Jerry Sandusky accused of child molestation (1 Viewer)

[Bottomfeeder Sports]

Hard as it is to believe, not every message board is like that. ...

There are other message boards?

If you don't believe me, just ask BGP. According to him, most of them are better than this one.

Pai Mei is your go to witness?

 

[roadkill1292]

Hard as it is to believe, not every message board is like that. ...

There are other message boards?

If you don't believe me, just ask BGP. According to him, most of them are better than this one.

Pai Mei is your go to witness?

He's always right. Just ask him.

 

[Joe Summer]

What facts are in question here?

1. McQueary sees Sandusky raping a boy in the shower.

2. McQuery reports what he saw to Paterno.

3. Sandusky continues working along side Paterno.

"We don't know what McQueary really said to Paterno because Paterno might have mistakenly given false testimony to the grand jury!"

 

[The Future Champs]

The problem is that there are broad assumptions being made by everyone discussing this issue. The problem is that it only seems socially acceptable to make assumptions and logical leaps in support of greater culpability of Paterno and Penn State as an institution. Those people have the ultimate fall back position, that is, I would rather condemn all who might possibly have been involved in any way now (and indeed I will look to make those connections) because I am passionate about preventing all forms of child abuse (who can argue?) and, if I find out I was wrong on a fact or assumption later, I will own up to it then. But better to condemn a potential CME and be wrong than to attempt to defend one and be wrong.

Those who make broad assumptions hoping to exonerate Paterno and or limit the moral culpability of him and the University are immediately labeled apologists, though they are participating in the same exercise as those who would condemn, just on the other side of the coin. It is more difficult to take this position, because as more facts emerge, you may be proven wrong and your defense will have been of a man/system that is ultimately been shown to be culpable. But there is nothing wrong with HOPING that the facts bear out such that Paterno/Penn State's involvement was limited. Making those assumptions doesn't make you evil. Some want to believe it is limited to one and/or few men with knowledge because of their pride in the school (and to lesser extent the man). Some want to believe that because it somehow makes them feel better about humanity that this may be the act of one single monster and not a much grander act of individual and institutional self interest.

Either of those prior exercises in making assumptions and providing hypotheticals is o.k., so long as we are prepared to revise them and accept the truth, whatever it may be, as more facts are revealed. But it seems that it is the friction between those making large logical leaps in either direction that is largely responsible for the conflict in this thread.

And, I'm back out.

:22:

This is actually a really good point.

I've been on the opposite side of more than one debate with IB but I've always appreciated the thought he put into his arguments.

Yeah, it's great and correct. Except it fights against the purpose of the internet, which is to be right before it's proven.

What facts are in question here?1. McQueary sees Sandusky raping a boy in the shower.

2. McQuery reports what he saw to Paterno.



3. Sandusky continues working along side Paterno.

#3 is incorrect. Hth.

 

[Aaron Rudnicki]

regarding the earlier statement of fact in this thread that Sandusky did not keep his office at Penn State following the 2002 incident, this is what the recent issue of Sports Illustrated says on the matter:

Sandusky kept his office at Penn State and continued to have full access to the football facilities. The lone result of the 2002 incident - a decision approved by Spanier - is that Sandusky was prohibited from bringing children on campus. Don't do it here. Among all the graphic and horrifying detail in the grand jury testimony, this point is perhaps most damning.

Sandusky's alleged activity continued. It just moved elsewhere. The only two victims in the grand jury report whose identities remain unknown - whom authorities couldn't contact - were the ones assaulted on the Penn State campus. Had Sandusky not been so brazen in Mill Hall, had he simply restricted himself to the football facilities in State College, there is little to suggest he would have been caught. For Sandusky - if not for the boys - Penn State football was a safe haven.

 

[Joe Summer]

What facts are in question here?

1. McQueary sees Sandusky raping a boy in the shower.

2. McQuery reports what he saw to Paterno.



3. Sandusky continues working along side Paterno.

#3 is incorrect. Hth.

Change it to "Sandusky continues an affiliation with Penn State, maintains an office at Penn State*, attends Joe Paterno's closed football practices, gives motivational speeches to Paterno's football team, holds overnight football camps on Penn State facilities, attends football games as a guest of Penn State, and gives commencement speeches at Penn State graduation ceremonies."*got a link that disproves this?

 

[CrossEyed]

Penn State's open records law exemption draws questions

By Brad Bumsted and Debra Erdley, TRIBUNE-REVIEW

Saturday, November 19, 2011

HARRISBURG -- Penn State University receives about $227 million in state tax dollars, but the university is not covered by the Open Records Law that applies to state agencies.

That sets it apart from nearly every public university in the nation, said Adam Goldstein, counsel to the Arlington, Va.-based national Student Press Law Center.

In the aftermath of the child sex scandal and cover-up alleged in a grand jury report, lawmakers will examine to what extent Penn State, Pitt, Temple and Lincoln -- the state-related universities -- should be covered by the state Open Records Law.

There's no question in Goldstein's mind.

"Penn State has been playing a malicious hokey pokey with open records laws for years," Goldstein said. "If this isn't enough cause for them to change it, if this isn't good enough reason to determine that Penn State needs some oversight, I don't know what would be."

Goldstein said it would have been easier to access public university records almost anywhere else in the country.

"Generally speaking, public universities are covered as public entities under most laws. ... Until recently, there were two exceptions (to open records laws covering public universities): Pennsylvania and California; but in California, the university has been subject to the law since 2008 or 2009," Goldstein said.

Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi, R-Delaware County, is author of the law that exempts the university from disclosing anything beyond basic federal tax data and the salaries of the university's officers and the 25 highest-paid employees. He asked a Senate committee to review the universities' status on open records. A spokesman for Pileggi said the senator believes, at the least, that campus police records should be public record.

"Sen. Pileggi believes strongly that any police force with arrest powers should be fully covered by the Open Records Law, including those on the campuses of the state-related universities," said Erik Arneson, director of communications and policy for the Senate Republican Caucus. "There should be no difference in how the law applies to a municipal police force and how it applies to a university police force with arrest powers."

Former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky and two campus administrators -- one of whom oversaw campus police -- are charged with felonies. Sandusky is accused in 40 criminal counts of molesting boys. Former Athletic Director Tim Curley and retired Vice President Gary Schultz are accused of failing to report a 2002 incident in Penn State's football locker room.

Rep. Tim Mahoney, D-Uniontown, an outspoken advocate of open records, said the events at Penn State could provide an opportunity to make the law stronger.

"Anybody that takes public money ought to be open to scrutiny for their entire budget," Mahoney said.

Stephen Miskin, a spokesman for House Majority Leader Mike Turzai, R-Bradford Woods, said a House-Senate commission set up to examine which laws need to be strengthened as a result of the Sandusky case will review how the Right to Know law applies to Penn State and other state-related universities.

Pileggi asked Sen. Charles McIlhenny, R-Bucks County, chairman of the State Government Committee, to hold a hearing on the issue. No date has been set.

Although the state-related universities receive hundreds of millions from the state annually, that money has represented less than 10 percent of their overall budgets, which also are funded by tuition and private contributions.

Penn State officials, who often use those numbers to justify the school's status as a "state-related" rather than state-owned school, at the same time maintain the school is a public university. Historically, for tax purposes, Penn State has been considered "an instrumentality of the commonwealth," university spokeswoman Lisa Powers.

Mahoney said his version of the Right to Know Law in 2007, which did not survive in the Senate, would have made records of state-related universities public records.

Goldstein recalled the proposed law and the lobbying that surrounded it.

"There were a lot of people connected to Penn State lobbying to exclude Penn State from the law," he said.

Read more: Penn State's open records law exemption draws questions - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/specialreports/pennstate/s_768179.html#ixzz1eBF0LJe5

 

[mad sweeney]

What facts are in question here?

1. McQueary sees Sandusky raping a boy in the shower.

2. McQuery reports what he saw to Paterno.



3. Sandusky continues working along side Paterno.

#3 is incorrect. Hth.

Change it to "Sandusky continues an affiliation with Penn State, maintains an office at Penn State*, attends Joe Paterno's closed football practices, gives motivational speeches to Paterno's football team, holds overnight football camps on Penn State facilities, attends football games as a guest of Penn State, and gives commencement speeches at Penn State graduation ceremonies."*got a link that disproves this?

Don't forget to add "often with young children in tow.".But hey, Joe didn't talk to him for 7 years! Clearly Joe knew nothing incriminating and just accidentally ignored his friend and colleague for all that time.

Truly some people with their heads in the sand on this. Even Joe's own words aren't enough for them to believe it.

 

[GroveDiesel]

Oof. Not sure if this has been mentioned, but in NCAA Football 2012, if you play a rivalry game of Penn State vs. Ohio State, EA labels the game as the "Hide Your Children" Game.

 

[Aaron Rudnicki]

http://www.whosay.com/darrenrovell/photos/93450Unfortunate NCAA12 screencap

 

[GroveDiesel]

http://www.whosay.com/darrenrovell/photos/93450Unfortunate NCAA12 screencap

Well, then has anyone mentioned that Sandusky wrote a book called "Touched"?

 

[The Future Champs]

What facts are in question here?

