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2011-2012 College Football Thread

renewed said:
Y'all need to settle down just a little bit. It's easy to sit behind a computer and type out all these claims of morality and obligations but no one truly knows Joe's part in all of this. No one truly knows what he felt or what he did.

It's easy to point fingers but let's all reflect on some of the **** we all have done in our lives and the mistakes we have made and take a chill pill before we try to trash a guy's life and legacy.
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First off..I love you buddy. You aren't afraid to stand in the line of fire and disagree with the majority. :D

Second...You're right, we don't truly know what his part in all of this is. A lot of it is speculation...don't forget, though, that we have Grand Jury testimony so there is some idea about what he did and didn't do.

Penn State's board isn't having emergency meetings for no reason. This whole thing screams of damage control. Joe Paterno has long been the boss of everything that goes on at the University.

There's just not a lot of room left for the benefit of the doubt. He knew what the guy had been accused of and he continued to allow this man to bring children to his university. So, Joe Paterno tells who he has to do and basically washes his hands of the whole situation. I'm sorry he tarnished his own legacy. As I said above...this is a man who spent 50 years promising families he would take care of their sons. Apparently, he only cared about the ones with the football uniforms on. He put his University and its football program above the needs and feelings of these children.

Jim Tressel gets run out of town for not telling the right people about tattoos his players got. And they are having pep rallies outside of Joe Pa's house. There is something seriously wrong here.
 
I guess I'm just saying no one is perfect. Hopefully the whole truth comes out but I doubt it ever will.

I agree he needs to retire (for more reasons than this one) and that people should be upset about how he reacted or didn't react but the true menace here is Sandusky and from what I can gather Joe was told by a graduate assistant in 2002 about one instance and he claims he told the athletic director etc. If Joe truly knew everything and knew it continued etc then he should be held to some sort of punishment but something tells me we have a guy who may or may not of known the whole truth and people want blood.
 
I read the grand jury's report, all 23 pages of it. In my opinion, anybody who reads it (actually reads the whole thing) would come MUCH closer to crucifying the University PD, the AD, and the President, than they would Paterno.

The police were notified on multiple occasions of the abuse. Their administrator, the Senior VP of the University, is one of those under indictment for lying and covering up. There are multiple instances in the report of the police wrapping up an investigation without actually investigating, basically concluding, "Move along, nothing to see here."

In the grand scheme of things, a football coach who had zero firsthand knowledge of anything failing to make the police do their job is, in my opinion, less culpable than a police department that was directly notified by multiple people (including Paterno) of abuse, but did nothing as a result.
 
Plenty of blame to go around for everyone here, no need to be stingy with it :eek:

This goes far beyond pay for play, cars, tattoos, or even drugs and hookers
Talk about lack of institutional control... the PSU administration is your poster child
 
I think you guys are right about the outrage, but I do hear what Renewed is saying. It's unfair to get the pitchforks out for Paterno alone. In my mind, blame and responsibility need to be evenly distributed. It's not just Paterno, it's the grad assistant that witnessed it, the AD it was reported to, the University President and anyone else who was involved in the process along the way. This is shaping up to be a classic case of "passing the buck" when it comes to doing the right thing. Everyone told someone else thereby thinking they had done enough and it wasn't their problem anymore. But, in the end no one called the authorities or made a report for further investigation.

Edit:
After reading Tomorrow's post above I made the above strikethrough. Wow, I didn't know it had actually been reported. It's truly sad that the blame goes beyond the university and that the proper investigations weren't conducted.
 
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Regardless of what the police or authorities did or didn't do or covered up
If you have someone accused of these types of actions, you don't allow them to continue to have access to your program and facilities
If the police do nothing, the least you can do is cut your ties and distance yourself
 
MacDawg said:
Regardless of what the police or authorities did or didn't do or covered up
If you have someone accused of these types of actions, you don't allow them to continue to have access to your program and facilities
If the police do nothing, the least you can do is cut your ties and distance yourself
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This I can agree with.
 
