Everyone Murders

January 24th, 2018 at 4:50 PM ^

You misspelled "Freep" when you meant to say "Indy Star". 

http://interactives.indystar.com/news/standing/OutOfBalanceSeries/index2.html

(Not neggin' you, since the Fourth Estate is critically important to our democracy. But the Indy Star story is what finally got the attention of the powers-that-be on the loathsome Larry Nassar.  The Freep limits their hard-hitting investigative journalism to matters such as stretching and whatnot.)

lilpenny1316

January 24th, 2018 at 5:20 PM ^

He's been reporting a lot of stuff for the Lansing State Journal.  It should also come as a surprise to no one that he's not an MSU grad (Tennessee and Augustana College grad).

The FREEP basically posted the LSJ's work on their site.

Brodie

January 25th, 2018 at 9:26 AM ^

No man, don't you know? 10 years ago they wrote a factually correct article detailing actual violations committed by the University of Michigan under Rich Rodriguez and therefore we must never read them again because it was so unhelpful to our now twice disgraced ex-coach!

That people want to continue this vendetta indefinitely is surreal to me. I don't even believe either of the principal writers or the editor of the paper at the time still work for the Free Press.

HelloHeisman91

January 25th, 2018 at 6:37 PM ^

Factual correct?  I must have missed the part that explained to the reader that all of those "extra" hours were in fact not considered to be countable hours and that every other college football team in the country has their football players doing the exact same thing because it's not illegal to do so.  

jmdblue

January 24th, 2018 at 4:41 PM ^

I don't like Sparty any more than anyone else around here, but right now I feel badly for many of them. My friends from State are uniformly pissed, ashamed, and confused. Fuck Ms Simon and let's hope it's a good long while before we hear stories like these again....emanating from any institution.

Everyone Murders

January 24th, 2018 at 4:54 PM ^

Ms. EM's best friend from college was on faculty at the College of Osteopathic Medicine with Nassar, and she is a wonderful person with a well-calibrated moral compass.  Ms. EM is also a Spartan.  Along with a number of my other friends.  Sparty brahs grate, but MSU is a fine school run by an ass clown administration.

Nary a one of them supports the administration at MSU on this bullshit.  Drip drip drip - Lou Anna Simon's time is coming.

gruden

January 24th, 2018 at 4:51 PM ^

Former gymnast Rachael Denhollander, who in September 2016 became the first to publicly accuse Nassar of molesting her, said: “A monster was stopped last year, after decades of being allowed to prey on women and little girls, and he wasn’t stopped by a single person who could have, and should have stopped him at least 20 years ago. He was stopped by the victims, who had to fight through being silenced, being threatened, being mocked, by the officials at MSU who they appealed to for help. And now the very people who should have been protecting us all along ... have thumbed their nose at any semblance of accountability.”

Reading that quote made my blood boil.  They all should be out yesterday.  After PSU I don't get how this isn't already done.

bronxblue

January 24th, 2018 at 4:58 PM ^

I don't know about Riley so maybe this is the time she gets it right, but this was a good piece that properly focused attention on Simon and her failings at the helm for MSU.

And from a practical sense for MSU, I don't know why you keep Simon or why she'd like to stay.  They talk about her as an amazing money-raiser, but that's (seemingly) based on a positive reputation.  Well, she's now been dragged through the mud for the school's mishandling of Nasser, she has personally come across as aloof and disinterested, and that's only going to continue for weeks and months to come as the NCAA investigates.  So she's going to be damaged goods in all likelhood on the fund-raising trail, and people are rightfully not going to want to give to a school whose leader apparently was too busy to listen to some impact statements of sexual assault victims.

So move on, or at least stop defending her so vociferously.  It's not admitting complicity, but it keeps the story in the front of people's minds, and from an outsider's perspective all it does is piss off your staff and students so that a couple of Trustees don't have to look for a new President.

Gr1mlock

January 24th, 2018 at 6:11 PM ^

That's what I don't get.  Even if she was a great fund raiser before, she (and the rest of the MSU admin) is so tainted that she'll never get another penny.  The first thing every donor should, and lilkely will, ask is "so what the fuck happened with Nassar?"  I don't know what makes them STILL think they can sweep this under the rug.  

bronxblue

January 24th, 2018 at 8:43 PM ^

Yeah.  This isn't something people are going to forget any time soon, and the response from the student and faculity is pretty uniformly negative.  She's not protecting anyone but herself, and when the base of your community is against you that's going to affect how people respond.  And MSU doesn't have an extremely wealthy alumni base, so the couple of big-money donors they have are going to hear about it if/when they donate to the school.  I just don't get what Simon provides that someone who didn't ignore clear signs of a sexual predator at your school doesn't.

bringthewood

January 24th, 2018 at 5:35 PM ^

This is a powerful read. Is Hollis next, or does he skate? People should start going to prison - Klages for sure. But 14 staffers were told, you can't tell me that 3-4 times that many knew. This is a complete cover-up so far.

