in their knowledge, God delivered them up to a reprobate sense, to do those things which are not convenient; [29] Being filled with all iniquity, malice, fornication, avarice, wickedness, full of envy, murder, contention, deceit, malignity, whisperers, [30] Detractors, hateful to God, contumelious, proud, haughty, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,
[31] Foolish, dissolute, without affection, without fidelity, without mercy. [32] Who, having known the justice of God, did not understand that they who do such things, are worthy of death; and not only they that do them, but they also that consent to them that do them.
You wrote: “In the context of the homosexual culture being propagated in our universities, encoded in our laws, argued in our courts, their alleged cowed behavior may be explained. If male/male or female/female hookups, marriages are considered to be equal to male/female, then it follows that man/boy or woman/dog liaisons cannot be far behind. I suspect that the paperwork in already in the pipeline.”
Obama considered Spanier for Secretary of Education in 2008.
Penn State was warned in 1995 not to hire Spanier:
[ Thursday, March 16, 1995 ]
The Daily Collegian (Independent publication of Penn State Students)
PSU search may end in Nebraska
http://www.collegian.psu.edu:8080/archive/1995/03/03-16-95tdc/03-16-95dnews-7.asp
By ERIN STROUT Collegian Staff Writer
[excerpt]:
.....The selection committee narrowed the list down to one, and the new president will start on Aug. 31, when Thomas’ retirement begins.
If Spanier is confirmed as the next president, he might be a familiar face to some University faculty and administrators. Spanier was a professor of human development and sociology from 1973 to 1982 and an associate dean for the College of Health and Human Development from 1979 to 1982.
Loudon said Spanier’s strength at Nebraska lies in academics, but he is also known as a liberal individual who pushes an aggressive social agenda.
“He very much focuses on affirmative action and a pro-homosexual agenda,” Loudon said.
Loudon, who used to live in New Castle, Pa., said Nebraska and Pennsylvania have comparable social atmospheres, and Spanier might be considered liberal at Penn State as well.
“Watch out for his social agenda and make sure he doesn’t make it a priority over academics,” Loudon said.
<>
The AG will NOT say that Spanier is NOT a target. She has said that Paterno is not a target.
http://www.edgeonthenet.com/news/national/news//126660/penn_state_prez_out_in_sex_abuse_scandal
....The 63-year-old Spanier had led Penn State since 1995, and his contract was to run through 2015. The university system, headquartered in State College, includes 96,000 students on 24 campuses and has an annual budget of about $4.3 billion.
Spanier earned more than $800,500 in annual base pay, deferred compensation and retirement contributions, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education. He told The Associated Press earlier this year that he considered his salary, which was set by trustees, to be “very generous” and that it “feels peculiar for someone who grew up in a poor family.”
Spanier has donated more than $1 million to the university. He also has overseen $3 billion in philanthropic contributions to Penn State during his tenure, according to his biography ....”
<>
Penn State was up to its neck in the Climategate scandal with Professor Micheal Mann. Which Penn State cleared him of any wrong doing.
Climategate: Penn State Mostly Lets Researcher Michael Mann Off the Hook
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/technology/2010/02/climategate-penn-state-mostly-lets-researcher-michael-mann-off-the-hook/
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