“It is not enough in a situation of trust in the commonwealth, that a man means well to his country; it is not enough that in his single person he never did an evil act, but always voted according to his conscience, and even harangued against every design which he apprehended to be prejudicial to the interests of his country. This innoxious and ineffectual character, that seems formed upon a plan of apology and disculpation, falls miserably short of the mark of public duty. That duty demands and requires that what is right should not only be made known, but made prevalent; that what is evil should not only be detected, but defeated. When the public man omits to put himself in a situation of doing his duty with effect it is an omission that frustrates the purposes of his trust almost as much as if he had formally betrayed it. It is surely no very rational account of a man’s life, that he has always acted right but has taken special care to act in such a manner that his endeavours could not possibly be productive of any consequence.” – Edmund Burke
Joe Paterno failed the test. The football team failed the test. Penn State University failed the test. The protests and rioters failed the test.
I could care less if they shut down all NCAA sports at that place for the rest of time.
Sometime tomorrow Penn State will receive the punishment from the NCAA. It won’t be enough.
The civil suits, now, they may well be another matter.
Update: Sanctions
- $60M fine
- Four year Post season ban
- Four year reduction of grants in aid from 25 to 15
- Five years of probation
- Vacation of wins from 1998 to 2011 reflected on Paterno’s stat sheet
- Waiver of transfer rules and grant in aid retention (team players can go anywhere)
- There may be individual penalties.
The Sandusky debacle is the second worst crime Penn State fostered…anybody care to guess at first?
Hummmmmmm…….a hockey stick?
We have a winner!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfVwEBkuqts
I never knew why Joe Paterno was still coaching at 83 when I saw him win the Capital One Bowl. He proved his team could still win, but I didn’t understand how a man his age could really perform as a head coach. I wondered if he didn’t trust his subordinates to run the team without him. Now I think he stayed on to keep a lid on the conspiracy. Sandusky would have been stopped much sooner if those who knew would have worried more about the victims then the reputation of a lousy school in the Big 10. Roll Tide.
Upon entering high school, students should be advised to immediately report homosexual advances by teachers and coaching staff. If predators like Sandusky were apprehended early in their careers, long-term abuses and coverups like this would not occur.
Still it is a shame that Paterno has all but destroyed top level college football north of the Mason Dixon line (OK, not thaat far north.)
You are going with a story that has been spoon-fed to you by those who insist that homosexuality is mainstream. The latest “investigation” was paid for by the Penn State Board of Trustees to “clear their name”, was run by Lon Horiuchi’s boss, had NO subpoena power, and could access only that information which the Board of Trustees wanted it to access. The Grand Jury had access to FAR MORE information, and reached a very different conclusion. Louis Freeh did indeed give the Trustees value for their thirty pieces of silver. As expected.
The truth in BOTH cases of homosexual pedophilia at Penn State by Jerry Sandusky is significantly different.
As heinous as the behavior of all adults involved *may* be, this is outside the bounds of the NCAA’s purview. They do not have a “morals clause” like Major League Baseball does and there were no “athletics” (the first “A” in their name) involved. This was a coach committing a horrible crime, and a cover up. It is a criminal matter only.
And even if it was within the jurisdiction of the NCAA, they have not followed their own rules and procedures. They have now crossed the line where they can crack down on a school for anything the NCAA decides is “bad” — much like our federal government.
The “guilty” are dead or in the slammer or just gone from Penn State. Tons of lawsuits coming. Who’s left to punish? The players, alums, local Happy Vallybusinesses and fans, i.e. the innocent. Perfect.
The trustees, Mike McCormick, are NOT gone. Protecting THEM was the whole reason for the Freeh whitewash.
“When the public man omits to put himself in a situation of doing his duty with effect it is an omission…”
Most Canadians fail that test.
The players, alumni, coaches, administrators, fans, and students all constitute, together, the culture of the university. It is that very culture that for years shielded Sandusky. He was protected in order to protect that same culture, the Sacred Football, from bad PR.
