Paterno And The Mini-Fridge
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Paterno, fridge, Paterno
This might be off-topic, I don't know, but the release of the Freeh Report on what happened at Penn State does seem like something that I would like to address, especially a day after a letter purportedly from Joe Paterno was released by his family. The passage that jumped out at me was this one:
For over 40 years young men have come to Penn State with the idea that they were going to do something different — they were coming to a place where they would be expected to compete at the highest levels of college football and challenged to get a degree. And they succeeded — during the last 45 years NO ONE has won more games while graduating more players. The men who made that commitment and who gave of themselves to help build the national reputation of what was once a regional school deserve better than to have their hard work and sacrifice dismissed as part of a “football factory,” all in the interests of expediency.
This is what Paterno himself called the "Grand Experiment" over and over, and it reminds me of a guy lugging a refrigerator around Ireland.
His name is Tony Hawks, and he's an English dude who got drunk one night, accepted a bar bet, and proceeded to hitchhike around the circumference of Ireland with a mini-fridge. He wrote a popular book detailing his experiences afterwards, which I read.
His story gets latched onto by a Dublin radio station, which plans a triumphal march to the city center upon Hawks's arrival. This ends up being a sad anti-climax consisting of three people and a confused bagpiper; Hawks goes to a hotel and watches an Irish political debate afterwards. The next day he gets lunch with the radio folk, and what happens when he exits the restaurant has been an oddly persistent thing in my memory:
As I walked out of that restaurant pulling my fridge behind me for the final time, everyone on Gerry's table began applauding politely. Astonishingly, some people on a few of the other tables started to join in. Others looked up to see what was going on, and when they saw me and a fridge, they too joined in, possibly thinking it was somehow expected of them. Soon everyone in the restaurant was applauding, with cheers, whistles, and laughter thrown in for good measure.
I felt great. The anti-climax of yesterday didn't matter anymore. I understood now. Yesterday had been phoney, this was real. Yesterday I had been saying 'Look at me." It hadn't been right and it hadn't really worked, and I should have known that …. Now it was working, and it was working because I was walking humbly out of a restaurant with no airs and graces, affectations or histrionics. The restaurant's diners picked up on this and were offering their spontaneous and unaffected appreciation of someone for whom they had a peculiar nagging respect.
Just lug the damn refrigerator. Stop telling everyone how great of a job you're doing of pulling the refrigerator. Maybe someone will notice, maybe not, but once you start talking about it yourself your self-regard starts chipping away at the core.
If Penn State had not been posited as a Grand Experiment, it's possible that one of the four adult-type substances who could have put Sandusky's second career to a stop a decade before it did would have had more regard for the possibility children would be raped* than for what people would think about them. It's too late for all of them, perpetrator and victims alike, now. But to me the lesson is to shut up about yourself and get on with it. It will help you not make terrible mistakes because you are trying to preserve what people think about you in the face of what you really are.
*[!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!]
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BONUS AMAZING IRONY SECTION: I've been reading various Penn State boards, which are now riven with debate over how much proofy proof there actually is at this juncture. Quite a lot of people have given up the ghost—a BWI poll about taking down the Paterno statue is running 80-20 in favor—but a few continue to soldier on. Here's an exchange from BSD that is, well…
Just finished the report top to bottom minus all the parts about the Clery act and university and state codes.
I think the 98 investigation heavily, heavily influenced future actions. I think that investigation established to everyone involved that Jerry was not a child molester but rather a man who had boundary issues, the police reports even backed that when they describe his behavior as not that of a predator. Every action they took after that appears to have been normal actions taken with a prestigious former employee, whether it was 2nd Mile support, access to facilities, emeritus status etc, they seemed to feel there was no reason Sandusky should be a liability.
I think that that investigation clouded their judgement of 2001. It seems that there was some telephone affect in place as well but the lack of reconciliation between Paterno/Mike and Schultz/Curley’s statements makes that cloudy. At this point Jerry had been established as a man with boundary issues, not molestation issues and I think in their minds when they heard of another shower incident, they just related it to the same level of importance they thought of the 1998 incident, not a serious one.
by Rogue Nine on Jul 12, 2012 12:22 PM EDT reply 2 recs
…
Yep, I agree wholeheartedly
It’s called priming. Once we have a preconceived idea about something or someone in our head, it’s nearly impossible to get it out.
A good book that get into this and all sorts of other cool issues is Jonah Lehrer’s book, How We Decide. Most of our decisions are not based on rationality or reasoning, but rather imbedded emotional responses. That can be both good and bad. In this situation, it was obviously bad.