I've thought about it some more. If the graduate athletic guy saw it, it was his responsibility to go to the police. He was a witness. If Joe heard about it from the grad then he did right. He went to the head of the school to investigate. He wasn't a witness. Joe can't make claims to the police, it's hearsay.

Now if the grad or the head of the school didn't go further then it's on them. Who's to say the president didn't tell Joe that it was investigated and dealt with? Joe didn't see the guy do it so why would he disassociate himself because of hearsay? He is a head coach. He hears ill talk about others and drama all the time I'm sure.
 
renewed said:
I've thought about it some more. If the graduate athletic guy saw it, it was his responsibility to go to the police. He was a witness. If Joe heard about it from the grad then he did right. He went to the head of the school to investigate. He wasn't a witness. Joe can't make claims to the police, it's hearsay.

Now if the grad or the head of the school didn't go further then it's on them. Who's to say the president didn't tell Joe that it was investigated and dealt with? Joe didn't see the guy do it so why would he disassociate himself because of hearsay? He is a head coach. He hears ill talk about others and drama all the time I'm sure.
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There are many people in this situation who failed to do the right thing. I don't think anyone is criticizing Joe Paterno for not going to the police...My problem with what happened is even after this was reported this alleged pedofile was still allowed on campus, he was still in a position in the charity where he had access to children...he still brought children on campus. Whose fault is it? Everyone has fault in it, and Joe Paterno has even admitted he would have handled things differently.

He has long been the most powerful man at that University. He could have done more. He should have done more. This wasn't the normal gossip of college athletics. This was allegations of a man abusing children and using the University and a Charity to do it.
 
Paterno is out effective immediately.
Both football coach Joe Paterno and president Graham Spanier are out at Penn State in the wake of a disturbing child sex abuse scandal involving former assistant coach.

Paterno said in a statement Wednesday that he would retire after the season, but the university's board of trustees met Wednesday night and decided Paterno would not be allowed to continue as coach. Assistant coach Tom Bradley has been named interim coach.

Spanier chose to resign Wednesday and will be replaced temporarily by provost Rodney Erickson.
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http://espn.go.com/college-football...e-paterno-president-graham-spanier-penn-state
 
Tomorrow said:
Raw deal. This is total CYA on the university's part.

Anyone who reads the grand jury report would focus their outrage elsewhere.
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You mean the part where he was told his buddy got caught raping a kid and did nothing about it? Yeah, really raw deal.

Where's McCreary in all this? Has he been shown the door, yet?
 
I still think Paterno should have followed up and asked why Sandusky was still on campus. Second hand info or not he is the head of the program and should have taken charge of the situation.
 
MacNut said:
I still think Paterno should have followed up and asked why Sandusky was still on campus. Second hand info or not he is the head of the program and should have taken charge of the situation.
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Exactly. That's my problem. He knew what Sandusky had been accused of. Why the heck was he allowed anywhere near that campus? He continued to have access to the campus and continued to bring children there...after Joe Paterno was told of the allegations. Right there and then you lock all the doors and shut the guy out. He had the power to do it and he didn't.
 
Do we know how much power Paterno had the past few years. Was he head coach in name only or was he really still in charge of the program?
 
At least PSU students are staying classy.

Yahoo! Sports said:
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP)—Hundreds of Penn State students have taken to the streets to chant their support for ousted football coach Joe Paterno.

The students flooded downtown State College on Wednesday night after Paterno and university President Graham Spanier were fired amid a growing furor linked to their handling of sex abuse allegations against a former assistant football coach.

The students gathered about two blocks from the campus, with some chanting `We want Joe! We want Joe!” Some shook a lamp post and others tipped over a news van, kicking out its windows.

A smaller crowd gathered outside Paterno’s home. He had earlier in the day announced his intention to retire at the end of the season. After his firing, he told student he would have to get used to not being the coach
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Oh wait..
 
I'm confused. ESPN just ran a summary story that said the 2002 incident involving Mcreary going to Paterno with what he saw in the shower was never reported to the police by the university. Hmm... so do we know for sure yet, did Penn State ever make reports to the appropriate authorities at any time about Sandusky?
 
