Joe Paterno Dies

Over 40+ years of Penn State football died this Sunday morning. An old fashioned coach who cared as much about the character of his players as winning...but marred last year with a scandal....this man's greatness(and it was much!) will be discussed for decades, where-ever those who love football congregate...let the debate...and the legend...begin!!

The real question that has been ignored by the pre-judging, sanctimonious jackals here and elsewhere is:  Exactly what did McQueary tell Paterno? 
 
McQueary testifed under oath to the grand jury that he was purposefully vague with Paterno, out of deference to his age and generation.  He said, "You don't talk about those things with Joe Paterno."
 
And despite this fact the jackals tore and gnashed for their pound of flesh.
 
The Coach is gone now. 
 
The world no longer deserved him.

Jim, I agree totally with your point. The media and the bureaucrats in the University and the State Govt. are as much at fault as any other issue regarding the demise of the Coach.
Rest in Peace, Joe Paterno. You deserve a better world than the one you leave behind. A Pox upon those who would destroy a man's life to "sell their story".

Alas, the scandal and the joy the media and some folks have of "pulling a good man down" will endure.  Frankly, I have been sickened by the self-righteous comments i have seen tearing this guy apart.  Was he perfect?...no....Was he "damn good".....i think so.  A hell of a lot better than me and most of the posters/media/writers, I suspect. If JOEPA hadn't done what he did over 60 years, Penn State might still be just a school teacing farmhands how to milk cows.  He brought an "aura" (true or not - entirely or partly) of trying to have athletes who were at least students, also, if not students, first.  He raised millions, if not billions for the University - personally or by his "prescence" as a great football coach.  And he gave millions personally!
 
I would have rather have had Paterno as a friend/mentor/boss/coach/co-worker than 90% of the others I see out there.
 
Go, Joe.........You Did DAMN GOOD!

Joe Paterno will always be one of my heros.   He was great at what he did.  May he rest in peace.

God Bless JoePa and his life's work.  RIP

I agree.  He was a great coach, a great citizen, a wonderful family man and much to be admired.  RIP, Joe.  You earned it.

Elsewhere, the jackals are still bathing in their sanctimony.  So, again: McQueary testifed under oath to the grand jury that he was purposefully vague with Paterno, out of deference to his age and generation.  He said, "You don't talk about those things with Joe Paterno." 
 
Despite having the benefit of only a highly sanitized version of what had happened Coach Paterno told his boss, the Director of Athletics and his boss' boss, the Vice President for Administration to investigate.  Both those individuals have now been indicted for perjury and obstruction of justice.
 
Technical "ranks" aside, as a practical matter, when the Coach told anyone at PSU to do something, it was done.  That privilege was earned over a half-century of acts that led even his competitors to weep openly upon the news of his death; I'm sure that the Coach of all Coaches believed in his heart that was all he had to do to ensure a thorough, proper, legal investigation that would result in justice being done.
 
I have to return to McQueary with two questions:
 
1)  As you are a 6'5" 240# athlete in your physical prime, what prevented you from stopping whatever you witnessed a 60 something AARP member doing in that shower?
 
2)  Failing that, why didn't you "grow some", get the sh*t out of your mouth, and tell the Coach exactly what you witnessed, rather than - in your own sworn words - be purposely vague about it?
 
Frankly, I think the answer to #1 is physical cowaardice and the answer to #2 is moral and physical cowardice as he knew that, had he been frank and honest with the Coach, the first words out of the Coach's mouth would have been an unsanitized version of question #1!
And that question, given Paterno's famous temper, would have been hard to face.  For a coward it would have been impossible.
 
This whole sad affair would have had quite a different ending had McQueary simply told Coach Paterno:  "I saw Sandusky (blanking) a 10 year old boy in the (blank)."  Frankly, I don't know what Paterno would have reached for first - the phone or a gun.
 
Time will tell this story properly.  Even the jackals will know shame.

http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/8188530/joe-paterno-statue-removed-penn-state-university-crew-site
 
As I am not able to comment on this vile, cowardly travesty in a civil manner, absent profanity, I will refrain.

Jim,
 
I suggest that you leave the child molester thread and head on over to the jerk off thread.  It may cheer you up.
 
I hold no animosity to the PSU alumni.  They truly loved Joe Pa and had no way to know what he condoned and covered up.  I believe they are more devastated than I am. 
 