…it's demanding some self-reflexiveness. Yes. Since I cannot shake 20% of the Penn State fanbase individually, screaming "SNAP OUT OF IT, MAN," I think I will go with "demanding some self-reflexiveness."
SIDE NOTE TO IRONY: One of the more useful ways to cleave the world into halves is to split people into a group A that is suspicious of their own brain and a group B that is not. I'm in the former group, thus all the numbers and systematization and so on. You could add a third group of people who are suspicious of other people's brains but not their own, but they seem like a subset of group B with particularly frustrating arguments. Apparently this is a post in which I dispense personal philosophy unrelated to its relevance.
FINAL PERSONAL PHILOSOPHY STATEMENT WITH BASICALLY NO RELEVANCE TO ANYTHING ON THIS BLOG: Port Salut is the most underrated cheese of all time.
ALSO: Boiled Sports takes this topic on as well, albeit with less references to underrated cheese.
What happens on 12/21/2012?
This is just dead wrong. The Mayan long count calendar measured time in days, not years. Scientists converting their calendar to ours haven't forgotten about leap years.
If you're trying to deflect attention from a pedophilia scandal, I don't see how publicly issuing a hard-hitting report on another institution helps the cause. If anything, it gives victims more confidence to speak up and brings the issue more into the public consciousness so people wonder 'where else is this happening?'
...denial is exactly what kept Sandusky on the prowl for all these years.
I'm not going to bother saying anything more here on the subject because of the aggressive "no politics" head-in-the-sand policy of Mgoblog and I'll respect. But feel free to do your own research.
Joe Pa is evil! May he rot in hell! Kittens! Port Salut!!!
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There may have been some sort of child sex ring involving the White House. I have no idea. Weirder things have happened. But this is all totally beside the point. The conclusions of today's report are based on facts that were either already known or that are now (essentially) not in dispute. The emails, notes, letters, etc. are all there for us to see. The conclusions based on those facts are also very reasonable. I don't know what Louis Freeh's motivations were to publish the report as is, and I don't care much, b/c the report stands on its own its legs.
I completely agree on Port Salut. Among other things, the best grilled cheese cheese in the history of mankind.
Bobby Bowden called it back in November daggumit:
http://www.centredaily.com/2011/11/14/2986021/bobby-bowden-calls-paterno-negligent.html
EDIT: Bobby almost nailed it except for his last line. Paterno never did man up and tell the truth.
If they leave the statue/names up they'll become a scarlet letter. The defenders will cope and have to stop defending. Facts are facts. 1 man is in jail. 2-3 more are on the way. a HUGE storm is about to descend on PSU relating to the President and 2 VPs (and the football coach) covering up known molestation on a public university campus. This is a HUGE scandal on every level. These 4 men who covered it up were State of Pennsylvania employees. Civil cases haven't even started yet. Eventually the denial will disappear and the truth will have to set in. For 50 years they've held Joe as a king. He was not. Changing 50 years of belief doesn't happen in a day. Forget the football team. How does Penn State the University recover? Again, the President and 2 VPs have documented participation in this. It's going to get even uglier for State College.
Port Sault is delicious.
OH, and the rest of it...I'm finally starting to realize the enormity of the problem that was only recently brought to light. The facade of this supposedly storied and respected program and coach put up worked on me. I never had a problem with PSU or Paterno and as one post above mentions, his refusal to retire or hand over the program to a deserving assistant didn't click with me until just recently. Why the University didn't strongly urge (read: Force out the door) JoPa to gracefully depart was a mystery to me. Now I know: they couldn't. He was the Penn State entrenched mafia figure and wasn't going to leave until HE wanted to. Which is why he had the power to influence the whole Sandusky saga over such a long period of time. Even if he had gotten around to saying something a number of years ago, the blow to him personally was going to be too big of a bill to pay.
Yes, take down the statue...remove his name from buildings and roads...I hope anyone who knew about it who is still breathing rots in jail for the rest of their natural lives.
And the inability of the administration to force him out, just look at how he actually left. Sandusky news breaks, he says he'll retire at the end of the year. He ends up fired and the town riots.
Granted, they didn't know what we know now, but firing a coach in the wake of a former assistant's child molestation scandal caused huge riots and the board could barely fire him then. That's how powerful he was.
Penalty enough for me.
the various threads. I've given up for the most part because my words are just not getting it done for me.
Outside of MGoBlog, I continue to hear or talk to people that go on about "reporting it". While that would have been the right thing, obviously, to my simple mind it is even easier - with an eye-witness report, Paterno failed all that he stood for, he allowed Sandusky to continue to have access to his facilities. Nothing will ever explain that away, excuse it, or rationalize it to my satisfaction.
