'proninja said:
'proninja said:
The only people singling Paterno out are the ones defending him. The rest of us think everyone who knew and covered this up are equally guilty. Also, the fact that he's dead doesn't matter at all.
This doesn't seem true at all. Since the story broke Paterno has been talked about as much as Sandusky himself. He's the only famous person involved in the story, thus has recieved all the venom even though many peoople involved did much worse.
Nobody's defending the other guys responsible for sweeping this under the rug, because none of those guys were involved with the precious football team. Take away the people who seem to think that the fact that he allowed children to be raped under his nose shouldn't define his legacy and I doubt he gets a lot more attention than any of the other administrators. "Aside from that one little thing,
John Wilkes Booth was a great guy"
Paterno's legacy is that of a man who cared more about the reputation of his football program than he did innocent children who were getting raped in the showers of his very building. This isn't a one time mistake, either. This is something he's hidden and subsequently enabled for a decade that we know of, it could be even longer. That shows a complete lack of integrity. Whatever Paterno preached to his football players, it was just a show. Character and integrity are what you do when nobody's watching. When nobody was watching, those in charge at PSU decided on something so abhorrent I don't even want to think about it. Including everybody's precious football coach. Despite the fact that he won football games. We thought Paterno was a man of character and honor for a long time. He had us fooled, and the fact that he had us fooled for a long time doesn't change the legacy he left, which is what he truly is - a man who will look after his own self interests and protect his friend instead of protect innocent children.
If someone comes in here trying to defend any of the other administrators, we can have the same conversation about them. But as long as we've got people in here defending Paterno, I'll be happy to point out the fact that they're defending a spineless coward who was a selfish liar for years and years.
I know no one is defending the others involved, just that they don't constly get flinged #### at like Paterno does. To me, Mcreery and his dad are two of the stupidest people to walk the face of the earth. I guess I just have diffrent expectations for a coach of a football team then others do, when the witness, police, and presidents of the university can't get the job done my anger doesn't go towards the guy who's game planning for Nebraska on Saturday.
New evidnce is coming out now which is changing my opinion quite a bit, but Paterno was being crucified way before this came out. Of course people will now claim they knew this is what happened, but in reality they had no idea.
The facts seem to contradict this line of reasoning. I think most people had exactly the right idea of what happened, while a minority of people deluded themselves that it wasn't exactly as bad (or worse) than it initially appeared.
Fair enough, agree to disagree. There's no way to prove it either way. I think it was a witch hunt because of his celeberity status with the facts that were presented at the time. I respect your opinion, I guess manybe I took more of an innocent until proven guilty mentaility. There was no reason for me to delude myself, I've made fun of Paterono's "coaching" for the last 10 years and would love to rub it into my PSU friends who love to boast about the school's moral character.
I think you are confusing concepts of a "witch hunt" and an event so strange and out of character involving a person, the divide itself becomes news. A witch hunt is a situation like OJ Simpson's subsequent legal problems, or the Wikileaks guy being arrested or Barry Bonds or Clemens roid cases. Guys that annoyed and seemed like they were doing "wrong" even though we had next to parameter by which to frame a "wrong" in a legal sense around their conduct.
Paterno was certainly a galvanizing character in his heyday, but largely revered by most inside of the insular community of college football. I don't think people eyed Joe as doing something wrong and were just waiting to nail him on SOMETHING. Some were, but most were not I would say.
The difference is, this is news, in the strictest sense of dog bites man vs. man bites dog. When you not only position yourself as paragon of virtue but also use the example of yourself and "your" program as a guide to "how things are done". When a moral crusader gets caught associated with something immoral, then it is by definition, news worthy. And a scandal of this sort is unprecedented to my recollection in college football, a notoriously down and dirty business.
Add to this, the fact that his choice of action, which was inaction, created really incalculable harm to who knows how many more children with ten years of free reign when there was every reason to believe something was askew.
There are so many simple course of of action that could have done much to redeem Paterno.
-pursue police action- the obviously advisable course
-push for a removal from the PSU community- a choice that would have been pushing the problem off but at least have in a public way put forth a message of non-support
-allowed Sandusky access but forbid him to bring children to the facility
I think THAT last point is the most sickening aspect. I don't agree with inaction, because having been around teachers grown up that we made jokes about being kid touchers and were later revealed to be so, I find it hard to believe the jokes and whispers of a community wouldn't echo and the concept that Jerry might be a little "too friendly" is hardly a thought that would have emerged in 2001 or even 1998 but in time well before that. But that's speculation. You know about these allegations, and if you want to live in denial, I think there is a great human capacity for that, look at the guy's wife. But even in a state of denial, to know what was alleged, even in a whisper, to let this guy bring kids around PSU, and in effect, use it as bait or a lure for the children, to let this guy take kids on bowl trips and road trips, JFC, I'm revolted just thinking about it.
You can not possibly put for a justification for allowing THAT to happen.
I get that Joe is an old school ginzo from New York, and may well live with a "credo" of don't rat on your friends (although I don't think this sort of conduct was covered in that maxim). You can do a whole lot between not "ratting" and at least throwing a major roadblock so this sort of behavior doesn't happen in your world.