"Hail to the Lion" - Philly Inquirer

[tw]

So little has been posted here of an event that, well, the headline on the front page of the Philadelphia Inquirer on Monday, 23 Jan 2012 was about 3 inches (7 cm) high. It read "Lion at Rest". The entire front page, the entire sports page, and another 13 pages were nothing but articles about Joe Paterno. Why would a football coach deserve so much honor? Because Paterno was about more than just football. Paterno set a standard that no one need even define. In his modesty, Joe would have preferred it that way.

Paterno was so modest as to make no effort to defend himself. He only said he wish he had done more. He did not have to. He did everything required of a man who only had one hearsay accusation. And who reported same to multiple superiors including the man in charge of police. Those superiors, apparently, did a coverup. Protected pedophilia like a pope in Rome.

In a tribute to a standing room only crowd, so many spoke in Paterno's behalf. However nobody said it more than Nike's Phil Knight. Whose sympathies lie across the country in Oregon. His statement immediately put everyone up on their feet. Because he finally said what so many have not.

it turns out (Paterno) gave full disclosure to his superiors, information that went up the chains to the head of the campus police and the president of the school. The matter was in the hands of a world-class university, and by a president with an outstanding national reputation.

Whatever the details of that investigation are, this much is clear to me: There was a villain in this tragedy. It lies in the investigation, not in Joe Paterno's response to it, ...

he was excoriated by the media and fired over the telephone by his university. Yet in all his subsequent appearances in the press, on TV ..., interacting with students, conversing with hospital personnel, giving interviews, he never complained, he never lashed out. Every word, every bit of body language conveyed a single message: We are Penn State.

So I do not follow conventional wisdom. Joe is my hero. Every day for 12 of the last 12 years. But it does lead me to this question: Who is the real trustee at Penn State University?...

In periods of stress and grief, you say things that surprise you. When I came back from Mass on Sunday ... the first words out of my mouth, way out of sequence and typically self-centered, through the tears, I asked, "Who is going to be my hero now?" It's a question everyone in this arena should ask and I do not have an answer for you, but I can tell you this much, that old hero set a standard that will live forever. Thank you.

It cannot be proven. But we can assume this tragedy did so much to kill Joe Paterno. For simply doing what was required of him.

Shame is that more have not been this vocal. Well, the faculty has so little trust in those trustees as to literally force the trustees to do what they did not want to do. Hire an outsider, Former FBI director Louis J. Freeh, to investigate. Even the faculty did not trust Penn State's trustees to do an honest investigation.

You would be hard pressed to find any faculty, alumni, former player, or student that disagrees with Phil Knight. The many did what Paterno did. Remained silent while waiting for the 'powers that be' to do their job.

[infinite monkey]

Thank you, tw. I really appreciate the article and your words, which so eloquently say how I feel on the subject.

My dad and I were talking about it. "Damn shame" was our consensus.

[classicman]

Paterno reported the incident in 1998 and the campus police department investigated the allegations
and it was turned over to the state attorney's office. The state attorney's office declined prosecution.
Sandusky was force out as a coach in 1999. In 2002, Paterno turned over the allegations again
to the head of the campus police dept, Gary Schultz. He repeatedly informed law enforcement of the allegations.
After the incident in 2002, Sandusky was banned from their facilities.

"Educator, Coach, Humanitarian."

RIP Joe Pa.

[Spexxvet]

Timeline

[tw]

Originally Posted by Spexxvet

Timeline

As best I can tell, the timeline does not include two conversations overheard by two Penn State Police detectives. In the first conversation, Sandusky is told by one victim's mother to stay away from her son. Sandusky refuses. In a second conversation with the same mother, Sandusky says he made a mistake and will stay away. That knowledge and inaction did not get most of the Penn State's top police officers fired?

Too many have been as modest as Joe. Not point accusing fingers at top management - trustees. Well, the trustees without any investigation decided to fire Joe. Chairman was too timid to fire him. Vice chair John Surma (top executive from a dying US Steel) had an assistant athletic director contact Joe by paper late at night. They did not even have the decency of meeting with a Penn State legend. Of course not. Not one of 32 volunteered to meet with Joe Paterno face to face. They had some tiny intermediate deliver a paper message to Joe Paterno late at night. Then bluntly fired him by phone. Those are ethical leaders?