They were more worried about their Sacred Football than children being sodomized. How could you possibly consider yourself remotely civilized when football is more precious to you than the safety of children…. even your own??
The possible millions of dollars in fines is nothing to Penn State. It’s chump change. Look at their financials. University foundations have hundreds of millions in the bank, and countless investments you’d never dream they’d have. A $3Mil fine is petty cash. All it means is some construction project will be delayed by a year.
The culture of Penn State is what needs to be punished. It needs to be held accountable. It is the “innocent” that need to know that THEY must not ever allow this to happen, at ANY university.
That’s why the Clery Act came to be.
I don’t consider college age people to be children.
Furthermore, these men were members of a football team. Strong, athletic individuals. I can’t understand why, if they were being buggered, they didn’t turn around and jack up the sodomist real good.
Mark Matis at 9:05. Granted. Not sure what that has to with punishing the players, alums, local Happy Valley businesses and fans, i.e. the innocent. Perhaps, just a thought, if the trustees and whoever protected them are involved in covering up this crime, they could go on trial, get convicted and spend some time in the slammer. Criminal law is pretty clear on this stuff.
Maybe this case will move other university presidents to actually perform their duties, like warning any and all members of the faculty and administration that silence in cases like the Penn State will make them culpable in the eyes of the administration, regardless of what law enforcement does.
Big in the news is a $60Mil NCAA fine. Not in the news is what fine Penn State will face for the so very, very clear violation of Clery.
In reality, these big fines make the headlines, what often doesn’t even make the back page, buried in the classifieds, is what is actually paid.
1st, NCAA is a private corporation, so it is without legal authority to levy a “criminal’ sanction. Penn could be a sacrificial lamb, a whipping boy, but the rest of the membership could very likely lobby for a lesser fine in the end… simply because they wouldn’t want to be held equally accountable.
Secondly, the Dept of Ed will want to be seen with very large teeth up front, but as is the case all too often, more likely Penn will get a good gumming.
The university I come from negotiated a fine of hundreds of thousands down to $11k. Wow. That taught ’em. They’ll never drown sheep again and bury ’em in the back yard.
MikeM_inMD – you are tied up in legalism, and miss the point.
The NCAA has a voluntary association with Penn State, and may end it, any time it sees fit for any reason, or for no reason.
Your line of thinking implicitly gives Penn State grounds for legal action if it feels wronged by the actions NCAA may take. No dice.
We shall not rest until all the innocent are punished.
Group guilt, Culture guilt. We’ve come a long way, baby. Sam Goldwyn nailed it years ago. “Include me out.”
The entire culture around the Penn State football program, created by the players, alums, businesses, and fans, contributed to this going on for so long. The hero-worship. The god-like reverence shown toward Paterno. Paterno’s willingness to use his status to cover up these atrocities, judging that the program (and his own legacy) had become more important than innocent boys. The complicity of assistant coaches, athletic directors, and university officials. The program came above all.
That entire culture MUST change. The only way to do so is to stamp down HARD on it. The program cannot go back to “business as usual”, and the NCAA has rightfully denied Penn State the ability to do so.
Anyone who wants to twist around legalities is essentially saying Penn State as an institution should suffer no ill effects for the evil that went on within it for so long. I do not share that view.
Gaylord – you should know Sandusky was inviting young boys to the college to see the facility and then showering with them and more. It wasn’t the players from the team.
Gaylord – It was NOT college age people that Sandusky was caught with. He was doing the boys in the Second Mile “charity”. The boy that McQueary caught him with was about 10 at the time.
DJ in da US – Sandusky was FIRST caught acting inappropriately in the late 90s. At that time he did INDEED work for Paterno as his linebacker coach, and they were close friends. Shortly after Sandusky was caught in that incident, he NO LONGER WORKED FOR Coach Paterno. Note that was done even though homosexuals were at the top of the Preferred Species ladder, and even though Sandusky had not been charged, much less convicted. Paterno did that at great personal risk to his career and freedom. Or are you unaware of how Preferred Species are handled in academia, as well as the Federal charges available for anyone who discriminates against Preferred Species? After that time, Sandusky no longer worked for the football team nor for Coach Paterno. His access to the university facilities was through his association with Second Mile, approved by the Athletic Director and the President of the University, with full support from the Trustees.