MacNut said:
Do we know how much power Paterno had the past few years. Was he head coach in name only or was he really still in charge of the program?
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From everything I've read, Paterno was the power on that campus; untouchable and above everyone. His friendship with Sandusky is why this took so long to come out, and even though he knew that Sanducsky was raping children (or at the very least, had been caught on multiple occasions doing inappropriate things with children), Sandusky still had unfettered access to every area of campus as recently as LAST WEEK.

Joe Paterno was an enabler for the worst sort of criminal. The fact that the Penn State student body is rioting in defense of this piece of human garbage is, to me, an indictment of the entire university. **** that place.

mscriv said:
I'm confused. ESPN just ran a summary story that said the 2002 incident involving Mcreary going to Paterno with what he saw in the shower was never reported to the police by the university. Hmm... so do we know for sure yet, did Penn State ever make reports to the appropriate authorities at any time about Sandusky?
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It does not appear that they did, no. The athletic director and a VP of the school even lied about it to the grand jury and are now under indictment for perjury.
 
IgnatiusTheKing said:
You mean the part where he was told his buddy got caught raping a kid and did nothing about it? Yeah, really raw deal.
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He did what any of us would have done about it - read below:

Where's McCreary in all this? Has he been shown the door, yet?
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He's the one I don't understand. He's the only one who was in a position to refute the police department's (lack of) findings. Paterno only knew what he was told.

mscriv said:
I'm confused. ESPN just ran a summary story that said the 2002 incident involving Mcreary going to Paterno with what he saw in the shower was never reported to the police by the university. Hmm... so do we know for sure yet, did Penn State ever make reports to the appropriate authorities at any time about Sandusky?
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It was reported by Paterno to Schultz, the VP of the University, who oversees the University Police Department.

Consider this: you're told by someone that something bad happened. You didn't see it yourself, so you report it to the guy who's over the police department. The police conclude there's nothing to see here. Paterno, having NO firsthand knowledge of the incident, was not in a position to refute the police's findings. McQueary was.

The catastrophic failures here were the police department for failing to act, McQueary for failing to follow up, and Schultz and Curley for covering it up.
 
Tomorrow said:
He did what any of us would have done about it
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I (obviously) can't speak for you or anyone else on this board, but if I found out that one of my subordinates was raping children in the shower of my building, I would have done a lot more than make a phone call.

Let's get this clear: Paterno was the most powerful man at Penn State and no one had more say than him over what happened in the athletic department there.

Yet you're inclined to believe that while he can fire a coach whose players aren't performing on the field, he has no say over firing a coach who was raping little boys? A coach who had already been investigated once (back in 1998) for sexually abusing a child in a shower?

According to Pittsburgh reporter Mark Madden, Sandusky was forced to "retire" back in 1999 and, in return, his actions were covered up by Paterno, the athletic department and the school.

Oh, and then there's this...

"I hear a rumor that there will be a shocking development from the Second Miles Foundation ... That Jerry Sandusky and Second Mile were pimping out young boys to rich donors."
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IgnatiusTheKing said:
I (obviously) can't speak for you or anyone else on this board, but if I found out that one of my subordinates was raping children in the shower of my building, I would have done a lot more than make a phone call.

Let's get this clear: Paterno was the most powerful man at Penn State and no one had more say than him over what happened in the athletic department there.

Yet you're inclined to believe that while he can fire a coach whose players aren't performing on the field, he has no say over firing a coach who was raping little boys? A coach who had already been investigated once (back in 1998) for sexually abusing a child in a shower?

According to Pittsburgh reporter Mark Madden, Sandusky was forced to "retire" back in 1999 and, in return, his actions were covered up by Paterno, the athletic department and the school.

Oh, and then there's this...
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Oh boy.. if that Business Insider rumor is true, then all hell really is going to break loose. Imagine the backlash if his "charity" is essentially a prostitution service for rich donors..
 
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