I'll leave the rest to the investigators, attorneys and courts. I know all that I need to know.
1) Relative size/reputation of PSU once FB got big is big reason why Paterno could be "bigger than the school" and this entire mess happened (repost)
2) From reading BSD boards a fair bit over the past week (looking, nigh, hoping for people to shake off their delusion), there do seem to be fewer and fewer holdouts.
3) For said individuals from 2) who are still fighting against the dying of their light, I would first recommend Tom Friedman's column post 9/11 about apologists for the terrorists. He noted that some in the ME were saying yes 9/11 was terrible, BUT, look at all the bad things the US did in foreign policy. Friednman's response was to switch this around, i.e. yes, the US may have done some wrong things BUT 9/11 is so much more terrible a thing. Application to JoePa's legacy here is fairly self-explanatory
4) The second thing I would recommend is the Dave Chappelle skit about what it would take some people to believe in the guilt of R. Kelly after video of said acts was released (you can goolge this). The only evidence acceptable was carzily unrealistic in a way that some are demanding. For those people, my clinical interpretation would be delusional disorder
Rogue Nine obviously didn't read the report very thoroughly. Paterno SPECIFICALLY said that Sandusky was a liability after the 1998 incident. Paterno, in handwritten notes annexed to the report (Exhibit 2G) wrote down re: Sandusky's retirement package, that 2nd Mile shouldn't have access to the facilities and wrote, "No to 2nd Mile. Liability Problem." That was the piece of evidence I found most damning of all, and completely eviscerates any argument that JoePa misunderstood this as horsing around.
Nice catch.
That's the most damning single bit of evidence in the whole report.
Sadly those who want to carry the mantle for JoePa will still ignore it. JayPa's comments make it clear that the JoePa campers will clearly just view this whole report as an opinion piece, rather than address the substantive evidence which was provided along with it.
But, but, but, he was just concerned that some small child might slip in the showers or pull a muscle in the weight room and there'd be a lawsuit for negligence. Far from covering up for a pedophile, Joe was actually trying to protect children.
What happened at PSU was horrible, and those who still try to rationalize away the trangressions as isolated or misunderstood incidents need to be removed from the gene pool and/or taught basic logic.
That said, I am always careful when casting any group as delusional because opinions and mindsets are rarely as cut and dry as we make them from afar. I suspect there is 0.5% of the population at PSU who feel that Sandusky didn't commit heinous crimes and that there were failures at PSU relating to oversight from the President on down. But at the same time, most people are inherently good people; society would not function if that wasn't true. And there is a line between nonfeasance and even misfeasance, where a man or woman seemingly has blinders on to the reality before them because of culture, personal mindset, past experience, and even the sheer absurdity of the situation.
Now, it has been rather conclusively determined that there were people at PSU who could have stopped Sandusky who didn't, who saw/heard of the atrocities first-hand and thus didn't have the "telephone effect" mentioned in one of the BSD threads. But for the fans of PSU, the disconect between them and what happened, of knowing that young boys where being sexually assaulted in the bowels of the stadium and not doing anything, I think makes it hard for them to accept that it happened. It seems insane that the people who you cheered for years, who won games on the field, did well in the classroom, and represented the University in a way you identify with, were somehow also tainted with a crime in the same family (if not the same species) as murder.
I think that is where the disconnect is coming from - for the half-dozen/dozen people who should have stopped it, there are literally hundreds of men who played on those teams, who were coached by Sandusky and Paterno, and who would have been appalled and stopped what was happening had they known. And so as fans, when they hear "PSU is full of pedophiles" and "Paterno was a disgrace", they feel that their whole school, all of these men and women who did the right think both at PSU and in their lives, are being painted with that same brush, and so the natural defense mechanism is to say that it couldn't be 100% true, that there are mitigating circumstances, that there is no way X knew about it, etc. Again, not a defense for ignoring facts, but more a defense for the context that has been a PSU fan's reality for months now.
Althought I think most people are "selfish" and not "good" as you say.
The entire identity of Penn State was Paterno and "doing it the right way." Even in the lean years, PSU fans could rely on that.
Now it's been entirely destroyed. We're not emotionally attached to Penn State, so it's easy for us to flip that switch and say "yep, I guess those are evil people." It's a lot, lot harder if you're a Penn State fan. Give them time and just about everyone of them will get there.
Speaking of the "Grand Experiment," does anyone else find it odd when schools brag about how they "graduate their players"? You hear it all the time and it always sounds a little jarring. How does a school "graduate" someone? Doesn't the player do the graduating? It seems almost an Freudian admission that the school is greasing the wheels, nudging these guys through the system to keep them eligible.