Note that Sandusky was never charged in that first incident. The investigating prosecutor died under mysterious circumstances, the hard drive from his computer disappeared, and nobody in “Law Enforcement” nor the “Legal” system followed up.
I.M. at 10:27 Okay, but only if we can apply the basic principle to a pesky group from the Middle East and those AIDS people, too.
Sandusky is going to trial. Paterno is dead and his statue has been removed.
Trustees are going to lose their jobs and Penn State is being fined $60 million.
Once the guilty parties are out of the way, continue to punish the innocent because guilt by association is so justified.
Continue to line up at airport security because some jerkoffs flew planes into a couple of building. Don’t complain, because it must have been your fault, too.
Make sure you don’t have more than one drink in Alberta (.05) because some bozo had a dozen drinks and killed somebody. That’s your fault, too, so you must be punished.
What a lovely totalitarian state we’re creating.
@ small c conservative:
While the NCAA association is “voluntary”, when taken in concert, the by-laws create an environment that effectively forces you to belong to it if you want to play. The NCAA is a monopoly.
Are there teams that don’t belong that play with teams that do, and do those teams go to playoffs?
“Okay, but only if we can apply the basic principle to a pesky group from the Middle East and those AIDS people, too”
On the former, I think we made a GRAVE mistake in allowing the Afghans & Iraqis to write their own post-war constitutions, because they just went & enshrined Islam within them.
On the latter, I have no idea what the heck you’re blathering about.
Mike McCormick asks: “Who’s left to punish?”
All the people who thought that having a winning team was more important than doing their duty as civilized men, that’s who. Namely protecting young boys when they don’t know enough to protect themselves, or can’t. Some of whom are fans, btw.
So yeah, I think the complete destruction of the Penn State University sport section is completely reasonable and warranted. Because in this particular case its a culture of corruption you’re trying to destroy, not the merely the actions of a few individuals that need punished.
Too many guys believe in “win at any cost!” But its a football team, not something that’s worth a kid’s life. You want to make an impression on a “win at any cost” guy, you take his win away from him and don’t let him play. Ever.
If the college sport associations had any sportsmanship left in them, Penn State would have been banned from competition in -every- sport the same day the verdict was reached. That’s how you hurt the guys who let this happen and covered it up.
$60 million and being banned from Bowl games for a while, this is chicken feed. Its a wink and a nod that lets business as usual carry on. Turn that crank baby, feed some more kids in and print some more money.
Nobody has to play football.
lance, you’ve been conned.
Go back, read the report.
Who were the most senior members of the coverup?
President Spanier and Vice-President Schultz.
Are administrators in general being punished?
Nope.
Only the football half of the coverup team is being punished.
Shouldn’t Administrators lose all their perks and benefits for 5 or 10 years?
OOPS!
US universities have a greater obsession with sports than with education.
All part of the decline of the American empire.
The other shoe will drop when someone will release the fraudulent Mann research data.
Posted by: Bruce at July 23, 2012 11:13 AM
Naw, it’s only important to punish the innocent.
Of course they do, TJ. Penn State football made the U around $40 mil in *profit* every year.
Never ever forget the ex-President of PSU, Graham Spanier. Re syncrodox: Spanier has total responsibility for that worst crime.
No doubt Spanier is fully lawyered up, and that is why not enough attention is directed to him.
But we should not forget.
PSU is a fairly good university, with a distinguished athletics program beside the football. That also should not be forgotten.
John Lewis – And Sandusky was NOT associated with its football program at the time he was caught doing that 10 year old boy.
It isn’t a question of whether Sandusky was, or was not at the time “officially” connected.. it’s the fact that THE official football program and the university knew what was going on in its facilities, with an “associated” program.
That Sandusky was allowed continued access when there was knowledge is the smoking gun.