One third of the trustees, surprised by a justified public response, said Joe was fired because he did not report accusations to authorities. Reality - Joe did. The trustees simply did what the emotional do. Made a decision based only on their feelings while ignoring what is always required - hard facts. A characteristic commonly observed in bean counters and lawyers.

Who was responsible for providing facts? Kenneth C. Frazier is the chair of the trustee's special investigation committee. We have discussed this lawyer earlier in Destroying American Jobs (ie Kodak). A Vioxx fraud and coverup earned him Merek's CEO. So why did trustees make a decision without honest and obvious facts? A lawyer with a history of getting promoted to CEO by subverting justice did not provide honesty. Trustees were more worried about spin rather than reality.

Frazier calls the decision painful. Of course. They were entertaining their emotions. Then he wants empathy for making an emotional decision without facts? Facts such as multiple and previous reports, investigations, and grand jury verdicts that defined many probable coverups. Center County DA Ray Gricar refused to prosecute even when a 1998 grand jury indicted Sandusky. Gricar was the DA when every Sandusky accusation was quashed. Gricar mysteriously disappeared in a possible 2005 murder or suicide in the Susquehanna River. More facts unknown to trustees who could not bother to first learn facts.

The NY Times in Penn State’s Trustees Recount Painful Decision to Fire Paterno spent three hours with 13 of those trustees.

The board decided to share its story because it grew weary of hearing criticism, which included calls from alumni who started a group known as Penn Staters for Responsible Stewardship in an effort to replace the current board members. The trustees, over three hours, described how they had felt blindsided by Spanier’s failure to keep them informed of the nature and scope of the Pennsylvania attorney general’s investigation of Sandusky, along with the investigation of university officials.

They entertained their emotions to make a decision while still devoid of the facts? Then are weary of criticism because they choose to be politically correct rather than be patriotic honest? Then choose to talk only because they are weary - another emotion? At what point do these trustees stop entertaining their feelings? Do what is required of adults. Make a decision based on facts. Not entertain their emotions or weariness?

Also on a speaker phone during all this was the PA Governor Tom Corbett. The same Governor who is reaping massive campaign funds by permitting unrestricted fracking. And who has told the many fracking companies that they no longer have to provide drinking water to communities with fracking contaminated drinking water. Why did this Governor also endorse the firing of Joe Paterno without facts? Corbett was state Attorney General in 1995 and again in 2008. As both Attorney General and Governor, he had access to all facts, investigations, and grand jury verdicts. And still did not first learn facts.

Garban, the trustee chairman is a long time MBA. A Controller and Treasurer of Penn State for 33 years. With no experience in realities such as education. Another bean counter.

Surma, the vice chairman, is a CEO of a diminishing US Steel. His entire history is VP of finance & accounting and chief financial officer. Another bean counter executive without experience in getting the work done. Where the most unethical are bred.

Also reported. Surma has an older brother Vic who was a starting Penn State offensive tackle. One semester he lived in a spare bedroom in Sandusky's basement. Kept in touch with his former coach through annual golf outings to benefit The Second Mile. Same organization and bedroom Sandusky used to practice decades of pedophilia. But somehow this was all new to vice chairman John Surma? Well, John Surman should have also fired his brother - also by messenger late at night. But that would be ethical or consistent.

Three reasons given by the trustees boil down to one common factor. Joe Paterno did not do what is politically correct. He simply did what was the power of his job, reported only the facts he knew (without speculation), and did what anyone in his position would have done. Paterno reported what he knew immediately to multiple 'powers that be'. Somehow, his modesty (by not publically defending himself) was wrong – according to the trustees. Somehow he was guilty and complicit for not whistle blowing on something he only knew from hearsay?

So when a whistle blower identified corrupt bean counters and lawyers, he is persecuted. When a whistle blower does not make accusations based in hearsay, he is persecuted. Only top management is innocent?

View who made these decisions. A lawyer whose lying about Vioxx got him a CEO position. A Governor who is reaping massive campaign funds from fracking companies. And plenty of bean counters. People whose history is to get promoted by manipulating spread sheets. Who do not come from where the work gets done and where ethics are learned.