1. McQueary sees Sandusky raping a boy in the shower.

2. McQuery reports what he saw to Paterno.



3. Sandusky continues working along side Paterno.

#3 is incorrect. Hth.

Change it to "Sandusky continues an affiliation with Penn State, maintains an office at Penn State*, attends Joe Paterno's closed football practices, gives motivational speeches to Paterno's football team, holds overnight football camps on Penn State facilities, attends football games as a guest of Penn State, and gives commencement speeches at Penn State graduation ceremonies."*got a link that disproves this?

Don't forget to add "often with young children in tow.".But hey, Joe didn't talk to him for 7 years! Clearly Joe knew nothing incriminating and just accidentally ignored his friend and colleague for all that time.

Truly some people with their heads in the sand on this. Even Joe's own words aren't enough for them to believe it.

And again, we see where hyperbole rules in a thread like this. All I said was that #3 was wrong- Joe did not continue to work alongside Sandusky, as Sandusky had already retired before the 2002 incident. That's not a defense of Joe, or of Penn State, only a correction of a claimed fact from ctsu.

So how exactly do I have my head in the sand?

 

[mad sweeney]

What facts are in question here?

1. McQueary sees Sandusky raping a boy in the shower.

2. McQuery reports what he saw to Paterno.



3. Sandusky continues working along side Paterno.

#3 is incorrect. Hth.

Change it to "Sandusky continues an affiliation with Penn State, maintains an office at Penn State*, attends Joe Paterno's closed football practices, gives motivational speeches to Paterno's football team, holds overnight football camps on Penn State facilities, attends football games as a guest of Penn State, and gives commencement speeches at Penn State graduation ceremonies."*got a link that disproves this?

Don't forget to add "often with young children in tow.".But hey, Joe didn't talk to him for 7 years! Clearly Joe knew nothing incriminating and just accidentally ignored his friend and colleague for all that time.

Truly some people with their heads in the sand on this. Even Joe's own words aren't enough for them to believe it.

And again, we see where hyperbole rules in a thread like this. All I said was that #3 was wrong- Joe did not continue to work alongside Sandusky, as Sandusky had already retired before the 2002 incident. That's not a defense of Joe, or of Penn State, only a correction of a claimed fact from ctsu.

So how exactly do I have my head in the sand?

I know it was a reply to a reply to you but it wasn't solely aimed at you.. It's for all the mitigators, semantic defenders and supporters. #3 is true in almost every aspect that matters as evidenced by the expanded definition provided. Trying to say "it's not true" is at best intellectually dishonest and very akin to having your head in the sand.

 

[The Future Champs]

What facts are in question here?

1. McQueary sees Sandusky raping a boy in the shower.

2. McQuery reports what he saw to Paterno.



3. Sandusky continues working along side Paterno.

#3 is incorrect. Hth.

Change it to "Sandusky continues an affiliation with Penn State, maintains an office at Penn State*, attends Joe Paterno's closed football practices, gives motivational speeches to Paterno's football team, holds overnight football camps on Penn State facilities, attends football games as a guest of Penn State, and gives commencement speeches at Penn State graduation ceremonies."*got a link that disproves this?

Don't forget to add "often with young children in tow.".But hey, Joe didn't talk to him for 7 years! Clearly Joe knew nothing incriminating and just accidentally ignored his friend and colleague for all that time.

Truly some people with their heads in the sand on this. Even Joe's own words aren't enough for them to believe it.

And again, we see where hyperbole rules in a thread like this. All I said was that #3 was wrong- Joe did not continue to work alongside Sandusky, as Sandusky had already retired before the 2002 incident. That's not a defense of Joe, or of Penn State, only a correction of a claimed fact from ctsu.

So how exactly do I have my head in the sand?

I know it was a reply to a reply to you but it wasn't solely aimed at you.. It's for all the mitigators, semantic defenders and supporters. #3 is true in almost every aspect that matters as evidenced by the expanded definition provided. Trying to say "it's not true" is at best intellectually dishonest and very akin to having your head in the sand.

Wrong, in so many ways. #3 is simply not true. Sandusky was retired from the program.

Strummer added in his expanded definition - "Sandusky continues an affiliation with Penn State, maintains an office at Penn State*, attends Joe Paterno's closed football practices, gives motivational speeches to Paterno's football team, holds overnight football camps on Penn State facilities, attends football games as a guest of Penn State, and gives commencement speeches at Penn State graduation ceremonies." - after I corrected ctsu. Most of these items have nothing to do with #3. The intellectual dishonesty here is pretending that giving a commencement speech is akin to working alongside joe. The only item on that entire list that might support ctsu is the motivational speech(es) to the team.

As far as your implied accusation that I'm a mitigator, semantic defender, or supporter, which are ad hominem attacks btw, I can argue:

1. I've called for the death sentence for the football program, and defended Joe's dismissal.

2. Calling out ctsu on "fact" #3 is not an issue of semantics.

 

[mad sweeney]

What facts are in question here?

1. McQueary sees Sandusky raping a boy in the shower.

2. McQuery reports what he saw to Paterno.



3. Sandusky continues working along side Paterno.

#3 is incorrect. Hth.

Change it to "Sandusky continues an affiliation with Penn State, maintains an office at Penn State*, attends Joe Paterno's closed football practices, gives motivational speeches to Paterno's football team, holds overnight football camps on Penn State facilities, attends football games as a guest of Penn State, and gives commencement speeches at Penn State graduation ceremonies."*got a link that disproves this?

Don't forget to add "often with young children in tow.".But hey, Joe didn't talk to him for 7 years! Clearly Joe knew nothing incriminating and just accidentally ignored his friend and colleague for all that time.

Truly some people with their heads in the sand on this. Even Joe's own words aren't enough for them to believe it.

And again, we see where hyperbole rules in a thread like this. All I said was that #3 was wrong- Joe did not continue to work alongside Sandusky, as Sandusky had already retired before the 2002 incident. That's not a defense of Joe, or of Penn State, only a correction of a claimed fact from ctsu.

So how exactly do I have my head in the sand?

I know it was a reply to a reply to you but it wasn't solely aimed at you.. It's for all the mitigators, semantic defenders and supporters. #3 is true in almost every aspect that matters as evidenced by the expanded definition provided. Trying to say "it's not true" is at best intellectually dishonest and very akin to having your head in the sand.

Wrong, in so many ways. #3 is simply not true. Sandusky was retired from the program.

Strummer added in his expanded definition - "Sandusky continues an affiliation with Penn State, maintains an office at Penn State*, attends Joe Paterno's closed football practices, gives motivational speeches to Paterno's football team, holds overnight football camps on Penn State facilities, attends football games as a guest of Penn State, and gives commencement speeches at Penn State graduation ceremonies." - after I corrected ctsu. Most of these items have nothing to do with #3. The intellectual dishonesty here is pretending that giving a commencement speech is akin to working alongside joe. The only item on that entire list that might support ctsu is the motivational speech(es) to the team.

As far as your implied accusation that I'm a mitigator, semantic defender, or supporter, which are ad hominem attacks btw, I can argue:

1. I've called for the death sentence for the football program, and defended Joe's dismissal.

2. Calling out ctsu on "fact" #3 is not an issue of semantics.

Ad hominy hominy hominy, it still is semantic. Sandusky had a palpable presence with/around the team. Sure, you're right, he didn't work 'alongside' Paterno. But Paterno allowed his presence, with youngsters in tow, alongside Paterno's team and his facilities for years after Joe Pa found out about his predilection for inappropriate shower contact with young boys. So yes, it is a semantic difference and yes, it's an apparent mitigation of JP's inaction which so many on this board have been attempting.

 

[The Future Champs]

What facts are in question here?

1. McQueary sees Sandusky raping a boy in the shower.

2. McQuery reports what he saw to Paterno.



3. Sandusky continues working along side Paterno.

#3 is incorrect. Hth.

Change it to "Sandusky continues an affiliation with Penn State, maintains an office at Penn State*, attends Joe Paterno's closed football practices, gives motivational speeches to Paterno's football team, holds overnight football camps on Penn State facilities, attends football games as a guest of Penn State, and gives commencement speeches at Penn State graduation ceremonies."*got a link that disproves this?

Don't forget to add "often with young children in tow.".But hey, Joe didn't talk to him for 7 years! Clearly Joe knew nothing incriminating and just accidentally ignored his friend and colleague for all that time.

Truly some people with their heads in the sand on this. Even Joe's own words aren't enough for them to believe it.

And again, we see where hyperbole rules in a thread like this. All I said was that #3 was wrong- Joe did not continue to work alongside Sandusky, as Sandusky had already retired before the 2002 incident. That's not a defense of Joe, or of Penn State, only a correction of a claimed fact from ctsu.

So how exactly do I have my head in the sand?

I know it was a reply to a reply to you but it wasn't solely aimed at you.. It's for all the mitigators, semantic defenders and supporters. #3 is true in almost every aspect that matters as evidenced by the expanded definition provided. Trying to say "it's not true" is at best intellectually dishonest and very akin to having your head in the sand.

Wrong, in so many ways. #3 is simply not true. Sandusky was retired from the program.