Well, that to me always felt more a phrase that just became common in the vernacular than anything more sinister. I mean, when I graduated from UM years ago, they mentioned that my program graduates a large number of people who enroll (i.e. people don't drop/change majors). Yeah, it wasn't on the cover of magazines or glossy reports, but I think what the schools are saying are that they help students compete and do well in the classroom, pointing out that they are NOT just football players who stick around at the school and do play sports alone. Because no matter how much grease is put on the wheels, kids who graduate from college while playing a D1 money sport are impressive.
Fear of bad publicity and all the horrific ghosts and chains that were sure to follow....acts of self-preservation trumped concerns victim suffering.
Sometimes I think what would have happened, had similar issues struck Paul "Bear" Bryant after the 1980 football season, or Woody Hayes after the 1977 season, Tom Osborne in 1998, or Bo Schembechler in 1989. I'd like to think that other coaches would have responded differently than Paterno did. They would have faced similar ghosts and chains.
I think there is more to this story. Four intelligent people tried to cover this up. There had to be a reaosn why or more likely a reason not to go forward. I am thinking that AT THE TIME of the first accusation the evidence was hear say or just not as solid as it needed to be to go forward in their eyes. I can honestly understand that based on the fact that once accused of something like this you never get your reputation back. The evidence has to be rock solid. After a second accusation I think something should have been done, obviously.
I find it very strange that throughout all of this not one victim spoke out in 15-20 years. That is very fortunate for Sandusky and very unfortunate for all of the other victims. I just think that tearing down statues and blowing up the entire football program is a very reactionary. There are many more people that would needlessly lose their jobs and ways of life if they blew up the program and it would stand to reaoson that maybe not speaking out really is the better option.
... the program is drastic, however, if the punishment isn't massive, it won't elicit change in the greater ecosystem. If people realize that the cost of a cover up is small, they are more likely to cover up. If the cost is huge, they will self report.
Also, I find your statement, "I find it very strange that throughout all of this not one victim spoke out in 15-20 years," extremely myopic and, to a lesser extent, offensive.
Rather than seem to blame the victims for not speaking out, we should consider what kind of scrutiny they'd have faced if they'd done so. Speaking out against the Cult of JoePa was dangerous in Happy Valley.
I could be wrong but he didn't blame them (I know, you did say "seem"). And to the poster above you, why is his opinion offensive?! It seemed an honest statement and opinion/thought and expressed in a genuine form. It's a fact that I've been pondering since this all came out last fall. I don't blame any of the accusers/victims for keeping this to themselves/family. It would be difficult to bring this to light in any "situation" and it would be even more difficult bringing this to light, accusing a NCAA Football powerhouse program coach (asst.). But for the amount of victims involved and time that has passed, it is surprising to me that this hasn't leaked much earlier.
Someone (was it Section1?) posted recently that he'd heard a PSU guy acknowledge that Sandusky's "horseplay" was apparently an open secret in State College for a long time - from the early '90s, at least. People had at least an inkling something was wrong with this man. I guess they figured that PSU itself would know what to do with him. Sadly, they didn't.
Now that you say/type that, I also remember reading this (from same poster/thread probably). Rumors may very well have been swirling around there for a good amount of time. Was it also stated that even other coaches across the country possibly knew of these rumors, most likely not believeing them or ignoring them?! If all true (regarding the rumors being around back in the '90s), I do wonder what the origin(s) of the rumors was and how prevalent they really were. Obviously enough was swirling around by the late '90s that this became "factual" evidence" and an investigation followed (and apparently swept under the rug). I still find it intriguing that none of the victims came out until recently. This day in age, secrets are near impossible to keep it seems yet these poor people were hiding these unfortunate events for so long.
I somewhat am getting off track and spitballing here...but regarding the aforementioned rumors, these open secrets may very well have been "known" about by many more people, adding to the absurdity that this lasted so long. There's so much going on here and unanswered questions that I again think there's more than meets the eye here; what and how it all may fit together, I don't know.
If indeed that is the way, and the reason, that Sandusky retired, then Penn State will be lucky. I'm not buying it. I had always presumed that Sandusky would succeed Paterno. I was mystified by Sandusky's departure, with Paterno still in place. I'm more mystified than ever, knowing what we now know.