Entertaining their emotions and an obvious shortage of ethics is the common factor among trustees and the Governor. So spin blames Paterno who was only a successful and well respected football coach. Easy prey for bean counters and lawyers. Paterno was not using the press to spin his reputation. So he is guilty according to the trustees interviewed by the NY Times? The trustees were spinning half truths about Paterno in the press. Even lying about Joe not reporting pedophilia.

The logic used? None. A similar example was Nixon blaming subordinates to avert blame. The powerful spinnning feelings and political spin as if fact. A characteristic common to people who are MBAs, lawyers, and unethical.

Finally, Phil Knight said what had to be said. So many knew, were required to act, and choose to do nothing. So the trustees and Governor did not blame any of them. Instead victimized Paterno to protect themselves. Ethics that bean counters and lawyers learn to get promoted – as demonstrated above by examples and citations.

[tw]

BTW, Louis Freeh is a former FBI Director hired by the trustees to report on the actions by the trustees. He was hired when the faculty objected to the trustees investigating themselves. Later learned (about 10 Jan 2012). Freeh's report will be submitted twice to the trustees for editing before it will be released to the public. Then we can all know it is another honest report.

If Paterno had done anything like that, the trustees would have fired him. But then the trustees are well respected lawyers and bean counters. Same type of people who created America’s worst recession in 75 years. Who are complicit in America no longer having the technologies necessary to build iPhones.

[classicman]

Originally Posted by tw

timeline does not include two conversations overheard by two Penn State Police detectives.

Four years before former Penn State Head Football Coach Joe Paterno was told that Jay Sandusky had raped a 10-year-old boy in a shower, the police had already learned that the one-time assistant coach was preying on children. Yet then-Centre County District Attorney Ray Gricar didn’t press charges. Gricar disappeared on April 15, 2005 under impenetrably mysterious circumstances and has been declared legally dead.

The June 1998 investigation focused on an ll-year-old boy who was part of Sandusky’s “Second Mile” program. Identified as “Victim 6″ or “BK,” the child was allegedly fondled by Sandusky while the two of them were showering in the locker room at Penn State’s Holuba Hall. When the child was dropped off at his home, his mother noticed that his hair was wet. After learning about the showering incident, the understandably upset mother called the police. She also confronted Sandusky, who admitted that he had showered with other boys and that his “private parts” had “maybe” come into contact with the child’s intimate anatomy.

“I understand. I was wrong,” Sandusky told the mother in a conversation overheard by police investigators. “I wish I could get forgiveness. I know I won’t get it from you. I wish I were dead.”

And the possible other shoe to drop ...

“I hear there’s a rumor that there will be a more shocking development from the Second Mile Foundation — and hold on to your stomachs, boys, this is gross, I will use the only language I can — that Jerry Sandusky and Second Mile were pimping out young boys to rich donors. That was being investigated by two prominent columnists even as I speak.”

Link

[Laurie Henderson]

This is, by far, the most horrendous story. This is all happening in my backyard. I know these people, I know these places. My heart has broken for the disadvantaged boys that thought they were getting a second chance, and ended up exploited, raped, taken advantage of. My heart has broken for the students of a university that was so rich in tradition, and now, the scandal is a black cloud that will be so incredibly difficult to shake. My heart has broken for Joe & Sue Paterno, who, after JoePa's appalling termination, MADE YET ANOTHER DONATION TO THE UNIVERSITY!!!! No one will tell me that JoePa didn't die from a broken heart. I blame the Trustees for that man's death. Truly. There's a cupcake shop in downtown State College, NDulge, that put front window signs up... "JoePa - a special place in Heaven... PSU Trustees - an eternal place in hell." Sums it up about right, eh??

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by classicman

Paterno reported the incident in 1998

No, he didn't.

[Spexxvet]

I think Corbett is more culpable than JoPa. He should have been fired.

[classicman]

Oops - my bad. Should have been 2002.

[tw]

From the front page of the Philadelphia Inquirer on Sunday 29 Jan 2012:

Can Penn State heal?
Thousands of grieving Penn State supporters crowded the Bryce Jordan Center on Thursday to say an emotional last goodbye to beloved football coach Joe Paterno - but Karen Peetz and Keith Masser, the chair and vice chair of the university board of trustees, weren't among them. ...