Strummer added in his expanded definition - "Sandusky continues an affiliation with Penn State, maintains an office at Penn State*, attends Joe Paterno's closed football practices, gives motivational speeches to Paterno's football team, holds overnight football camps on Penn State facilities, attends football games as a guest of Penn State, and gives commencement speeches at Penn State graduation ceremonies." - after I corrected ctsu. Most of these items have nothing to do with #3. The intellectual dishonesty here is pretending that giving a commencement speech is akin to working alongside joe. The only item on that entire list that might support ctsu is the motivational speech(es) to the team.

As far as your implied accusation that I'm a mitigator, semantic defender, or supporter, which are ad hominem attacks btw, I can argue:

1. I've called for the death sentence for the football program, and defended Joe's dismissal.

2. Calling out ctsu on "fact" #3 is not an issue of semantics.

Ad hominy hominy hominy, it still is semantic. Sandusky had a palpable presence with/around the team. Sure, you're right, he didn't work 'alongside' Paterno. But Paterno allowed his presence, with youngsters in tow, alongside Paterno's team and his facilities for years after Joe Pa found out about his predilection for inappropriate shower contact with young boys. So yes, it is a semantic difference and yes, it's an apparent mitigation of JP's inaction which so many on this board have been attempting.

fyp. That's all I've argued, and you've conceded the point. Thanks for playing.

 

[CrossEyed]

Looks as though the folks at PSU are doing their best to keep all of their secrets hidden. Sure seems like there's a smell coming from Happy Valley.

No vote: Erickson is Penn State's new president

Saturday, November 19, 2011

By Bill Schackner, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Penn State University says it no longer has plans for a nationwide presidential search and is calling Rodney Erickson its 17th president with no apparent public vote by school trustees.

The move, which one legal expert said raises Sunshine Act compliance questions, comes as the public university's Faculty Senate passed a resolution Friday asking Penn State for an independent investigation into the child sex abuse scandal by a panel whose chair and a majority of members "have never been affiliated with Penn State."

Faculty Senate President Daniel Hagen said "the thought was that having a majority of non-Penn-Staters would give a different perspective."

It was unclear if the university would heed the faculty's call for a new panel. Eleven days ago, Penn State trustees announced a special investigative committee to be chaired by trustee Kenneth Frazier, CEO of Merck, with a membership limited to those with university ties.

The questions Friday over Mr. Erickson's new status were the latest twist in a saga that has rocked the state's flagship public university. When the board of trustees held its last public meeting Nov. 11, Penn State spokeswoman Lisa Powers said trustees at the 96,000-student university had removed the word "interim" from Mr. Erickson's title. Mr. Erickson, 65, was elevated 10 days ago from his position as the university's provost.

She said the trustees dropped the word because "they wanted to show that their full support was behind him," but she also said Penn State nevertheless planned to conduct a national search for a permanent replacement for Graham Spanier.

However, in an email sent Friday, Ms. Powers said Mr. Erickson is the school's 17th president.

"There are no plans in the works at this time to form a search committee," she said.

"Under our current situation, which is obviously unprecedented, the board has taken the action to name the president who they believe will lead us forward," she said.

Adding to the confusion was a comment from a Penn State trustee that appeared in Friday's Penn State student newspaper, The Daily Collegian. It quoted trustee Paul Silvis as saying this of Mr. Erickson: "He's the president for good. We think it's the right time."

A call by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette to Mr. Silvis' office was not immediately returned, nor was a message left at the home of Trustees Chairman Steve Garban.

Melissa Melewsky, media law counsel for the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association, said Penn State appears to fall under the Pennsylvania Sunshine Act, and as such cannot hire a new president behind closed doors.

"What the law requires is that public agencies take all official actions at a public meeting," she said. "Now they certainly can discuss personnel in a private session, but the actual vote has to take place at a public meeting."

Short of that, there is no way to know if a vote was conducted at all, how individuals voted or if the decision came from a quorum of members.

"In light of what's going on there," she added, "it would be best to err on the side of openness."

Ms. Powers said Mr. Erickson was announced as the university's leader during the trustees' Nov. 11 meeting and that board members had ample opportunity to speak out if they disagreed with the selection. "There was no dissenting voice, and in fact, all gave their unanimous support," she said.

She did not, however, provide any resolution or vote naming him the permanent president. She did not respond to an emailed question asking if Mr. Erickson has a presidential contract, how many years it spans and what his pay level is.

Mr. Hagen, the Faculty Senate chair, said he attended last Friday's trustees meeting and could recall no vote making Mr. Erickson the school's permanent leader. He said he considered Mr. Erickson the acting president until Friday morning, when he saw The Daily Collegian article that quoted Mr. Silvis.

Mr. Hagen expressed confidence in Mr. Erickson, but also said, "I was, I guess, a little surprised given what I know about the situation."

Outside observers including ethicists told the Post-Gazette earlier this week that investigative committees that include members with no ties to an institution can produce findings with greater credibility.

Ms. Powers did not directly address the Senate's call for such a committee, but said the trustees' panel will have "safeguards ??? to ensure input and review from outside of the university.

"As always, the administration welcomes information from the Faculty Senate," she said.

Mr. Spanier resigned and famed Penn State football Coach Joe Paterno was fired Nov. 9 amid a child sex assault scandal that has drawn national headlines. They and others faced criticism for the university's failure to report to law enforcement allegations that retired defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky had sexually assaulted a boy in a football facility shower in 2002. Mr. Erickson became executive vice president and provost on July 1, 1999, making him the institution's chief academic officer, according to Penn State's website. A researcher, he is widely published on geography and economic matters, international trade and economic development policies, the school said.

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11323/1191136-454-0.stm?cmpid=news.xml#ixzz1eCxSOvur

 

[cstu]

What facts are in question here?

1. McQueary sees Sandusky raping a boy in the shower.

2. McQuery reports what he saw to Paterno.



3. Sandusky continues working along side Paterno.

#3 is incorrect. Hth.

Change it to "Sandusky continues an affiliation with Penn State, maintains an office at Penn State*, attends Joe Paterno's closed football practices, gives motivational speeches to Paterno's football team, holds overnight football camps on Penn State facilities, attends football games as a guest of Penn State, and gives commencement speeches at Penn State graduation ceremonies."*got a link that disproves this?

Don't forget to add "often with young children in tow.".But hey, Joe didn't talk to him for 7 years! Clearly Joe knew nothing incriminating and just accidentally ignored his friend and colleague for all that time.

Truly some people with their heads in the sand on this. Even Joe's own words aren't enough for them to believe it.

And again, we see where hyperbole rules in a thread like this. All I said was that #3 was wrong- Joe did not continue to work alongside Sandusky, as Sandusky had already retired before the 2002 incident. That's not a defense of Joe, or of Penn State, only a correction of a claimed fact from ctsu.

So how exactly do I have my head in the sand?

I know it was a reply to a reply to you but it wasn't solely aimed at you.. It's for all the mitigators, semantic defenders and supporters. #3 is true in almost every aspect that matters as evidenced by the expanded definition provided. Trying to say "it's not true" is at best intellectually dishonest and very akin to having your head in the sand.

Wrong, in so many ways. #3 is simply not true. Sandusky was retired from the program.

Strummer added in his expanded definition - "Sandusky continues an affiliation with Penn State, maintains an office at Penn State*, attends Joe Paterno's closed football practices, gives motivational speeches to Paterno's football team, holds overnight football camps on Penn State facilities, attends football games as a guest of Penn State, and gives commencement speeches at Penn State graduation ceremonies." - after I corrected ctsu. Most of these items have nothing to do with #3. The intellectual dishonesty here is pretending that giving a commencement speech is akin to working alongside joe. The only item on that entire list that might support ctsu is the motivational speech(es) to the team.

As far as your implied accusation that I'm a mitigator, semantic defender, or supporter, which are ad hominem attacks btw, I can argue:

1. I've called for the death sentence for the football program, and defended Joe's dismissal.

2. Calling out ctsu on "fact" #3 is not an issue of semantics.

You're right it wasn't accurate - he was retired but he was still heavily involved with the program. Sure it's better than if he were still working with him but he allowed a child rapist to be around his team and sat by knowing that he was bringing children onto the Penn State campus.

 

[ConstruxBoy]

Did you hear they beat Ohio State at the Horseshoe? Awesome.

 

[The Future Champs]

Did you hear they beat Ohio State at the Horseshoe? Awesome.

Sweet. Just two more wins and we're in the Rose Bowl.

 

[Das Boot]

No vote: Erickson is Penn State's new presidentSaturday, November 19, 2011By Bill Schackner, Pittsburgh Post-GazettePenn State University says it no longer has plans for a nationwide presidential search and is calling Rodney Erickson its 17th president with no apparent public vote by school trustees.The move, which one legal expert said raises Sunshine Act compliance questions, comes as the public university's Faculty Senate passed a resolution Friday asking Penn State for an independent investigation into the child sex abuse scandal by a panel whose chair and a majority of members "have never been affiliated with Penn State."

It's ok, you can trust them. Heck, it's probably just some more estate planning.

 

[AAABatteries]

http://ll-media.tmz.com/2011/11/17/1117-joe-paterno-dvd-3ex.jpg

 

[CrossEyed]

Time for PSU to drop the ball

Sunday, November 20, 2011

By Gene Collier, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

On Monday, Oct. 24, just 12 days before the Sandusky bombshell slammed into central Pennsylvania, the Chronicle of Higher Education reported the kind of news nobody ever reads -- Penn State now leads the nation in Fulbright scholars.