The NCAA sanctions will be severe and will favor my Badgers, but I think the innocent will pay the penalty for the guilty.
 
jrp

Paterno engaged in a cover-up along with PSU officials in a cover-up designed to protect the football program. Granted, he did a lot of good for the University, but that doesn't excuse his behavior, or the administrators, and their actions, including allowing Sandusky access to University facilities, further facilitating his molesting activities.

I'm glad they removed the statue. The PSU faithful have chosen to ignore the Freeh report, and their only real concern is for Paterno's legacy, and nothing else.

Of course, if the Freeh report had exonerated Paterno, the PSU lemmings wouldn't be questioning it at all.

It's not just a few individuals that created this, but part of a pervasive culture that puts football first, that occurs at a lot of football factories.

The Paterno family issued a statement only hours later saying the statue's removal "does not serve the victims of Jerry Sandusky's horrible crimes or help heal the Penn State community."

 
I suggest the Paterno family refrain from further commenting on what would & would not serve the victims. Without JoePa's silence, there would not have BEEN as many victims.  STUNADS.
 
Paterno's actions but mostly his INACTIONS lack integrity. He should not be held up as an example to anyone. PSU did the right thing. 

saps


Paterno engaged in a cover-up along with PSU officials in a cover-up designed to protect the football program. Granted, he did a lot of good for the University, but that doesn't excuse his behavior, or the administrators, and their actions, including allowing Sandusky access to University facilities, further facilitating his molesting activities.

I'm glad they removed the statue. The PSU faithful have chosen to ignore the Freeh report, and their only real concern is for Paterno's legacy, and nothing else.

Of course, if the Freeh report had exonerated Paterno, the PSU lemmings wouldn't be questioning it at all.

It's not just a few individuals that created this, but part of a pervasive culture that puts football first, that occurs at a lot of football factories.

Ditto for the basketball "factories", and all the other sports-oriented schools.  There was a time, not that long ago, that the head coach wielded more power than the president of many schools, since the actions and attitudes of the head coach were the determining factor of the enrollment of the school.

The NCAA penalties:
$60 million fine
the loss of all of coach Joe Paterno's victories from 1998-2011
four-year ban on bowl games
the loss of 20 scholarships per year over four years
five years' probation
any current or incoming football players are free to immediately transfer & compete at another school
http://apnews.excite.com/article/20120723/DA06L4A84.html

Well, the jackals have won.
 
What's next?
 

MetroplexJim


Well, the jackals have won.

What's next?

 
They could find Joe Pa's grave and do the same thing. I wonder how he likes the Hot Box he is in now? They did not take everything away from him if he was innocent. I hope he made himself right with God on the way out.

Tampico:
 
My question is how much posthumus approbation, humiliation, and iconoclasm will it take to slake the vile thirst for Schadenfreude on the part of the classless fans of the rest of the Big Ten?
 
Clearly, you and I differ on which direction Coach Paterno's soul went after the Lord took him.  Have fun with your Schadenfreude, but know the Lord is watching.   
 
 

Metro:
 
I have no idea where his soul went only he does. I hope he went to Heaven. Personally, and I could be wrong. But after all the sanctions and the direct response to Paterno they have enough evidence to conclude that he knew about this pedophile for quite sometime and he did nothing to stop it. If it is true and he knew then he is a MONSTER and I have little sympathy for him. What kind of animal allows this behavior to go on at the University on his watch? What kind of University allows it to continue? Defending him for not doing something is ludicrous. If he knew it is the same as committing the crime yourself.  The people who knew destroyed the University for decades to come. The city will take a huge economic hit. Many will lose jobs, students will lose education, athletes will be tarnished and have to start over. When you think of Penn State you will think of the terrible things that were allowed to happen. All because a group of individuals took the path of not saying something. We have not heard the last of it. If Paterno knew of these incidences and did nothing then God Save his Soul. If it was your Son and you found out that he knew what would you do? 
 
Also: I take no pleasure in someones misfortune. The whole thing makes me sick. Pathetic above the law pigs sitting idle while they allow this thing to molest children. Destroying and scaring them for ever. Stealing from them innocence and a whole life. They were so messed up they held it in for years. How dare you imply that I took pleasure out of this. If it were my son Sandusky never would have made it to jail.   
 
