Penn State Sex Abuse Scandal (Indictment Post #144, "Pimping" Allegations Post #442)

[trickblue]

I read a lot on this story this weekend, visiting many Penn State resources. The "retiring" may very well become a question mark as Sandusky had two reported incidents with young boys in both '98 and '99. He fully expected to take over for Joe Pa one day. Joe Pa called him in to his office and told him he would never be head coach at PSU. He got pissed and stormed out and had a YOUNG boy in the car with him (one of the accusers). He related the event to this kid and asked him not to repeat it. He obviously did. It adds a LOT of credibility to the accuser's story, otherwise how would he have known about the meeting with Joe Pa? Sandusky "retired" in '99...

My father highly respected Joe Pa and I was raised to as well. I'm just having trouble wondering why he allowed him to stay and be a part of the PSU program, albeit unofficially, knowing what he knew...

 

[joseephuss]

Sandusky, Curley and Shultz should all boil over this. However, Paterno did what he was supposed to do with the authority he had. I fail to see how Paterno did anything to cover up or otherwise help perpetuate the behavior.

According to the story, Paterno is NOT a suspect in anyway and if he was not involved in the cover up, why should his reputation be in danger?

Paterno probably did have limited authority to do too much; however, Paterno holds a lot of power and influence. Enough that he could have probably gotten more done. It is too early to really figure out who could have done what and when. I'm certainly not condemning Paterno. This is an ugly situation. I hope it gets rectified quickly.

 

[Yakuza Rich]

My father highly respected Joe Pa and I was raised to as well. I'm just having trouble wondering why he allowed him to stay and be a part of the PSU program, albeit unofficially, knowing what he knew...

I don't think it's a stretch to think that Paterno was worried about the program and himself being tarnished.

The tough part is the program would have been hurt, to a degree, had the school turned Sandusky in the first time they found out about this. That's just how the world works. But, if it's as bad as we think it is...the damage to Penn State and Joe Paterno's reputation will be far worse now. As they say, the coverup is always worse than the crime.







YR

 

[StanleySpadowski]

I'm from Syracuse. I used to date a girl, who was from a few towns over. I became good friends with her brother. She went to Penn State on an athletic scholarship.

Not to toot my own horn, but she was a very attractive girl and had a lot of the basketball and football players hanging around her all of the time. So, I would go to visit her and wound up hanging around a bunch of the football players.

It was amazing to me what Penn State would cover up. Some very serious crimes here and obvious violations. Drug use that fellow students knew was covered up. Lots of off the field stuff covered up, etc. Saw it with my own two eyes. There was one crime involving one of their prominent athletes that everybody at the school knew about. It was rampant talk between the students and it was pretty obvious that officials and professors knew about it as well. But...it just disappeared because he was a star player.

For years I've been telling people that Penn State was a dirty program. What's odd is that people always rebuked my claims mainly because Penn State is not dirty with relation to boosters. Which I find odd given that many players are poor and when a booster violates rules, it is to help benefit players who make the schools a ton of money and need the money themselves.

What I've learned through this is that booster violations are considered 'dirty' and the other stuff...people just don't see to care too much about.

Remember, it wasn't too long ago that ESPN took Paterno to task for an outrageous amount of arrests of his players over a short time for breaking the law. Paterno got upset and claimed that it was a 'witch hunt' on national TV. For whatever reason, ESPN dropped the matter.

So is it surprising to me?

Yes because I didn't think anybody would go THIS far.

But, covering stuff up has been going on for a long time at Penn State. Unfortunately, it took such a heinous crime for the truth to come to light.

One of the things that sticks in my craw about this is that Sandusky is 67 years old. He retired in 1999, at the age of 55 years old. That is actually pretty young to retire for a somewhat prominent assistant coach for a major program.

Those guys typically never retire. They'll either get fired or their contract will not be renewed and they can't find work elsewhere. I want to know why he retired, even if there's nothing behind it.

I still believe you are innocent until proven guilty, but this entire situation is pretty damning of Penn State and Paterno.