For the current school year, 14 Fulbright grants were awarded to faculty at University Park alone, which is why Ricky Bates, associate professor of ornamental horticulture in the College of Agricultural Sciences, will this year be lecturing and researching at Maejo University in Thailand for a project entitled "Expanding Economic Opportunities for Rural Poor Farmers."

Which is why Karen Treat Keifer-Boyd, professor of art education in the College of Arts and Architecture, will head to the University of Klagenfurt in Austria for a project entitled, "Arts-Based Social Justice Activism: Insight, Inquiry, Imagination, Embodiment, Rationality."

Which is why 12 other Penn State scholars will visit 10 additional countries in an interdisciplinary blitz of brain power simultaneous to Penn State hosting Fulbright scholars from Pakistan, Tunisia, Armenia, Bangladesh, Morocco and elsewhere.

This is where Penn State must rebuild its poisoned reputation, upon its educational mission, its research mission, and upon its demonstrated devotion to scholarship, not upon the very swamp that poisoned it: the football program.

As the alleged sexual abuse roster mounts and the years of litigation begin stretching to the university's horizon, of what is Penn State proudest today -- its 826 football victories, its 27 bowl wins, its 28 Lambert-Meadowlands trophies, its two national championships, or Sarah Ganim, the Harrisburg crime reporter on whom it conferred a journalism degree?

I have a feeling it's not Sarah, the 24-year-old Floridian whose instincts, training and hustle made the Patriot-News the tip of the journalism spear on the biggest college sports story of our lifetimes.

But two weeks into its own sordid muck, Penn State still has it all wrong. Just look anywhere. A Penn State investigation staffed exclusively by insiders, a board of trustees that knew its football staff and faculty were providing grand jury testimony since last December but remained paralyzed in fear for the university's image, and now Friday's comments by acting athletic director Dave Joyner, telling a press conference that interim coach Tom Bradley would be "in the mix" if he wants to apply for the head coaching job.

No, they don't get it.

Is it the 156 years of geographical isolation or the 125 years of building football into a total wag-the-dog deity that turns a place with so much brain power into Clueless State?

The current football administration has to be removed, in toto. That's nothing against Tom Bradley. I know Tom Bradley. I like Tom Bradley. It's very likely that any new coach, regardless of his background, will be no Tom Bradley. But sorry, anyone with even the appearance of anything less than 100 percent plausible deniability on Sandusky's alleged adventures can't be within 100 miles of the place. That's everybody in the program.

There's an easier way and a better way to proceed for Penn State, and that is to get out of the football business. Not for some pointless bowl game. Not for 2012. I mean indefinitely.

Seven years after Amos Alonzo Stagg left the University of Chicago, which would be exactly 72 years before the same Big Ten conference put his name and Joe Paterno's on their spanking new championship trophy and then hurriedly scrubbed Joe's off last week, Chicago dropped football and built itself into an envied international giant of intellectual accomplishment.

The university, even as a charter member of the Big Ten, came to consider its successful football program a nuisance that hampered its academic ambitions.

Yes, that was 1939, and everything has changed, but there's never been a better time than 2011 to get out of college football, a corrupted, nonsensical sport with no real moral vision of itself, or at least none that can prevent a constant conference-hopping TV cash grab at the expense of unpaid athletes, many of them teenagers, most all of them with no professional future.

I'm not sure any serious academic institution can even co-exist at these cross-purposes anymore, but I am sure that Penn State, as it now embarks on a long, desperate mission to restore its dignity against a storm of potentially disgusting revelations still to come, can't go forward in total seriousness if it mindlessly determines that the football show must go on.

For the moment, Penn State should consider adding a world class research facility to study the causes and treatment of child abuse. It should continue to enhance its academic traditions and its newer intellectual jewels, the Shreyer Honors College, its School of International Affairs and the Penn State World Campus.

At some point, way down the road, it may consider re-entry. Thirty years after Chicago dropped football, it waded back in as a club sport and ultimately fielded a varsity Division III team that plays in the University Athletic Association with like-minded institutions Brandeis, Carnegie Mellon, NYU, Emory, Rochester, Case Western and Washington University in St. Louis.

They call 'em the Egghead Eight. And that's a lot better than anything Penn State is going to be called for a long, long time.

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11324/1191318-150-0.stm#ixzz1eJB9DQqm

 

[Parrothead]

Time for PSU to drop the ball

Sunday, November 20, 2011

By Gene Collier, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

On Monday, Oct. 24, just 12 days before the Sandusky bombshell slammed into central Pennsylvania, the Chronicle of Higher Education reported the kind of news nobody ever reads -- Penn State now leads the nation in Fulbright scholars.

For the current school year, 14 Fulbright grants were awarded to faculty at University Park alone, which is why Ricky Bates, associate professor of ornamental horticulture in the College of Agricultural Sciences, will this year be lecturing and researching at Maejo University in Thailand for a project entitled "Expanding Economic Opportunities for Rural Poor Farmers."

Which is why Karen Treat Keifer-Boyd, professor of art education in the College of Arts and Architecture, will head to the University of Klagenfurt in Austria for a project entitled, "Arts-Based Social Justice Activism: Insight, Inquiry, Imagination, Embodiment, Rationality."

Which is why 12 other Penn State scholars will visit 10 additional countries in an interdisciplinary blitz of brain power simultaneous to Penn State hosting Fulbright scholars from Pakistan, Tunisia, Armenia, Bangladesh, Morocco and elsewhere.

This is where Penn State must rebuild its poisoned reputation, upon its educational mission, its research mission, and upon its demonstrated devotion to scholarship, not upon the very swamp that poisoned it: the football program.

As the alleged sexual abuse roster mounts and the years of litigation begin stretching to the university's horizon, of what is Penn State proudest today -- its 826 football victories, its 27 bowl wins, its 28 Lambert-Meadowlands trophies, its two national championships, or Sarah Ganim, the Harrisburg crime reporter on whom it conferred a journalism degree?

I have a feeling it's not Sarah, the 24-year-old Floridian whose instincts, training and hustle made the Patriot-News the tip of the journalism spear on the biggest college sports story of our lifetimes.

But two weeks into its own sordid muck, Penn State still has it all wrong. Just look anywhere. A Penn State investigation staffed exclusively by insiders, a board of trustees that knew its football staff and faculty were providing grand jury testimony since last December but remained paralyzed in fear for the university's image, and now Friday's comments by acting athletic director Dave Joyner, telling a press conference that interim coach Tom Bradley would be "in the mix" if he wants to apply for the head coaching job.

No, they don't get it.

Is it the 156 years of geographical isolation or the 125 years of building football into a total wag-the-dog deity that turns a place with so much brain power into Clueless State?

The current football administration has to be removed, in toto. That's nothing against Tom Bradley. I know Tom Bradley. I like Tom Bradley. It's very likely that any new coach, regardless of his background, will be no Tom Bradley. But sorry, anyone with even the appearance of anything less than 100 percent plausible deniability on Sandusky's alleged adventures can't be within 100 miles of the place. That's everybody in the program.

There's an easier way and a better way to proceed for Penn State, and that is to get out of the football business. Not for some pointless bowl game. Not for 2012. I mean indefinitely.

Seven years after Amos Alonzo Stagg left the University of Chicago, which would be exactly 72 years before the same Big Ten conference put his name and Joe Paterno's on their spanking new championship trophy and then hurriedly scrubbed Joe's off last week, Chicago dropped football and built itself into an envied international giant of intellectual accomplishment.

The university, even as a charter member of the Big Ten, came to consider its successful football program a nuisance that hampered its academic ambitions.

Yes, that was 1939, and everything has changed, but there's never been a better time than 2011 to get out of college football, a corrupted, nonsensical sport with no real moral vision of itself, or at least none that can prevent a constant conference-hopping TV cash grab at the expense of unpaid athletes, many of them teenagers, most all of them with no professional future.

I'm not sure any serious academic institution can even co-exist at these cross-purposes anymore, but I am sure that Penn State, as it now embarks on a long, desperate mission to restore its dignity against a storm of potentially disgusting revelations still to come, can't go forward in total seriousness if it mindlessly determines that the football show must go on.

For the moment, Penn State should consider adding a world class research facility to study the causes and treatment of child abuse. It should continue to enhance its academic traditions and its newer intellectual jewels, the Shreyer Honors College, its School of International Affairs and the Penn State World Campus.

At some point, way down the road, it may consider re-entry. Thirty years after Chicago dropped football, it waded back in as a club sport and ultimately fielded a varsity Division III team that plays in the University Athletic Association with like-minded institutions Brandeis, Carnegie Mellon, NYU, Emory, Rochester, Case Western and Washington University in St. Louis.

They call 'em the Egghead Eight. And that's a lot better than anything Penn State is going to be called for a long, long time.

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11324/1191318-150-0.stm#ixzz1eJB9DQqm

this is turning into a contest over which columnist can be more "outraged" and write the most controversial things..

