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| Joe Paterno |
And there is an extremely wide divergence of opinion.
Exactly as we and oh so many others have been saying since the conviction of former Penn St. assistant Jerry Sandusky, this was...and is going to get worse before it gets better.
As summarized earlier today in the report by former FBI Director Louis Freeh, there were multiple problems with (a) the way Penn State administrators reacted when confronted with this and (b) the way the Penn State Board of Trustees didn't react in regards to the way administrators handled this.
But the question is this: What's next?
1--The NCAA is going to investigate the school. And they should. But the cries for the "Death Penalty" and "Eliminating the Program" won't happen. On several levels you could make the argument it should, but it won't. The Freeh report information painted the Football program and former Head Coach Joe Paterno in a horrible light. Paterno was portrayed as a sort of "Godfather" type figure that nobody had the temerity to cross. And it portrayed the football team as being the "End All, Be All" of the school. It is not.
But the NCAA is somewhat boxed in here. There is no precedent for this in any of their voluminous set of rules. Yes, arguably, this could be construed as "Lack of Institutional Control", but in the technical sense, they didn't violate an NCAA rule. Did they violate the spirit of doing the right thing? Hell yes! At it's core, this is primarily a criminal case and the NCAA is not set up to punish based on that.
Yes, I know they've stuck their collective noses in some places they shouldn't before. But...
Do I think they should get the "Death Penalty?" Yeah, you could make the argument. But it would send a lot of things down a slippery slope, one that you have to be very careful before heading down. It would open up a whole new set of definitions about what is an "NCAA Violation".
2--Will there be charges or lawsuits filed? Hell to the yeah. This opens up pretty much everyone in a role of responsibility to legal charges.
In the case of the administrators, former AD Tim Curley and former VP of Student Affairs Gary Schultz are already being charged with perjuring themselves. This is not going to help that case.
Thus far, former president Graham Spanier has avoided that fate. That will change. He is implicated on several levels here, none of them good. The quote about being humane and the fact he never once asked about the children, that will and should damn him forever.
What we think happened to Paterno is he treated this the way things like molestation and devient behavior were dealt with back in the 40's and 50's. They were swept into a broom closet and they hoped those issues would go away. And that in no way, shape or form justifies Paterno's stubborn ignorance or willingness to do the worst possible thing.
The family of now deceased coach Joe Paterno needs to be very careful here. They keep harkening to what Paterno did for the program and all the good things he did, which were many. But they have NOTHING to do with this.
Did Paterno admit he should have done more? Yes. But he also lied to a grand jury and again, has been portrayed as the "Godfather", a mafioso style boss of the Happy Valley/Penn State area.
Again, Paterno, nor his family have EVER expressed their sympathies with the victims. And that is the problem here.
3---So what happens next? Curley and Schultz will go on trial. And Spanier, we and many others hope, will be next.
The NCAA will investigate and make a statement that says how appalled and repelled they are by what happened in this case and the way the Football team "Bullied" everyone in town. And they will put the team on Probation. But they won't kill the team.
Penn State will be sued and they will be sued a lot. And they should be. The Paterno family will be sued as well. And they should be.
Lest we forget, Joe Paterno's statue will be taken down. It has to be. For everything he did leading up to this, when presented the chance to do the right thing, he didn't. And sorry, that can't be forgiven.
It's an odd coincidence that during Jerry Sandusky's trial, his attorney strongly tried to push the case that the "Victims" were conspiring to make money off of the school and others.
They weren't. But they are about to.
This is one of the most horrible episodes in the history of modern human behavior. There is nothing that anyone can say to justify the way Penn State, it's adminstrators, it's board of trustees and Joe Paterno handled this. Nothing.
There are no excuses.
All we can hope for at this point is this opens some eyes and makes people more aware of behaviors such as Sandusky's. It also, we hope, makes ALL PEOPLE realize that we have a responsibility to protect those who can't protect themselves. That should ALWAYS...in EVERY SITUATION be first and foremost. It's just sad and pathetic that it took something like this to reinforce it.
UPDATE: The press conference involving members of the Board of Trustees and the current president of the University was somewhat heated...
Here's some of the exchanges among the media and those who got put in the line of fire...
((HT: MSNBC))
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In a subsequent interview with Tom Rinaldi on ESPN, Jay Paterno refuted points of the Freeh Report claiming that no one in or around the program thought Jerry Sandusky was a child predator in 2001. Jay Paterno also says his father wishes he knew more so he could have done more. In regard to the 1998 incident, Jay Paterno claims that the depth of his father's knowledge is in dispute and the incident was turned over to law enforcement. In defense of the allegations of 2001, his father reported to the people he was supposed to report to and accepts the criticism that he should have done more. "None of us knew," he said "and we were not the only ones who missed it."
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