If Paterno did not know about it and hid it. Then why are they removing him from the University?

Without taking sides on the interpretation of it,
 
Let's remember that the Freeh Report is a fact finding report, commissioned by the university, not by an outside agency. It is the university's report on its own faults, and Paterno was part of the university.

Tampico:
 
Please read post#8 above.
 
One does not have to be a former F.B.I. Director to know that the easiest "target" (and cheapest shot) is a dead man who can no longer defend himself. 
 
However, when he was alive and able, Coach Paterno testified under oath to the Grand Jury which, in turn, found him not culpable.
 
Yes, I am sick, too.   And  I share entirely your sentiments about the vile convict Sandusky.

See No Evil
Hear No Evil
Speak No Evil
 
"What you see here, what you do here, what you hear here, when you leave here, let it stay here."

At the same time, you don't whitewash the report in respect of his memory. It is what it is. Again: it was commissioned by the university, as a fact finding report. Freeh has close ties to PSU, as vice chairman of MBNA, where his boss was on the board of Second Mile, and MBNA is the bank for the Penn State Alumni Association. The conditions couldn't have been more favorable to a whitewash, and we didn't get one.
 

MetroplexJim


Tampico:

Please read post#8 above.

One does not have to be a former F.B.I. Director to know that the easiest "target" (and cheapest shot) is a dead man who can no longer defend himself. 

However, when he was alive and able, Coach Paterno testified under oath to the Grand Jury which, in turn, found him not culpable.

Yes, I am sick, too.   And  I share entirely your sentiments about the vile convict Sandusky.

MetroplexJim


However, when he was alive and able, Coach Paterno testified under oath to the Grand Jury which, in turn, found him not culpable.

Jim, I hadn't planned to get into this discussion, but ... .
 
Paterno did testify under oath to the grand jury that he had no knowledge of anything prior to being told by McQueary of the 2001 incident. But that was a lie, according to the Freeh Report. Further, as to a grand jury finding Paterno not culpable,  it found nothing of the kind. The grand jury wasn't asked to find anything concerning Paterno, and it certainly had no knowledge of what would later be learned by the Freeh investigation.

The Freeh report group collected over 1 million pages of documents, and did over 400 interviews. As Mosca said, being that it was commissioned by and paid for by Penn State, conditions were ripe for a whitewash, akin to having a cigarette company doing their own report on the dangers of smoking.

The same apologists that are condemning the report are the same people that would have been cheering it had Paterno been exonerated.

But the PSU zombies don't care about the report, the abused kids, or anything else besides the Cult of Joe and their football.

Metroplex Jim, you clearly haven't read the Freeh Report, but don't bother. Those that choose to be in denial will remain in denial

In the meantime, let's watch PSU keep playing the victim. Freeh is wrong, the NCAA is wrong, the Big Ten is wrong, and pretty much every sports analyst is wrong, according to the PSU Kool-Aid drinkers. Everyone is wrong- the PSU lemmings are right.

I think it's more nuanced than that, saps, and while I disagree strongly with Jim, I can also understand his point of view.
 
We like to divide things into categories. It helps us make sense of things. But people refuse to fit into buckets. The scandal can't negate all the good things that happened at Penn State. Can you point to a date and say, "This is where the train came off the tracks"? I can't. We're probably safe saying that no one knew when he was hired that Sandusky was a pedophile. So, are we safe saying that everything up until when they should have known (1998) was OK, and then it was all bad? 
 
That's what the NCAA is trying to say. And even then, they're on shaky ground. Their actions are self-serving grandstanding as much as they are punitive. Nothing is going to change in college football. Not at Penn State, and not anywhere else. Maybe no one is going to get Paterno's power again, but in this era of coaches moving at the drop of a million dollar check, even that seems like something from another era.
 
But still, something needed to be done. Something needed to be said, as a society, that no one is so powerful that they can ignore the weak and powerless. Especially in today's highly charged atmosphere. That the target happens to include Paterno, and by extension his family, seems like an absurdity in light of how the man has been viewed over the years, but there are some who say that appearances can be deceiving. And no one reaches those heights, in any profession, without a good streak of avarice and ruthlessness, be it a lust for money, or power, or influence. In our quest to do good, we sometimes do a fair bit of trampling.
 