 

[CrossEyed]

Time for PSU to drop the ball

Sunday, November 20, 2011

By Gene Collier, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

On Monday, Oct. 24, just 12 days before the Sandusky bombshell slammed into central Pennsylvania, the Chronicle of Higher Education reported the kind of news nobody ever reads -- Penn State now leads the nation in Fulbright scholars.

For the current school year, 14 Fulbright grants were awarded to faculty at University Park alone, which is why Ricky Bates, associate professor of ornamental horticulture in the College of Agricultural Sciences, will this year be lecturing and researching at Maejo University in Thailand for a project entitled "Expanding Economic Opportunities for Rural Poor Farmers."

Which is why Karen Treat Keifer-Boyd, professor of art education in the College of Arts and Architecture, will head to the University of Klagenfurt in Austria for a project entitled, "Arts-Based Social Justice Activism: Insight, Inquiry, Imagination, Embodiment, Rationality."

Which is why 12 other Penn State scholars will visit 10 additional countries in an interdisciplinary blitz of brain power simultaneous to Penn State hosting Fulbright scholars from Pakistan, Tunisia, Armenia, Bangladesh, Morocco and elsewhere.

This is where Penn State must rebuild its poisoned reputation, upon its educational mission, its research mission, and upon its demonstrated devotion to scholarship, not upon the very swamp that poisoned it: the football program.

As the alleged sexual abuse roster mounts and the years of litigation begin stretching to the university's horizon, of what is Penn State proudest today -- its 826 football victories, its 27 bowl wins, its 28 Lambert-Meadowlands trophies, its two national championships, or Sarah Ganim, the Harrisburg crime reporter on whom it conferred a journalism degree?

I have a feeling it's not Sarah, the 24-year-old Floridian whose instincts, training and hustle made the Patriot-News the tip of the journalism spear on the biggest college sports story of our lifetimes.

But two weeks into its own sordid muck, Penn State still has it all wrong. Just look anywhere. A Penn State investigation staffed exclusively by insiders, a board of trustees that knew its football staff and faculty were providing grand jury testimony since last December but remained paralyzed in fear for the university's image, and now Friday's comments by acting athletic director Dave Joyner, telling a press conference that interim coach Tom Bradley would be "in the mix" if he wants to apply for the head coaching job.

No, they don't get it.

Is it the 156 years of geographical isolation or the 125 years of building football into a total wag-the-dog deity that turns a place with so much brain power into Clueless State?

The current football administration has to be removed, in toto. That's nothing against Tom Bradley. I know Tom Bradley. I like Tom Bradley. It's very likely that any new coach, regardless of his background, will be no Tom Bradley. But sorry, anyone with even the appearance of anything less than 100 percent plausible deniability on Sandusky's alleged adventures can't be within 100 miles of the place. That's everybody in the program.

There's an easier way and a better way to proceed for Penn State, and that is to get out of the football business. Not for some pointless bowl game. Not for 2012. I mean indefinitely.

Seven years after Amos Alonzo Stagg left the University of Chicago, which would be exactly 72 years before the same Big Ten conference put his name and Joe Paterno's on their spanking new championship trophy and then hurriedly scrubbed Joe's off last week, Chicago dropped football and built itself into an envied international giant of intellectual accomplishment.

The university, even as a charter member of the Big Ten, came to consider its successful football program a nuisance that hampered its academic ambitions.

Yes, that was 1939, and everything has changed, but there's never been a better time than 2011 to get out of college football, a corrupted, nonsensical sport with no real moral vision of itself, or at least none that can prevent a constant conference-hopping TV cash grab at the expense of unpaid athletes, many of them teenagers, most all of them with no professional future.

I'm not sure any serious academic institution can even co-exist at these cross-purposes anymore, but I am sure that Penn State, as it now embarks on a long, desperate mission to restore its dignity against a storm of potentially disgusting revelations still to come, can't go forward in total seriousness if it mindlessly determines that the football show must go on.

For the moment, Penn State should consider adding a world class research facility to study the causes and treatment of child abuse. It should continue to enhance its academic traditions and its newer intellectual jewels, the Shreyer Honors College, its School of International Affairs and the Penn State World Campus.

At some point, way down the road, it may consider re-entry. Thirty years after Chicago dropped football, it waded back in as a club sport and ultimately fielded a varsity Division III team that plays in the University Athletic Association with like-minded institutions Brandeis, Carnegie Mellon, NYU, Emory, Rochester, Case Western and Washington University in St. Louis.

They call 'em the Egghead Eight. And that's a lot better than anything Penn State is going to be called for a long, long time.

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11324/1191318-150-0.stm#ixzz1eJB9DQqm

this is turning into a contest over which columnist can be more "outraged" and write the most controversial things..

Funny, I don't sense any "outrage" in this column. I think Collier did a good job of pointing out what an outstanding academic institution PSU is but how the current football culture (not just at PSU, but in general) is blinding them to what should be their greater focus.

 

[Parrothead]

Time for PSU to drop the ball

Sunday, November 20, 2011

By Gene Collier, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

On Monday, Oct. 24, just 12 days before the Sandusky bombshell slammed into central Pennsylvania, the Chronicle of Higher Education reported the kind of news nobody ever reads -- Penn State now leads the nation in Fulbright scholars.

For the current school year, 14 Fulbright grants were awarded to faculty at University Park alone, which is why Ricky Bates, associate professor of ornamental horticulture in the College of Agricultural Sciences, will this year be lecturing and researching at Maejo University in Thailand for a project entitled "Expanding Economic Opportunities for Rural Poor Farmers."

Which is why Karen Treat Keifer-Boyd, professor of art education in the College of Arts and Architecture, will head to the University of Klagenfurt in Austria for a project entitled, "Arts-Based Social Justice Activism: Insight, Inquiry, Imagination, Embodiment, Rationality."

Which is why 12 other Penn State scholars will visit 10 additional countries in an interdisciplinary blitz of brain power simultaneous to Penn State hosting Fulbright scholars from Pakistan, Tunisia, Armenia, Bangladesh, Morocco and elsewhere.

This is where Penn State must rebuild its poisoned reputation, upon its educational mission, its research mission, and upon its demonstrated devotion to scholarship, not upon the very swamp that poisoned it: the football program.

As the alleged sexual abuse roster mounts and the years of litigation begin stretching to the university's horizon, of what is Penn State proudest today -- its 826 football victories, its 27 bowl wins, its 28 Lambert-Meadowlands trophies, its two national championships, or Sarah Ganim, the Harrisburg crime reporter on whom it conferred a journalism degree?

I have a feeling it's not Sarah, the 24-year-old Floridian whose instincts, training and hustle made the Patriot-News the tip of the journalism spear on the biggest college sports story of our lifetimes.

But two weeks into its own sordid muck, Penn State still has it all wrong. Just look anywhere. A Penn State investigation staffed exclusively by insiders, a board of trustees that knew its football staff and faculty were providing grand jury testimony since last December but remained paralyzed in fear for the university's image, and now Friday's comments by acting athletic director Dave Joyner, telling a press conference that interim coach Tom Bradley would be "in the mix" if he wants to apply for the head coaching job.

No, they don't get it.

Is it the 156 years of geographical isolation or the 125 years of building football into a total wag-the-dog deity that turns a place with so much brain power into Clueless State?

The current football administration has to be removed, in toto. That's nothing against Tom Bradley. I know Tom Bradley. I like Tom Bradley. It's very likely that any new coach, regardless of his background, will be no Tom Bradley. But sorry, anyone with even the appearance of anything less than 100 percent plausible deniability on Sandusky's alleged adventures can't be within 100 miles of the place. That's everybody in the program.

There's an easier way and a better way to proceed for Penn State, and that is to get out of the football business. Not for some pointless bowl game. Not for 2012. I mean indefinitely.

Seven years after Amos Alonzo Stagg left the University of Chicago, which would be exactly 72 years before the same Big Ten conference put his name and Joe Paterno's on their spanking new championship trophy and then hurriedly scrubbed Joe's off last week, Chicago dropped football and built itself into an envied international giant of intellectual accomplishment.

The university, even as a charter member of the Big Ten, came to consider its successful football program a nuisance that hampered its academic ambitions.

Yes, that was 1939, and everything has changed, but there's never been a better time than 2011 to get out of college football, a corrupted, nonsensical sport with no real moral vision of itself, or at least none that can prevent a constant conference-hopping TV cash grab at the expense of unpaid athletes, many of them teenagers, most all of them with no professional future.

I'm not sure any serious academic institution can even co-exist at these cross-purposes anymore, but I am sure that Penn State, as it now embarks on a long, desperate mission to restore its dignity against a storm of potentially disgusting revelations still to come, can't go forward in total seriousness if it mindlessly determines that the football show must go on.

For the moment, Penn State should consider adding a world class research facility to study the causes and treatment of child abuse. It should continue to enhance its academic traditions and its newer intellectual jewels, the Shreyer Honors College, its School of International Affairs and the Penn State World Campus.

At some point, way down the road, it may consider re-entry. Thirty years after Chicago dropped football, it waded back in as a club sport and ultimately fielded a varsity Division III team that plays in the University Athletic Association with like-minded institutions Brandeis, Carnegie Mellon, NYU, Emory, Rochester, Case Western and Washington University in St. Louis.