I remember a Penn State alum sitting right behind me for the "Manningham" game. I don't know who it was, but from our conversation, he was someone very smart and well-connected with their program. He could not have been nicer; even in defeat he was a gentleman, and I said to him, "This is just part of being in the Big Ten for you. This is what happens. It has happened to us, as a Number 1 team losing to Conference rivals. Your team will still go on to bigger and better things, for being part of the Conference." He agreed. But in the course of the conversation, I asked him what happened to Sandusky, simply for the reason that I presumed Sandusky to be the one clear heir to Paterno. He just shook his head. He couldn't explain. In hindsight it is a very haunting conversation.
http://mgoblog.com/mgoboard/penn-state-possible-dim-future-big-ten#comm…
Boom, there she blows. Thanks. Like Section 1 stated at the end, that would be pretty eerie to think back upon. This was all, literally, well-known about it seems. Backtracking here and being a bit lazy, what made the reporter start asking the right questions of the right people that "uncovered" all of this last Fall?! Was her(?) inital story or whateve she was about to do originally even about any of this? And continuing on the theme of this being a secret out of the bag for quite some time, why did it take so G*d damn long for a "real" investigation (media-wise)?!
Ah that's right. There was another post as well (I don't remember who wrote it, or if it was even on this site) - where someone reported from a PSU acquaintance that it was basically an open secret for a long time around that program that Sandusky had a "weird" relationship with kids, and that people would say things (jokingly?) like "Keep your kids away from that guy." Chilling.
Perhaps it needs further explanation.
I agree with what he's saying in the first paragraph. If there is an accusation, or rumor going around about your best friend, or about an employee or coworker of yours... would you go straight to the police? Who would you tell? How would you proceed?
I haven't followed the case as closely as some here on this board, but i understand there are incidents that transpire afterward. But, at the onset... I can see it being difficult to handle.
Once McQueary reportedly saw something and reported it, that's where I have issues with how it was handled.
I am by no means defending Sandusky. He is guilty of one of (if not the number one) worst acts a person can be found guilty of. I just don't like to see that other people, not directly involved, are going to be hurt by this. Public opinion sways drastically and is very reactionary. I just think we should try to punish those who are guilty and learn from this while destroying as few lives as possible because obviously many lives have been destroyed by this monster already.
I've been thinking this for sometime now. I just think there's more to this. I could be wrong and this is just poor judgement all around from day one. I just look at all of this and don't see it as being so simple (that a few guys just decided to cover this all up for the sake of football). I hate to be all "conspiracy theorist" but I fee like Agent Mulder almost..."There must be more to it all".
This may be read and perceived wrong, so I don't mean to come across as condoning or sticking up for anyone involved. Just stating that I feel those guilty that are involved have more to say than what they've said thus far.
Penn State didn't have to issue a press release in 2001 about Sandusky. They simply needed to report the allegations to the police, and allow an investigation to take place. Sandusky's reputation would have been impacted by the course of that investigation, not by the act of reporting.
at the very least B1G decision-makers should recommend PSU take a few years off from football. I think just strapping it up and blithely going out to play would be very insulting to those who have been hurt. They had their moment of silence bs last year; this is too enormous to beat back with a candlelight vigil. Years will have to pass.
I would also understand any team or players that refused to enter the gridiron to play Penn State.
You could also make the argument that it's now clear that very serious crimes were committed and that the program shoud be suspended until legal and other issues are sorted out.
It is interesting now that the Freeh Report has been released is that one of the salient points is badly missed by the Paterno letter.
When wading through the mass of documents and interviews, one of the conclusions reached by Freeh's team was a surprising disregard about the fate and condition of the kids involved. This detachment is also present in the Paterno letter which doesn't address at all the notion that the kids involved were horribly mistreated.
The key quote is "total disregard for the safety and welfare" of the children who were sexually abused. I only quickly read the Paterno letter which was put out yesterday, but I don't recall any mention about the involved kids. The letter is so focused about reputation that it completely missed the point - that there was a great evil there and that great harm occured. Maybe this absence was due to legal advice to deny any knowledge - note how it ends with the notion that the charges are all "alleged", so the claim of "know nothing" can be preserved but it seems very striking and in light of the Freeh document actually reinforces the point of wanton disregard of the fate of the kids because of fear of how it would hurt their individual and group reputations.
As much as we all adore UM sports and Wolverine football, I'd like to believe no one who is a real fan of the UNIVERSITY will let anyone who is perceived as a big person on campus skate by on anything like this just so we can win a game, a grant, a Nobel prize, an election, etc.or out of fear that it would somehow tarnish the reputation of the school.
The Paterno family needs to stop issuing statements today. They all sound fairly ignorant and insensitive to the victims as they're still trying to prop up JoePa's legacy even after this new round of evidence came out
I want to punch Jay Paterno in the face.
Especially when he says things like, "This was just one chapter in his life." Like it was the most unimportant chapter.
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