It is a human tragedy, on a small scale, and on a large scale, shallow and widespread for some, deep and personal for others, extending from decades in the past and now assured to extend for decades into the future. Now it is our turn to accept it and live with it. The University has accepted it; for die hard loyalists, they are setting the lead. The best, and most noble course I think, is to follow.  You may disagree, and I respect that. But your pride is something that others see in you, not that something you show to others. When I see a Penn State fan who nods, keeps silent, and wears the colors, I see pride. When I see a Penn State fan who protests loudly, I don't know what it is I'm seeing.

This part of the Grand Jury testimony speaks to the culture that has to change (if people just don't understand or want to think or know about these things)..

Q: When did you — did you do something with that information?
Mr. Paterno: Well, I can’t be precise.
I ordinarily would have called people right away, but it was a Saturday morning and I didn’t want to interfere with their weekends.
So I don’t know whether I did it Saturday or did it early the next week.
I’m not sure when, but I did it within the week.


That speaks volumes.

Even though a police investigation had cleared him of the (initial) 1998 charges, Sandusky - in his coaching prime - mysteriously and suddenly "retired" at the end of that season.  To me that would seem to be an attitude of "zero tolerance" on the part of Coach Paterno.  What more could he do?  Call the police that had already cleared Sandusky?  As Sandusky, absent any conviction, was out of a job he negotiated both a cash settlement from PSU and continuing access to its facilities. 
 
Clearly though, Sandusky did not want to "retire": my alma mater, U.Va., reportedly offered him the head coaching position in he had sought in 2000, but mysteriously and suddenly withdrew the offer.  As Virginia's retiring coach was a protege of Coach Paterno it does not take much imagination to think that JoePa "dropped a dime".
 
Regarding the "locker room incident" McQueary testifed under oath to the grand jury that he was purposefully vague with Paterno, out of deference to his age and generation.  He said, "You don't talk about those things with Joe Paterno." 
 
Despite having the benefit of only a highly sanitized version of what had happened Coach Paterno told his boss, the Director of Athletics and his boss' boss, the Vice President for Administration to investigate.  Both those individuals have now been indicted for perjury and obstruction of justice.  Not only did they commit those crimes, they violated both Paterno's trust and, given his earned position, directive.  
 
To me, the $60 million "fine", the $65 million in bowl revenue that the Big 10 will withhold and donate to charity, the devastation of its football program, and the huge civil settlements still yet to come are insufficient prices to pay for the craven "institutional failure" on such a scale.
 
What more within the law or not causing a tort could Paterno have done?  As Captain, he went down with the ship.  As Paterno already has six feet of mud on his face, let's let him rest. 
 

The what more could have been done part needs to be addressed. That's why it's important to change the culture. That's why people who are in the position of power and those who respect that...need to be aware and especially aware enough with all that power of example to know when something is wrong to do all the can to take what they know as soon as there is a hint and make it about doing the right thing. Use that influence to say "I'll be damned" to bury a head turn a head to it...and don't handle it as a matter of reputation or status of program that is to be kept safe.

In 60+ years of service I am sure that consentual matters of inappropriate behavior or hazing have occurred. If it's a matter of age or embarrassment to discuss it or think about it...that alone is a big red flag reason enough to realize ..it's a failure of position that so many admit was all-powerful. Can't have it both ways. Rule with an iron fist...hold others accountable...oh what more could he do?

When you don't do anything to break that cycle...it yields more victims that yield more victims.

What more could have been done?

Well...in less than a year this criminal went through the process. So...maybe point out so those who are worried about their need to hold on to their hero status...that the right thing to do was to "interfere" with a Saturday. After all...that would not be much of an issue if it what was about something (God forgive me) less important like football.

As far as the highly-sanitized version. A naked adult male fondling a 10 year old boy?

That could be mistake for something ok? That is something that could be confused for anything other than sexual abuse?

Regardless of where you stand on this issue, the "re-writing of history" has always bothered me.  I know they have done that in the past, but it still makes me uneasy. I think it is a bad precedent and may someday be over used.

Just imagine the uneasy feeling of having to live through sexual abuse...be interviewed about it...testify about it in graphic detail in front of the abuser who did it. Then listen to what a shame it is to drag a good man down...and see where history lies.