They call 'em the Egghead Eight. And that's a lot better than anything Penn State is going to be called for a long, long time.

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11324/1191318-150-0.stm#ixzz1eJB9DQqm

this is turning into a contest over which columnist can be more "outraged" and write the most controversial things..

Funny, I don't sense any "outrage" in this column. I think Collier did a good job of pointing out what an outstanding academic institution PSU is but how the current football culture (not just at PSU, but in general) is blinding them to what should be their greater focus.

shouldn't education be the greater focus at every college? why don't we shut down every college football program?? As I said, nothing to see here, just some journalist trying to get noticed

 

[CrossEyed]

Time for PSU to drop the ball

Sunday, November 20, 2011

By Gene Collier, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

On Monday, Oct. 24, just 12 days before the Sandusky bombshell slammed into central Pennsylvania, the Chronicle of Higher Education reported the kind of news nobody ever reads -- Penn State now leads the nation in Fulbright scholars.

For the current school year, 14 Fulbright grants were awarded to faculty at University Park alone, which is why Ricky Bates, associate professor of ornamental horticulture in the College of Agricultural Sciences, will this year be lecturing and researching at Maejo University in Thailand for a project entitled "Expanding Economic Opportunities for Rural Poor Farmers."

Which is why Karen Treat Keifer-Boyd, professor of art education in the College of Arts and Architecture, will head to the University of Klagenfurt in Austria for a project entitled, "Arts-Based Social Justice Activism: Insight, Inquiry, Imagination, Embodiment, Rationality."

Which is why 12 other Penn State scholars will visit 10 additional countries in an interdisciplinary blitz of brain power simultaneous to Penn State hosting Fulbright scholars from Pakistan, Tunisia, Armenia, Bangladesh, Morocco and elsewhere.

This is where Penn State must rebuild its poisoned reputation, upon its educational mission, its research mission, and upon its demonstrated devotion to scholarship, not upon the very swamp that poisoned it: the football program.

As the alleged sexual abuse roster mounts and the years of litigation begin stretching to the university's horizon, of what is Penn State proudest today -- its 826 football victories, its 27 bowl wins, its 28 Lambert-Meadowlands trophies, its two national championships, or Sarah Ganim, the Harrisburg crime reporter on whom it conferred a journalism degree?

I have a feeling it's not Sarah, the 24-year-old Floridian whose instincts, training and hustle made the Patriot-News the tip of the journalism spear on the biggest college sports story of our lifetimes.

But two weeks into its own sordid muck, Penn State still has it all wrong. Just look anywhere. A Penn State investigation staffed exclusively by insiders, a board of trustees that knew its football staff and faculty were providing grand jury testimony since last December but remained paralyzed in fear for the university's image, and now Friday's comments by acting athletic director Dave Joyner, telling a press conference that interim coach Tom Bradley would be "in the mix" if he wants to apply for the head coaching job.

No, they don't get it.

Is it the 156 years of geographical isolation or the 125 years of building football into a total wag-the-dog deity that turns a place with so much brain power into Clueless State?

The current football administration has to be removed, in toto. That's nothing against Tom Bradley. I know Tom Bradley. I like Tom Bradley. It's very likely that any new coach, regardless of his background, will be no Tom Bradley. But sorry, anyone with even the appearance of anything less than 100 percent plausible deniability on Sandusky's alleged adventures can't be within 100 miles of the place. That's everybody in the program.

There's an easier way and a better way to proceed for Penn State, and that is to get out of the football business. Not for some pointless bowl game. Not for 2012. I mean indefinitely.

Seven years after Amos Alonzo Stagg left the University of Chicago, which would be exactly 72 years before the same Big Ten conference put his name and Joe Paterno's on their spanking new championship trophy and then hurriedly scrubbed Joe's off last week, Chicago dropped football and built itself into an envied international giant of intellectual accomplishment.

The university, even as a charter member of the Big Ten, came to consider its successful football program a nuisance that hampered its academic ambitions.

Yes, that was 1939, and everything has changed, but there's never been a better time than 2011 to get out of college football, a corrupted, nonsensical sport with no real moral vision of itself, or at least none that can prevent a constant conference-hopping TV cash grab at the expense of unpaid athletes, many of them teenagers, most all of them with no professional future.

I'm not sure any serious academic institution can even co-exist at these cross-purposes anymore, but I am sure that Penn State, as it now embarks on a long, desperate mission to restore its dignity against a storm of potentially disgusting revelations still to come, can't go forward in total seriousness if it mindlessly determines that the football show must go on.

For the moment, Penn State should consider adding a world class research facility to study the causes and treatment of child abuse. It should continue to enhance its academic traditions and its newer intellectual jewels, the Shreyer Honors College, its School of International Affairs and the Penn State World Campus.

At some point, way down the road, it may consider re-entry. Thirty years after Chicago dropped football, it waded back in as a club sport and ultimately fielded a varsity Division III team that plays in the University Athletic Association with like-minded institutions Brandeis, Carnegie Mellon, NYU, Emory, Rochester, Case Western and Washington University in St. Louis.

They call 'em the Egghead Eight. And that's a lot better than anything Penn State is going to be called for a long, long time.

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11324/1191318-150-0.stm#ixzz1eJB9DQqm

this is turning into a contest over which columnist can be more "outraged" and write the most controversial things..

Funny, I don't sense any "outrage" in this column. I think Collier did a good job of pointing out what an outstanding academic institution PSU is but how the current football culture (not just at PSU, but in general) is blinding them to what should be their greater focus.

shouldn't education be the greater focus at every college? why don't we shut down every college football program?? As I said, nothing to see here, just some journalist trying to get noticed

The difference is that not every other college just got exposed for protecting one of their own while he was molesting boys for decades. And apparently the main reason that appears to have gone on is because the football program was prioritized over the lives of those children. Almost as bad is the fact that they continue to try to operate in a way that is, shall we say, less than forthcoming.But hey, don't listen to anything I'm saying, I'm just a Pitt fan.

 

[E-Z Glider]

But hey, don't listen to anything I'm saying.

no worries there

 

[Parrothead]

Time for PSU to drop the ball

Sunday, November 20, 2011

By Gene Collier, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

On Monday, Oct. 24, just 12 days before the Sandusky bombshell slammed into central Pennsylvania, the Chronicle of Higher Education reported the kind of news nobody ever reads -- Penn State now leads the nation in Fulbright scholars.

For the current school year, 14 Fulbright grants were awarded to faculty at University Park alone, which is why Ricky Bates, associate professor of ornamental horticulture in the College of Agricultural Sciences, will this year be lecturing and researching at Maejo University in Thailand for a project entitled "Expanding Economic Opportunities for Rural Poor Farmers."

Which is why Karen Treat Keifer-Boyd, professor of art education in the College of Arts and Architecture, will head to the University of Klagenfurt in Austria for a project entitled, "Arts-Based Social Justice Activism: Insight, Inquiry, Imagination, Embodiment, Rationality."

Which is why 12 other Penn State scholars will visit 10 additional countries in an interdisciplinary blitz of brain power simultaneous to Penn State hosting Fulbright scholars from Pakistan, Tunisia, Armenia, Bangladesh, Morocco and elsewhere.

This is where Penn State must rebuild its poisoned reputation, upon its educational mission, its research mission, and upon its demonstrated devotion to scholarship, not upon the very swamp that poisoned it: the football program.

As the alleged sexual abuse roster mounts and the years of litigation begin stretching to the university's horizon, of what is Penn State proudest today -- its 826 football victories, its 27 bowl wins, its 28 Lambert-Meadowlands trophies, its two national championships, or Sarah Ganim, the Harrisburg crime reporter on whom it conferred a journalism degree?

I have a feeling it's not Sarah, the 24-year-old Floridian whose instincts, training and hustle made the Patriot-News the tip of the journalism spear on the biggest college sports story of our lifetimes.

But two weeks into its own sordid muck, Penn State still has it all wrong. Just look anywhere. A Penn State investigation staffed exclusively by insiders, a board of trustees that knew its football staff and faculty were providing grand jury testimony since last December but remained paralyzed in fear for the university's image, and now Friday's comments by acting athletic director Dave Joyner, telling a press conference that interim coach Tom Bradley would be "in the mix" if he wants to apply for the head coaching job.

No, they don't get it.

Is it the 156 years of geographical isolation or the 125 years of building football into a total wag-the-dog deity that turns a place with so much brain power into Clueless State?

The current football administration has to be removed, in toto. That's nothing against Tom Bradley. I know Tom Bradley. I like Tom Bradley. It's very likely that any new coach, regardless of his background, will be no Tom Bradley. But sorry, anyone with even the appearance of anything less than 100 percent plausible deniability on Sandusky's alleged adventures can't be within 100 miles of the place. That's everybody in the program.

There's an easier way and a better way to proceed for Penn State, and that is to get out of the football business. Not for some pointless bowl game. Not for 2012. I mean indefinitely.

Seven years after Amos Alonzo Stagg left the University of Chicago, which would be exactly 72 years before the same Big Ten conference put his name and Joe Paterno's on their spanking new championship trophy and then hurriedly scrubbed Joe's off last week, Chicago dropped football and built itself into an envied international giant of intellectual accomplishment.

