Posted on 11/12/2011 8:13:38 AM PST by Kaslin
Back in 1999, I was driving into State College for a Penn State football game, listening to the pregame show on the radio.
They were interviewing Jerry Sandusky about his impending retirement. The play-by-play man asked him how much he had enjoyed working with Joe Paterno.
“Nobody enjoys working for Joe,” Sandusky said. “He’s hard on everyone. He demands perfection, and perfection is hard to achieve. And he lets you know about it when you fall short.”
The host sort of recoiled from the answer, but the color man cackled and said, “Yeah, Joe and Jerry don’t exactly see eye to eye.”
The color man was George Paterno, brother of the coach.
That’s what makes the defense of Joe Paterno offered by Sally Jenkins of The Washington Post and others so absolutely misguided. Jenkins’ idea was to call a shrink and ask him about the psychology of reporting one’s friends for the acts of which Sandusky has been accused.
But Sandusky wasn’t a friend. He was a co-worker, an underling – and one, by then, whom Paterno knew to be capable of some ghastly things. So what if we rethink this and view Paterno not as a man of honor who protected his friend out of misguided loyalty but as CEO of a corporation – which, essentially, is what a major college football coach is – who has discovered misdeeds by a top executive?
And make no mistake, whether he liked him or not, Paterno did protect Sandusky. He knew about the 1999 incident. He knew about the 2002 incident. He probably knew much more. Yet, he allowed this alleged predator to go on for another decade, even though he knew Sandusky was a foster parent and head of a charity that brought vulnerable children into his orbit.
And remember, Sandusky would be on the loose today if it were up to Joe Paterno. The coach can say what he wants about hindsight. But for hindsight to be meaningful, it has to come before the frog march. Ask Jack Abramoff.
The I-told-my-boss defense also does not fly for Joe. It’s fine if you start out that way. You tell your boss. You get the paper for a week. If you don’t see a story in the paper about what you told your boss, you take other action. Particularly if you’re Joe Paterno.
Because if you’re Joe Paterno, your boss – the athletic director – is not actually your boss. He can’t fire you – the AD tried once, with the help of the president of the university, and Joe rebuffed it. He can’t discipline you – Paterno’s version of right and wrong is infinitely more credible than the ADs to the people who care about Penn State football. And the performance review is done by the TV-watching, ticket-buying, suite-reserving, game-attending public, which cares all about Ws and Ls and nothing about your opinion.
It’s a little more complicated if you’re Mike McQueary. To him, Joe is much more than a friend. He is a mentor, a boss, an example of what manhood and leadership are supposed to be. If he thinks the Sandusky secret should stay in-house, it is not as easy to go against this. But go against this you must.
But back to the original question: If Paterno didn’t protect Sandusky out of friendship and loyalty, then why? And why did those whose ties are not as strong – the president of the school, the VP of finance, the athletic director – not only not come forward but affirmatively lie on Sandusky’s behalf?
There is a good chance the AD and vice president could go to prison for awhile … and perhaps longer if more details emerge.
And how big is this cone of silence? Does it include the university police? The local police? Other state officials and/or office-holders? And, again, why? What are these victims to make of the community they live in and the men who run it? Did nobody care about them enough to stand up and stop this?
This time last week, we all assumed these were decent men. The rioters in State College obviously still think Paterno is.
Why then? Why was this hidden? A lot of people think the secret inside the secret has been revealed – what on earth could be worse than a 40-count indictment for child molestation? But some other secret was bigger. That secret is worth keeping even if it means prison for some of the top officials at Penn State and, for Paterno, the loss of the job that seemed to be his for life and a reputation envied by all in his profession.
That must be one hell of a secret.
Yes, you’re recalling right.
This isn’t the first story where initial on-scene news coverage is covered up later to protect someone/something. It would just be interesting to see something in print—if those articles have survived the continual internet scrubbing that seems to go on to protect someone/something....
“And make no mistake, whether he liked him or not, Paterno did protect Sandusky. He knew about the 1999 incident. He knew about the 2002 incident. He probably knew much more. Yet, he allowed this alleged predator to go on for another decade, even though he knew Sandusky was a foster parent and head of a charity that brought vulnerable children into his orbit.”
Make no mistake JoePa was protecting JoePa in 2002 he was in the middle of his worst 4 year win-loss record (26-33) and if it was revealed that there was a pedo in the program after his years of preaching the Success with Honor meme he was toast.