I bet they off Simon to just try to sweep this under the rug. They are turning this thing into a goat rodeo.

Njia

January 24th, 2018 at 5:53 PM ^

Graham Couch wrote a very good column of the same ilk today as well. Similar "caveat emptor" issue as with the Freep, but I think it's worth a look:

https://www.lansingstatejournal.com/story/sports/columnists/graham-couch/2018/01/24/larry-nassar-michigan-state-couch-column/1058196001/

But the real reckoning for LAS appears to be this Friday:

https://www.lansingstatejournal.com/story/news/local/2018/01/24/hours-after-nassar-sentencing-msu-trustees-hold/1063375001/

Has-Been

January 24th, 2018 at 5:50 PM ^

I am a humble Spartan, I can report to you that there is virtually zero support for Simon, Hollis or anyone else that may have had an inkling of the problems that were certainly known and refuted by Klages and Joseph at the very least. Most have been clamoring for leadership accountability since the IndyStar article came out, and as more layers have been peeled, I can tell you that all of the Spartans that you guys hate join you in your feelings for the lack of accountability by administration and the BOT for the last year.  It is disgusting, and should not reflect on the graduates, athletes and students at MSU.  We didn't do this, we don't defend this, and we are looking for heads to roll.  But mostly, we are united in our contempt for Nassar and in our support for the girls and women who were his victims.   

UMProud

January 24th, 2018 at 6:55 PM ^

In all seriousness nobody believes that all the normal people at MSU or their alumni would not be horrified by what the administration has been doing.  It's obvious Simon & the regents have been living in a bubble worrying more about financial & legal culpability than the victims. 

Can't help but wonder if their fear of personal prosecution played a part in the wagon circling for the last few months.

jbrandimore

January 24th, 2018 at 8:29 PM ^

However, I do not let the general Spartan population off the hook for this.

For many years, MSU has been a renegade outfit who thumbed their collective noses at standards and decency in favor of winning at any cost. There are numerous examples of this. Picking up players from jail on the way to the airport for road games. Ninja attacks on dorms by football players that go basically unpublished. We don’t need to elaborate the entire list.

My believe that this laughing at the rules and conventions of decency permeated the university to the point that someone like Nassar could also easily operate outside the rules.

The money quote from Simon in all this was “I told them to play it straight.” No journalists seemed to ask the obvious question of her “why do your folks need instructions to not bias an investigation? Is this a departure from your usual instructions?”

I suspect the answer would be, “yes.”

It was also shocking how swiftly and efficiently the football sex scandal was handled last year at this time. It was very unMSUlike to take swift action against perpetrators and not have players sit out the first quarter of a game against EMU.

This was the first “Nassar effect” at MSU. I suspect that the administration decided that if they could change their ways a bit, they might ride out the Nassar scandal.

They appear to be wrong about this, but the MSU community needs to insist on a higher standard across the board going forward, and not merely for women’s non revenue sports.

Neg away if you want.

JFW

January 25th, 2018 at 12:43 PM ^

Spartan administrative heads need to roll. But I also want to get beyond the 'MSU' part of this a bit, at least for me. MSU can and should take the shame in this. But this is the second instance of a major university having a system that supported a pedophile. I've seen it happen (albeit different circumstances) in my own Catholic Church. 

In all of these instances we've seen institutions that many trusted, and had people we trusted (doctors, coaches, priests) utterly fail. The system around them failed seemingly out of a desire to cover asses and avoid punishment, or through utter indifference. 

This isn't just an MSU issue, it's a human issue. It's an issue with our culture here. And I think we have to find ways to fix the root causes, if we can. 

We cannot prevent pedophiles. We cannot prevent rape. but we can try to fix the institutions that allowed it. We can't allow 'I told them to play it straight up' anymore. It has to be 'I took this in hand, informed the police, and investigated the shit out of it'. 

Maybe taking MSU staff down with jail time is part of that. But we also need to make that message damn clear at all universities and institutions. UM as well.