YR

Sandusky retired because he was accused of child abuse in 98. The DA declined to prosecute and the issue was dropped but Paterno went to Sandusky and told him he would never be the head coach at PSU after that so he retired.

A side note is that the DA was Ray Gricar, the DA who made the national news a few years later by vanishing.

 

[trickblue]

Sandusky retired because he was accused of child abuse in 98. The DA declined to prosecute and the issue was dropped but Paterno went to Sandusky and told him he would never be the head coach at PSU after that so he retired.

A side note is that the DA was Ray Gricar, the DA who made the national news a few years later by vanishing.

Yeah... they just declared him dead a couple of months ago.... weird story...

 

[ZeroClub]

Obviously a horrible story. Those poor kids ....

Difficult to know what (and how much) was known (or should have been known) by the head coach and administrators.

 

[Cajuncowboy]

Yeah... they just declared him dead a couple of months ago.... weird story...

The guy was from Bellfonte. His car ended up being found in Lewisburg PA, a small town south of where I lived for most of my life. I know of people who said they saw him after the car was found. Weird thing is they found his laptop in the river but never found him. They assumed he jumped off a bridge, but the water was too low at the time for him to have jumped and not be found. THis is guy who wanted out of his current life, not life in general.

Also, I don't know if you can find any of the programs archived anywhere but Greta Van Sustern had done some of her stories on his disappearance.

 

[Yakuza Rich]

Saw the Gricar story on 'Disappeared' on Discovery ID channel. Really weird case.







YR

 

[DOUBLE WING]

Paterno probably did have limited authority to do too much; however, Paterno holds a lot of power and influence. Enough that he could have probably gotten more done. It is too early to really figure out who could have done what and when. I'm certainly not condemning Paterno. This is an ugly situation. I hope it gets rectified quickly.

This is precisely it. Did Paterno act right by legal standards? Sure. By moral standards? Hell no.

Let's not downplay it. Joe Paterno IS Penn State University. He is the face of the football program, the athletic program, and the school. If he doesn't want something to happen at the school, it doesn't happen.

As such, Paterno has to answer to the question of why Sandusky was still allowed to bring kids to HIS team's practice as recently as 2007. He has to answer to why Sandusky was still allowed to work out in his team's training facility as recently as LAST WEEK. He has to answer as to why nobody, not him, not the AD, not the President, not the assistant coach who walked in on them EVER called the police.

This is a massive cover up and frankly, I don't think anyone is going to come out of this unscathed. Something this dirty doesn't go on for this long without everyone involved, especially the higher ups knowing about it. You had to have your head buried pretty far in the sand to think Paterno was totally oblivious to all of this.

 

[Yakuza Rich]

I think the entire 'Joe Paterno' had authority vs. he didn't have authority...is neither here nor there.

I would like to think that if any one of us was in the same spot, we would have done some type of follow up. It's not like Sandusky was a one-time assistant who coached a few years...then went far away. He was around the school for years afterward and had football camps at their satellite campuses and was still using the facilities.

I would like to think that most people would have:

1) found somebody in law enforcement
2) ran him off the college permanently and immediately
3) checked up to see what the deal is and pursued the manner.

I think most people would've handled it that way. It's not a football coach 'how much power does he have?' thing. It's a human reaction to such a reprehensible crime that a trusted graduate assistant who was visibly shakened by the incident reported to you.

The only thing that Joe Pa's legacy and power does is that had he gone to the police, they would be much more likely to take action. Had the police done nothing...he could've ran him off campus permanently without an issue.

Now, if McQuery came to Joe Pa and said something like 'I think I saw Sandusky acting inappropriately with a young boy. I am not sure what I swaw, but they were doing something and the boy looked very upset.'

That's where I could see Paterno acting like he did.

But, it really doesn't appear that way. Particularly with his son basically stating that he didn't think there was anything he could do because it was heresay.

I think Paterno was greatly embarrassed by it and was afraid of the backlash and tried to do what he needed to legally absolve himself.








YR

 

[BrAinPaiNt]

The whole thing just sounds bad.

I don't know if Joe Pa could have done more but I imagine if he wanted to he could have.

He is pretty much the face of Penn State football and if he did not sway some kind of power he would have been long gone as the HC of Penn state IMO.