"Spanier was also an author of a study in the Archives of Sexual Behavior concerning the practice of mate swapping, or "swinging".[8]"
So maybe it's a slight embellishment, but I suspect it's really close to the mark.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Spanier
He was recruiting this past Spring for Penn State. There’s an article about a recruit who has decided to go elsewhere. He said Sandusky showed up for his last spring game and talked to him afterwards. The university had to know that he was still recruiting. And since McQueary is the recruiting coordinator, this stinks even more. I’m amazed that McQueary managed to testify to the grand jury at all.
Well, the people on the Board of Directors says that “our thoughts are foremost with the victims”.
If the the victims are what it’s all about, why did it take them 15 years or more to actually care about them?
They say that they are doing an “internal investigation”.
Who cares? Internal investigations are a sham! Almost all are slanted toward protecting their public image.
“The people around him knew. There had to be ribald locker room jokes and rumors about his proclivities.”
There were...
It was like a running “Wink,Wink” joke in Happy Valley, with things like Sandusky Ice Cream. Look it up.
Madden has been CORRECT about what has been going on Penn State, for years, and has been utterly villified for it, and branded as a hater.
Yet now, we find out he was right, all along.
Driven by the perv promoter Spanier.
“The I-told-my-boss defense also does not fly for Joe. It’s fine if you start out that way. You tell your boss. You get the paper for a week. If you don’t see a story in the paper about what you told your boss, you take other action. Particularly if you’re Joe Paterno.
Because if you’re Joe Paterno, your boss – the athletic director – is not actually your boss. He can’t fire you – the AD tried once, with the help of the president of the university, and Joe rebuffed it. He can’t discipline you – Paterno’s version of right and wrong is infinitely more credible than the ADs to the people who care about Penn State football. And the performance review is done by the TV-watching, ticket-buying, suite-reserving, game-attending public, which cares all about Ws and Ls and nothing about your opinion. “
For me, the money quote.
“Department heads are shaking in fear.”
I doubt it..
In isolated college communities like Penn State, Department Heads are not unlike Demigods, while the Univ Pres is GOD HIMSELF.
Literally the untouchable, they can do no wrong, whatsoever.
Wow.
Oh, wow.
Why shut the school down now? By this time next year the victims and their families will own the entire school.
Ok, so lets see if I got this straight: Shut down the whole school because one dept was chocked full of pervs? Collective punishment was the norm for Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany,but does it really apply here?
A lot of people have kneejerk reaction about this issue. Joe PA should have been shit canned. The coaching staff should be dis-banded. Everyone who even suspected this kind of thing was going on should be purged. But to CLOSE the whole place seems like killing flies with a sheet of plywood.
Ok...flame away....
Actually, they found his laptop, missing the hard drive. They later found the hard drive. It had been destroyed *and* was in the water. The laptop was Gricar's county-issued laptop.
His home computer had a history of internet searches on "how to destroy a hard drive" and one on destroying a hard drive with water.
Just for additional thought, he disappeared just two weeks after announcing the largest drug bust in the county's history.
I’ve been saying all week “follow the money”. They had to be factoring in the possible loss of mega-millions if this story came out.
Fortunately, this mess has finally surfaced. Sadly, about a decade too late for the victims.
May 25—BELLEFONTE — In yet another odd twist in the disappearance of former Centre County District Attorney Ray Gricar, his nephew confirmed Wednesday that a legal book containing information on replacing a district attorney was found on the desk of an assistant district attorney the day after Gricar vanished.
Assistant District Attorney Mark Smith, wondering where the book came from, grasped both covers and turned it upside down, in hopes of finding what page it had last been opened to, Tony Gricar said he was told by police.
The book opened to the statute detailing how to replace a dead or retired district attorney, Tony Gricar said.
(excerpt)
Pete Bosak can be reached at 235-3928.
Credit: The Centre Daily Times, State College, Pa.
Copyright (c) 2006, The Centre Daily Times, State College, Pa.Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.
Last updated
2010-07-02
Database
ProQuest Newsstand
“instead of the criminal homosexual pedophilia that it is.”
They CANNOT state it that way.
It might harm the Gay Agenda, and no one in the media wants to lose their jobs over it when the Daily Kos’rs go nuts over it, like so many already have.
Oh, the story isn’t going away. This is from NYT:
Lower part of the page, after the last pic.
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