Betcha Coach Biden knows more than he’s saying down at Penn Avenue University.
The program was INDEED associated with the University, courtesy of the AD, the President, and the Trustees.
But it was NOT associated with the football program.
If I suspect a child is being raped, I don’t tell my boss (or my dad), I call the police. I don’t know why it has to be so much more complicated than that.
And I’m afraid I find drying paint mesmerizing compared to almost any organized sport, so I say confiscate every nickel for the victims and then nuke the whole ugly mess from orbit. Why the hell are jocks even attached to academia in the first place? Because they’re such a scholarly bunch, on average? But that’s another thing, obviously.
Right on Mamba. “…its the only way to be sure.”
Phantom – and it’s fun!
Seriously, I don’t get any of this “dealing with it internally” stuff. Re. the Catholic Church scandals, I remember some stand-up saying, more or less (obviously a paraphrase), “If a McDonald’s employee molests a kid, McDonalds doesn’t move him to an outlet in another city”.
Similar stuff in universities (academic and pseudo-academic departments), where “trials” are held over allegations of alleged sexual abuse. I just don’t get it. If there’s evidence a student was harassed (and that does happen, as do false allegations), that’s criminal, take it to the police. A university committee is not a branch of the judiciary.
And then we have the HRCs. If you want to “sue” someone, but you have no grounds, well, I say the legal system is for saps. Who’s with me? Bernie Farber?
(“allegations of alleged…” being a little redundant.)
Posted by: Black Mamba at July 23, 2012 1:54 PM
Athletics brought in $60 million to the university, therefore more than a handful of people must be interested in sports.
So, if you take $60 million out of the budget, how does it get replaced? Bake sales?
The football program is being punished for something it did not do … once again, a clear case of punishing the innocent.
Sorta like gun control laws.
Some idiot shoots up a bunch of people and apparently the solution is to deny anybody else the right to own a gun ie punishing the innocent.
Seems to me we just did away with the gun registry in Canada for the very reason that punishing hunters for the act of a deranged Muslim-raised jerk at Ecole Polytechnique is kinda illogical.
Anyway, cheers. I enjoy your posts.
You think they would have quietly transferred Sandusky to a football team in some other Parish years ago.
Well said, set you free!
And BL@KBIRD, the football team TOTALLY removed him from its activities. The AD, the University President, and the Board of Trustees brought him back to the University because, as a homosexual, he was a Preferred Species. The football team had NO call on whether he was there or not. It is ALSO worth noting that “Law Enforcement” and the “Legal” system did NOT prosecute Sandusky in for the incident in the 90s, nor did they arrest him for his 2005 actions, EVEN THOUGH PATERNO GAVE THEM ALL THE INFO HE HAD!
set you free – IMO at least a good half of universities should be closed down. That “$60 million” should have been directed elsewhere, towards some other venue designed for those keen on watching teenagers play football (not my bag, but whatever). The university bubble will burst soon, and not soon enough, although I pity many of the people who will be damaged in the fallout. Not 1/5 of people who attend university in the Western world ought to do, and that’s being generous (ever met a student from China taking History or Literature, let alone Wymen’s studies?) So no, I’m not drooling over the money some sports team, attached symbiotically to a failing university which probably shouldn’t exist anyway, might be raking in. Raped children quite aside.
I don’t care what $$$ the program brought in, quite aside from the scandal. Jock programs should not exist in academia. Guys who can’t read being forced through classes because Gotta Support the Team! It’s just childish. Reason #120405 people aren’t taking the anglosphere as seriously as one would like anymore.
I believe you will find, Black Mamba, that unlike many OTHER football teams at OTHER universities, Coach Paterno’s players were expected to actually attend classes and make satisfactory grades in their studies. Not many of them may have been Rhodes scholars, but very few were forced through classes to support the team. That may be part of the reason why his later teams were not as competitive on the national scene.
Thanks Mark Matis, I was becoming suspicious of this the more I saw people piling on the bandwagon. Why is it that lately every time we see people piling on like this it always seems to be on the wrong people? Something in our society seem very wrong.