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. Hes 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 dont exactly see eye to eye.
The color man was George Paterno, brother of the coach.
Thats 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 ones friends for the acts of which Sandusky has been accused.
But Sandusky wasnt 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. Its fine if you start out that way. You tell your boss. You get the paper for a week. If you dont see a story in the paper about what you told your boss, you take other action. Particularly if youre Joe Paterno.
Because if youre Joe Paterno, your boss the athletic director is not actually your boss. He cant fire you the AD tried once, with the help of the president of the university, and Joe rebuffed it. He cant discipline you Paternos 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.
Its a little more complicated if youre 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 didnt 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 Sanduskys 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.
“He seems to have been a straight shooter. Is there any possibility that Gricar could have been paid off in 1998 and then when this issue came up again, he panicked?”
From everything I know about Ray Gricar, I would say absolutely not.
It’s more likely that he knew sandusky was a small fish in a big sea. The facts as we know them now, were not the same set of facts that Gricar had to work with. He had to develop his case from scratch. The abuse of children was anathema to him...so I don’t believe for a second that he just dropped it. He would have intended to takeout the nest.
“The man investigating the 2005 disappearance of a central Pennsylvania prosecutor doesnt believe it is linked to the prosecutors 1998 decision to not file child-sex charges against former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky.”
The Gricar disappearance was a complete botch from day one. Small town policemen are not trained to do the kind of investigation from the very first second. They simply aren’t. And the people in his office might have had reason to not pursue this a fully as they should. There is so much more to this. Trying to put it all together from the gitgo is complicated. I don’t know if Jim Robinson would want this kind of exposure either. Otherwise, we could throw our entire archives up here.
Right now the whole state is in damage control mode. Life could get dangerous. Gricar’s brother was suicided a couple of years before.
Gricar set the whole endgame up as a message and no one read it. Even the setting where his car was located was staged.
Wow, I’ve been reading a little about brother Roy and some other things.
Massive corruption in PA, wow.
If this is a big ring and Sandusky starts talking, he may end up wherever the DA is. Too bad he didn’t end up there INSTEAD of the DA.
I truly believe this is one huge dirty secret that will come out when prison sentences start adding up. McQueary, AND HIS DADDY, need to be questioned. Why didn’t Daddy McQueary ever ask his son whatever happened about that “problem” with Sandusky?
The way Bobby Bowden talks he thinks Joe knew more than he admitted.
Yeah, I think there is a lot more that is going to come out.
:) Thanks.
I wonder where he is now?
There are two ways to read this fact. The first, which has been largely an automatic assumption, is that Mr. Grigar was done away with, in short, murdered. This is possible.
Another possibility is that Mr. Grigar's disappearance was completely voluntary. This is equally possible, under the facts as we know them.
Neither theory has been proven, as yet, and may well never be. But likewise either theory adds a "worse to come" 'tag' to what we know has happened at Penn State, and the surrounding community during the relevant time frame. Either murder was done to further, or conceal criminal activity, or local government, or elements of the same, were actively assisting a certain criminal element...
the infowarrior
Pennsylvania is so corrupted by the rule of democrats and unions that the dogfood choice is most likely. And as to the 'too long in the water' trick, read up on the strange death of William Colby. Evil struts its stuff across America.
Had he killed himself, then where did he do it, and how did he get there without his car? His car was found first, no body nearby, nor anywhere else for that matter.
Doesn't wash...
the infowarrior
Still only a theory, in order to be accepted as fact it has to be proved, and such proof is likely to be not forthcoming. I don't disagree, I believe at this time that DA Gricar met with foul play, but there's no way of proving it, at present...
the infowarrior
And to you, my friend.
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