The university, even as a charter member of the Big Ten, came to consider its successful football program a nuisance that hampered its academic ambitions.

Yes, that was 1939, and everything has changed, but there's never been a better time than 2011 to get out of college football, a corrupted, nonsensical sport with no real moral vision of itself, or at least none that can prevent a constant conference-hopping TV cash grab at the expense of unpaid athletes, many of them teenagers, most all of them with no professional future.

I'm not sure any serious academic institution can even co-exist at these cross-purposes anymore, but I am sure that Penn State, as it now embarks on a long, desperate mission to restore its dignity against a storm of potentially disgusting revelations still to come, can't go forward in total seriousness if it mindlessly determines that the football show must go on.

For the moment, Penn State should consider adding a world class research facility to study the causes and treatment of child abuse. It should continue to enhance its academic traditions and its newer intellectual jewels, the Shreyer Honors College, its School of International Affairs and the Penn State World Campus.

At some point, way down the road, it may consider re-entry. Thirty years after Chicago dropped football, it waded back in as a club sport and ultimately fielded a varsity Division III team that plays in the University Athletic Association with like-minded institutions Brandeis, Carnegie Mellon, NYU, Emory, Rochester, Case Western and Washington University in St. Louis.

They call 'em the Egghead Eight. And that's a lot better than anything Penn State is going to be called for a long, long time.

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11324/1191318-150-0.stm#ixzz1eJB9DQqm

this is turning into a contest over which columnist can be more "outraged" and write the most controversial things..

Funny, I don't sense any "outrage" in this column. I think Collier did a good job of pointing out what an outstanding academic institution PSU is but how the current football culture (not just at PSU, but in general) is blinding them to what should be their greater focus.

shouldn't education be the greater focus at every college? why don't we shut down every college football program?? As I said, nothing to see here, just some journalist trying to get noticed

The difference is that not every other college just got exposed for protecting one of their own while he was molesting boys for decades. And apparently the main reason that appears to have gone on is because the football program was prioritized over the lives of those children. Almost as bad is the fact that they continue to try to operate in a way that is, shall we say, less than forthcoming.But hey, don't listen to anything I'm saying, I'm just a Pitt fan.

I was reacting to your words "Not just at PSU but in general"..whatever, I am not arguing over this, because you know and I know that it will never happen, and the piece was written for no other reason than to get people fired up..

keep fighting the good fight though

 

[Leeroy Jenkins]

Penn St. hires Louis Freeh to investigateAssociated PressPHILADELPHIA -- Former FBI director Louis Freeh is promising a thorough, independent investigation into policies and activities at Penn State that relate to the child sexual-abuse allegations against former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky.Freeh said Monday that his investigation will go beyond the timeframe laid out in a grand jury report released earlier this month. The report alleges a series of sexual assaults by Sandusky, some on Penn State's campus.Freeh vowed to investigate activities stretching back to the mid-1970s.Retired Air Force Col. and astronaut Guion Bluford will be part of the investigation. Bluford is a 1964 Penn State graduate.Sandusky has denied sexual contact with children but acknowledged showering with boys and embracing them.Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press

 

[CrossEyed]

I was reacting to your words "Not just at PSU but in general"..

whatever, I am not arguing over this, because you know and I know that it will never happen, and the piece was written for no other reason than to get people fired up..

keep fighting the good fight though

But why couldn't it happen? Why couldn't the leadership at an institution like PSU (or Pitt, for that matter) make the decision that they exist for things beyond those with which our culture has become obsessed? Sports and the men affiliated with them have become elevated to an almost god-like status. And in this case it has resulted in lives being ruined. Is it really too much to think that there would be leaders at some of these institutions that would be able to see that?Maybe it is too much.

One thing I do know is that this situation (among a lot of others) has really made me re-evaluate the time and attention that I'm willing to give to sports. It's kind of a shame what our culture has done with something that can be such a good, healthy, enjoyable part of life.

 

[Honus]

But hey, don't listen to anything I'm saying.

no worries there

 

[B-Deep]

Penn St. hires Louis Freeh to investigateAssociated PressPHILADELPHIA -- Former FBI director Louis Freeh is promising a thorough, independent investigation into policies and activities at Penn State that relate to the child sexual-abuse allegations against former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky.Freeh said Monday that his investigation will go beyond the timeframe laid out in a grand jury report released earlier this month. The report alleges a series of sexual assaults by Sandusky, some on Penn State's campus.Freeh vowed to investigate activities stretching back to the mid-1970s.Retired Air Force Col. and astronaut Guion Bluford will be part of the investigation. Bluford is a 1964 Penn State graduate.Sandusky has denied sexual contact with children but acknowledged showering with boys and embracing them.Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press

Former FBI director Louis Freeh, tapped to lead Penn State's investigation into the child sex-abuse allegations against a former assistant football coach, said his inquiry will go as far back as 1975, a much longer period than a grand jury report issued earlier this month.1975, can anyone tell me if there is any significance to that year?

 

[BobbyLayne]

this is turning into a contest over which columnist can be more "outraged" and write the most controversial things..

Or which poster can bump it off the top of page 2.ZMOG NOT ON THE FRONT PAGE!!!!1!!

 

[The Future Champs]

Penn St. hires Louis Freeh to investigateAssociated PressPHILADELPHIA -- Former FBI director Louis Freeh is promising a thorough, independent investigation into policies and activities at Penn State that relate to the child sexual-abuse allegations against former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky.Freeh said Monday that his investigation will go beyond the timeframe laid out in a grand jury report released earlier this month. The report alleges a series of sexual assaults by Sandusky, some on Penn State's campus.Freeh vowed to investigate activities stretching back to the mid-1970s.Retired Air Force Col. and astronaut Guion Bluford will be part of the investigation. Bluford is a 1964 Penn State graduate.Sandusky has denied sexual contact with children but acknowledged showering with boys and embracing them.Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press

Former FBI director Louis Freeh, tapped to lead Penn State's investigation into the child sex-abuse allegations against a former assistant football coach, said his inquiry will go as far back as 1975, a much longer period than a grand jury report issued earlier this month.1975, can anyone tell me if there is any significance to that year?

That was the year Colorado became a state. Hth.

 

[mad sweeney]

Penn St. hires Louis Freeh to investigateAssociated PressPHILADELPHIA -- Former FBI director Louis Freeh is promising a thorough, independent investigation into policies and activities at Penn State that relate to the child sexual-abuse allegations against former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky.Freeh said Monday that his investigation will go beyond the timeframe laid out in a grand jury report released earlier this month. The report alleges a series of sexual assaults by Sandusky, some on Penn State's campus.Freeh vowed to investigate activities stretching back to the mid-1970s.Retired Air Force Col. and astronaut Guion Bluford will be part of the investigation. Bluford is a 1964 Penn State graduate.Sandusky has denied sexual contact with children but acknowledged showering with boys and embracing them.Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press

Former FBI director Louis Freeh, tapped to lead Penn State's investigation into the child sex-abuse allegations against a former assistant football coach, said his inquiry will go as far back as 1975, a much longer period than a grand jury report issued earlier this month.1975, can anyone tell me if there is any significance to that year?

That was the year Colorado became a state. Hth.

Alright, that's the first one that made me laugh.

 

[Sigmund Bloom]

Link

Paterno Fought Penn State Official Over Punishment of Players

Excerpts:

In an Aug. 12, 2005, email to Pennsylvania State University President Graham Spanier and others, Vicky Triponey, the university's standards and conduct officer, complained that Mr. Paterno believed she should have "no interest, (or business) holding our football players accountable to our community standards. The Coach is insistent he knows best how to discipline his players…and their status as a student when they commit violations of our standards should NOT be our concern…and I think he was saying we should treat football players different from other students in this regard."

The confrontations came to a head in 2007, according to one former school official, when six football players were charged by police for forcing their way into a campus apartment that April and beating up several students, one of them severely. That September, following a tense meeting with Mr. Paterno over the case, she resigned her post, saying at the time she left because of "philosophical differences."

In 2004, after several incidents involving football players, Mr. Paterno told the Allentown Morning Call newspaper that the players weren't misbehaving any more than usual, but that such news was now more public. "I can go back to a couple guys in the '70s who drove me nuts," he said. "The cops would call me, and I used to put them in bed in my house and run their rear ends off the next day. Nobody knew about it. That's the way we handled it."

In the spring of 2005, Dr. Triponey's office suspended Penn State offensive lineman E.Z. Smith and a teammate for the summer after they were caught shooting arrows through an off-campus apartment wall, according to news reports at the time. In an email that August to Dr. Triponey, Penn State athletic director Curley said that Mr. Paterno was "frustrated" because Mr. Smith couldn't participate in preseason practice.

In August 2005, Mr. Spanier, the university president, suggested that Dr. Triponey meet with Mr. Paterno. Athletic director Curley, assistant athletic Director Fran Ganter and Joe Puzycki, the assistant to Dr. Triponey, also attended the Aug. 11 meeting, according to two people knowledgeable about the meeting. Mr. Paterno loudly criticized Dr. Triponey at the meeting for meddling, these people say.