That's what it's come to: The Pennsylvania State University board of trustees is so reviled by some alumni that its members could not attend the mass public tribute to their most popular employee, lest their mere presence possibly cause an ugly disturbance. …

A vocal, angry, and mobilized alumni-and-fan base that's working to seat new board members in a coming election and overhaul how the board is organized and run. Many are furious that Paterno was fired without a hearing or waiting for the outcome of investigations.

A faculty doubtful of the board's ability to conduct its own impartial inquiry into the scandal.

Step one to a solution. The trustees should publically apologize for an obvious, erroneous, and destructive decision. The name Paterno should be restored to its rightful place first by the trustees. Otherwise the trustees should remain reviled. Trustees made so many mistakes. They owe the public and Penn State an apology. Every day they delay only makes them – even the new chair and vice chair – complicit.

32 of them and a Governor. Not one could bother to learn facts before making a decision? Not one could apologize for their obvious and tragic mistakes? No public apology means more scars and justified contempt. Literally every organization – alumni, students, faculty – know what the trustees still refuse to admit.

Step one to healing is that obvious. They must apologize for making a decision without first learning facts. They must restore the Paterno name to where it belongs.

Every day the trustees delay confirms how divorced they are from reality.

[classicman]

Gov. Tom Corbett (R-Pa.) praised Joe Paterno and ordered flags on all state buildings to fly at half-staff for four days.

That would be the same Tom Corbett who had said he was “personally disappointed” in Joe Paterno for not doing more to alert authorities in the Jerry Sandusky case, while acknowledging that Paterno did nothing illegal and followed university rules for conduct.

That would be the same Tom Corbett who, as attorney general, assigned only one investigator to the case in 2009, while devoting almost innumerable personnel and financial resources to prosecute high-profile cases that could help lead him to the governor’s office.

That would be the same Tom Corbett who had the authority to order the arrest of Jerry Sandusky as soon as the claims were made, but who allowed the investigation to drag two years.

That would be the same Tom Corbett who stepped up the investigation only in the third year, after he was elected governor.
That would be the same Tom Corbett who accepted about $200,000 in campaign donations from trustees of Sandusky’s Second Mile foundation and then danced around questions of why, as governor, he authorized a $3 million grant to the Second Mile.

Link and more here. Yeh spexx, I'm inclined to agree with you about Corbett

[Gravdigr]

Originally Posted by tw

If Paterno had done anything like that, the trustees would have fired him. But then the trustees are well respected lawyers and bean counters. Same type of people who created America’s worst recession in 75 years. Who are complicit in America no longer having the technologies necessary to build iPhones.

Wow! ƒucking wow!!

You just tied Jerry Sandusky to the entire U.S.'s lack of a technological manufacturing base in only four sentences.

Well, two sentences and two sentence fragments...

[Lamplighter]

This is being reported in several places, some with editorial comments.
There are also discussions that Paterno was (indirectly) the basis for this track of communications,
but there are several arguing he was not.

Ex-Penn State president reportedly OK'd not reporting sex abuse allegations
Associated Press via Fox News
Published July 01, 2012

<snip>
The CNN report cites an email from Schultz to Curley on Feb. 26, 2001,
16 days after graduate assistant Mike McQueary told Paterno about the shower assault.
Schultz suggests bringing the allegation to the attention of Sandusky,
Sandusky's charity and the Department of Welfare, which investigates suspected child abuse, according to the report.

But the next night, Curley sent an email to Spanier, saying that after thinking about it more and talking to Paterno,
he was "uncomfortable" with that plan and wanted to work with Sandusky before contacting authorities, the report said.

If Sandusky is cooperative, Curley's email said, "we would work with him.
.... If not, we do not have a choice and will inform the two groups," according to the report.

Spanier wrote back and agreed with that approach,
calling it a "humane and a reasonable way to proceed,
according to the report. But he also worried about the consequences.
"The only downside for us is if message isn't `heard' and acted upon
and we then become vulnerable for not having reported it,
but that can be assessed down the road," the email said, according to CNN.
<snip>

I guess we are now "down the road"