I don't think he covered it up or anything of that nature but I think he probably could have did more than he did if he wanted to.

Either way I think his image will be tarnished for this even if it is just a short term thing because the University is going to be tarnished for it and like it or not when most people (minus penn state grads) think of Penn State they think of Joe Pa and the nittany lions football team.

I just hope all of this comes out in the open because it has been hidden for too long in some fashion. The silver lining in this tragic story is that if something like this starts to happen again I hope it gets dealt with a little swifter and a little stronger.

 

[The30YardSlant]

Joe Paterno is second to nobody at that school. He could walk into the school president's office and have the athletic director fired on the spot if he had a mind to do it. I don't buy for one damn second that he couldnt have put an end to this immediately if he wanted to.

 

[StanleySpadowski]

Paterno is an institution and respected but he lost most of his "power" over the last decade.

 

[cowboyeric8]

I'm so tired of the limited authority excuses crap. It was a felony! Go to the police. Don't go to people with in the organization. All the graduate assistant had to do, or Paterno or anyone else was call 911 and have a real investigation not some University sweep it under the rug process. Everyone who knew even a little about what was going on is at fault for letting it continue. If they had just shut it down it could have saved the trauma from who knows how many little boys.

It is about doing what is right.

 

[MC KAos]

I'm so tired of the limited authority excuses crap. It was a felony! Go to the police. Don't go to people with in the organization. All the graduate assistant had to do, or Paterno or anyone else was call 911 and have a real investigation not some University sweep it under the rug process. Everyone who knew even a little about what was going on is at fault for letting it continue. If they had just shut it down it could have saved the trauma from who knows how many little boys.

It is about doing what is right.

 

[Bigdog]

There is something that many of you need to know about reporting abuse and that is if it is told to you as second hand information than the person who told you has to make the report. You need to urge that person to make the report and should follow up with it. Paterno is a state employee and is a mandated reporter so if he was told by an alleged victim and did not report it to the authorities than he is in big trouble. If he was told by someone that he saw a coach do something wrong with a youngster than the person who saw it needs to report to Child Protective Services. This happens a lot when teachers are told about abuse from one of their students and they wait for the school counselor to come in and make the report. The school counselor gets second hand information and is not the mandated reporter but the teacher is. Now what Paterno should have done since he is a mandated reporter is when he was told by this person that his assistant coach was being inappropriate with this child is to pick up the phone and dial Child Protective Services with the person make the report right there. The person would need to know the name of the alleged victim, age, the perpetrator's name, age and other pertinent information. The CPS worker would then make a decision if a report needs to be filed or not. If no report needs to be filed than person needs to make sure to get the CPS worker's name that said no report needs to be file and to write in a note and file it away. Paterno is not the one to determine whether these allegations happened or not but CPS is and can decide with law enforcement if they need to go further with their investigation.

 

[drawnstripes]

Jo Pa in 2012

Retired

 

[SaltwaterServr]

I'm so tired of the limited authority excuses crap. It was a felony! Go to the police. Don't go to people with in the organization. All the graduate assistant had to do, or Paterno or anyone else was call 911 and have a real investigation not some University sweep it under the rug process. Everyone who knew even a little about what was going on is at fault for letting it continue. If they had just shut it down it could have saved the trauma from who knows how many little boys.

It is about doing what is right.

This.

Joe Pa is going to learn really quick that just passing this up the chain of command isn't going to cut it in the eyes of the law.

Someone needs to forward him a link to the definition of "due diligence" because it sounds like he avoided doing anything remotely like pursuing it as he should have.

Me, a 12 gauge, a pre-signed pardon from the governor of Pennsylvania, and a pen full of starving feral hogs. Save the state a butt load of money on the trial.

 

[Concord]

Saw the Gricar story on 'Disappeared' on Discovery ID channel. Really weird case.

Me too.

I love that show and channel.

 

[peplaw06]

Paterno should have fired him. End of story.

I heard on the radio this morning that this guy was actually allowed back on campus as recently as 2007 and he had a child with him then.

Paterno may not be legally culpable, but morally he is.