The following day, Dr. Triponey sent an email to Messrs. Spanier, Curley and Puzycki summarizing the meeting and sharing her thoughts and concerns. In the email, which was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, she said that football players were getting in trouble at a "disproportionate rate" from other students, often for serious acts. She said her staff had tried to work with the athletic department, sometimes sharing information, but that whenever her department initiated an investigation into a football player, the phones lit up. "The calls and pleas from coaches, Board members, and others when we are considering a case are, indeed, putting us in a position that does treat football players differently and with greater privilege."

Dr. Triponey also wrote that Mr. Paterno believed that the school's code of conduct should not apply to any incidents that take place off campus—that those should be handled by police—and they shouldn't be allowed to affect anyone's status as a student.

"Coach Paterno would rather we NOT inform the public when a football player is found responsible for committing a serious violation of the law and/or our student code," she wrote, "despite any moral or legal obligation to do so."

In a meeting with Messrs. Paterno and Spanier and others, Dr. Triponey complained that the players were stonewalling her and suggested that Mr. Paterno ought to compel them to be truthful, according to one person familiar with the meeting. Mr. Paterno angrily responded that his players couldn't be expected to cooperate with the school's disciplinary process because, in this case, they would have to testify against each other, making it hard to play football together, these people say.

 

[ConstruxBoy]

Not any big surprises there for someone who has followed PSU football. Paterno believes in doing it his way. Period. And it worked pretty well for years. In fact, when that quote in the story from Paterno about the 70s came out, Matt Millen made a public statement that it was about him.

When Bobby Engram was caught stealing stereo eqpt, instead of being expelled or arrested he was suspended for the year and had to clean dishes at a local restaurant all year. He went on to win the Bilentikoff award and have a nice career in the NFL.

So I think it worked. But society has changed, esp the media, and Paterno couldn't adjust.

 

[CrossEyed]

Pretty clear that for Paterno it was football above everything...including the destruction of the lives of children.

I guess all that talk about honor was just that...all talk.

 

[koby925]

Not any big surprises there for someone who has followed PSU football. Paterno believes in doing it his way. Period. And it worked pretty well for years. In fact, when that quote in the story from Paterno about the 70s came out, Matt Millen made a public statement that it was about him. When Bobby Engram was caught stealing stereo eqpt, instead of being expelled or arrested he was suspended for the year and had to clean dishes at a local restaurant all year. He went on to win the Bilentikoff award and have a nice career in the NFL. So I think it worked. But society has changed, esp the media, and Paterno couldn't adjust.

In a vaccuum, I don't think this is a big deal. These guys are treated differently everywhere. Would this even be a story at most places? For example, would anyone care that as a side product of the Fein investigation, people found out that the Syracuse bball players are given preferential treatment? No. But PSU historically acted high and mighty about how everyone at PSU is treated the same and sells themselves on that, and, in the process, bad-talking places/coaches that don't, that's what makes this look bad. My school ND also does this, though I don't think to the level PSU does it and I saw what the football team got away with when I was at ND.Nobody really thinks Joe did it with all choir boys for all these years but it's the image he portrayed. And people are going to pile on now to besmirch that image.

 

[simey]

Pretty clear that for Paterno it was football above everything...including the destruction of the lives of children.I guess all that talk about honor was just that...all talk.

Aren't you a preacher by profession? I'm curious because I've seen you continously judge and cast stones.

 

[CrossEyed]

Pretty clear that for Paterno it was football above everything...including the destruction of the lives of children.I guess all that talk about honor was just that...all talk.

Aren't you a preacher by profession? I'm curious because I've seen you continously judge and cast stones.

I could explain what Jesus meant (and more importantly, what He didn't mean) when He used both of those of those phrases (if He even used the second phrase), but I'm not sure you'd really be interested.

 

[Aaron Rudnicki]

So I think it worked. But society has changed, esp the media, and Paterno couldn't adjust.

I think it worked for some things and situations, but not all. This was clearly an example where keeping it quiet and protecting the program/university was clearly not an appropriate response.

 

[ConstruxBoy]

Not any big surprises there for someone who has followed PSU football. Paterno believes in doing it his way. Period. And it worked pretty well for years. In fact, when that quote in the story from Paterno about the 70s came out, Matt Millen made a public statement that it was about him. When Bobby Engram was caught stealing stereo eqpt, instead of being expelled or arrested he was suspended for the year and had to clean dishes at a local restaurant all year. He went on to win the Bilentikoff award and have a nice career in the NFL. So I think it worked. But society has changed, esp the media, and Paterno couldn't adjust.

In a vaccuum, I don't think this is a big deal. These guys are treated differently everywhere. Would this even be a story at most places? For example, would anyone care that as a side product of the Fein investigation, people found out that the Syracuse bball players are given preferential treatment? No. But PSU historically acted high and mighty about how everyone at PSU is treated the same and sells themselves on that, and, in the process, bad-talking places/coaches that don't, that's what makes this look bad. My school ND also does this, though I don't think to the level PSU does it and I saw what the football team got away with when I was at ND.Nobody really thinks Joe did it with all choir boys for all these years but it's the image he portrayed. And people are going to pile on now to besmirch that image.

I agree with most of what you're saying. I just think the image is overrated as an excuse. To me Success With Honor meant not cheating. Now I certainly think the Sandusky thing is a lot worse than cheating. But I didn't ever view Penn State as having better kids or less arrests or anything like that. I viewed them as not cheating. Now I suppose you could argue that if Dan Connor was allowed to play in a game that a normal player at another school wouldn't have been allowed to play in, you could say that's a form of cheating. But I think that's a stretch. I'm starting to wonder if the pressure of competing without any of the "normal" cheating led them to be so secretive and controlling of player misbehavior that it fostered a culture that viewed outside interference or discipline with mistrust. That in turn could lend a predator some cover if he pulled the "they're trying to get me" card.

 

[ConstruxBoy]

So I think it worked. But society has changed, esp the media, and Paterno couldn't adjust.

I think it worked for some things and situations, but not all. This was clearly an example where keeping it quiet and protecting the program/university was clearly not an appropriate response.

Agree 100%. But it probably just became part of the culture there that Joe did discipline and outside discipline was discouraged. And as he got older and didn't have the energy to stay on top of everything, the failures started to pile up.

 

[Idiot Boxer]

Pretty clear that for Paterno it was football above everything...including the destruction of the lives of children.I guess all that talk about honor was just that...all talk.

Aren't you a preacher by profession? I'm curious because I've seen you continously judge and cast stones.

I could explain what Jesus meant (and more importantly, what He didn't mean) when He used both of those of those phrases (if He even used the second phrase), but I'm not sure you'd really be interested.

and you know the answer to this better than simey because you asked Him yourself or because your dogma dictates that you judge and be condescending?

 

[CrossEyed]

Pretty clear that for Paterno it was football above everything...including the destruction of the lives of children.I guess all that talk about honor was just that...all talk.

Aren't you a preacher by profession? I'm curious because I've seen you continously judge and cast stones.

I could explain what Jesus meant (and more importantly, what He didn't mean) when He used both of those of those phrases (if He even used the second phrase), but I'm not sure you'd really be interested.

and you know the answer to this better than simey because you asked Him yourself or because your dogma dictates that you judge and be condescending?

Who said I knew the answer? I said I wasn't sure that he'd really be interested. So I didn't explain. If he wants to know my answer he's free to ask.

 

[Aaron Rudnicki]

Pretty clear that for Paterno it was football above everything...including the destruction of the lives of children.I guess all that talk about honor was just that...all talk.

Aren't you a preacher by profession? I'm curious because I've seen you continously judge and cast stones.

I could explain what Jesus meant (and more importantly, what He didn't mean) when He used both of those of those phrases (if He even used the second phrase), but I'm not sure you'd really be interested.

and you know the answer to this better than simey because you asked Him yourself or because your dogma dictates that you judge and be condescending?

Who said I knew the answer? I said I wasn't sure that he'd really be interested. So I didn't explain. If he wants to know my answer he's free to ask.

who's he? Jesus?Simey is a she, FWIW.BTW, when you said "I could explain what Jesus meant" it clearly implies that you know what he meant while the rest of us do not.

 

[pantherclub]

As I have said numerous times in this thread, PSU football is about to be obliterated. The NCAA is making inquiries now and that should be just about everyone on campus. NCAA, FBI etc..

 

[CrossEyed]

Pretty clear that for Paterno it was football above everything...including the destruction of the lives of children.I guess all that talk about honor was just that...all talk.

Aren't you a preacher by profession? I'm curious because I've seen you continously judge and cast stones.

I could explain what Jesus meant (and more importantly, what He didn't mean) when He used both of those of those phrases (if He even used the second phrase), but I'm not sure you'd really be interested.

and you know the answer to this better than simey because you asked Him yourself or because your dogma dictates that you judge and be condescending?

Who said I knew the answer? I said I wasn't sure that he'd really be interested. So I didn't explain. If he wants to know my answer he's free to ask.

who's he? Jesus?Simey is a she, FWIW.BTW, when you said "I could explain what Jesus meant" it clearly implies that you know what he meant while the rest of us do not.

Sorry, misunderstood the post.And no, I wasn't implying that "the rest of you" do not know, I was stating that the person who tried to misuse the verses about judging and casting stones doesn't know. Because if they knew, they wouldn't try to apply those verses inappropriately. I have no idea what the rest of you know or don't know.