He still doesn't sound apologetic at all and avoids discussing the real issue at hand. He let a monster stick around and harm defenseless children. Instead, he criticizes school officials for attacking the football program. I realize he was elderly and PSU football was his life but he had no remorse for his mistakes.
Link: http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/8157705/penn-state-nittan...
agreed, never once addresses
Sounds more like a lawyer
Sounds more like a lawyer wrote it imo. Maybe a Paterno, but certainly not Joe.
COYS and lets go Detroit FC!
Cliffnotes:PSU is a great
Cliffnotes:
PSU is a great school with a great football program. Forget the fact that I and others let a pedo run rampant for years on campus, that's a separate issue. I mean we made leaders out of men, look at Matt Millen!
Clueless to the end. All show and no substance when it mattered.
Matt Millen doesn't deserve that
Worst football GM ever, annoying TV announcer? Yes.
Deserving of this association? No.
I'm sorry, you're right,
I'm sorry, you're right, Millen is a terrible leader.
What I never understood
about all of this is that if Sandusky had raped little girls, he would have had the shit beat out of him, cuffed and in jail 20 years ago. I don't see much difference if I was a victim or an eyewitness.
"If fans don't come to the ballpark, you can't stop em."
matt millen
another reason to hate PSU
Paterno is rotting in hell
Paterno is rotting in hell right now for covering this up and not being a MAN and doing something about it.
Trash. Every single rat in those disgusting events has a seat in hell reserved.
When the ADept sells special jerseys and gear, you'll see my picture next to the targeted customer crowd. A sheep.....but a Blue one.....
So YOU'RE the guy that makes
So YOU'RE the guy that makes that decision. I have so many questions for you!
I suppose
a WOMAN could have done something about it as well. Jerry Sandusky is going to hell. I don't think Joe Pa is there, but I think he and God had a long talk before opening the gates to heaven. I think he is probably on strict probation.
One monter here. Sandusky. Then a lot of average people who lost their way.
I will say an extra prayer
I will say an extra prayer tonight that ijohnb never has to test the leniency which he espouses toward enablers of pedophilia and child rape.
Hell might be too good for some of these people, JoePa included.
Go Blue!
I think
it is worth a prayer, as I have been fortunate enough not to have ever been put in the position that Jerry Sandusky put many people who were close to him. I certainly hope that my response to the situation would have been different, and I do believe that it would be. However, just as I have not taken sniper fire, just as I have not climbed Mount Everest, and just as I have never had to dodge an oncoming train, I have not had to test myself against a circumstance as deeply troubling and life altering as the one you are speaking of.
I do not know whether I would have busted into the shower in Lasch and beat Jerry Sandusky to death with a fire hydrant as many who have likely never been in a fight have stated they would do, or whether I would have put a stop to it and then reported it to those that I believed were in the best position to handle it. I don't know if I would have again reported my possible belief, based on a second hand account, to authorities after authorities had investigated the report and failed to act. I don't know whether I would have beaten the prosecutor who failed to bring charged until he did so. I don't know any of these things.
So pardon me if I don't find it appropriate to condemn a man who may have never affirmatively acted toward another person with any malice to hell. Is Joe Pa's wife going to hell too? What about Joe Pa's kids? What about the prosecutor?
One monster. This is not leniency. It is the truth.
Your honesty is refreshing.
Your honesty is refreshing. If "the right thing" in any case were as easy to see and do in real time as it is in hindsight, there'd be no need for things like ethics classes.
"We've beaten Michigan the last four years. So where's the threat?"
- Mark Dantonio
Blogging the Virginia Cavaliers at http://fromoldvirginia.blogspot.com/<
I would avoid passig
I would avoid passig judgment. I always thought that was gods task. Too many people want to brand people as condemned to hell without really considering that hell is/would be beyond all comprehensive states of pain and anguish contemplatable in this universe. Also the statistics tend to indicateost people are bystanders in criminal situations and refrain from action rather than taking action. As such, I would avoid criticizing ijohnb's understanding nature. Yes, what happened was monstrous. Yes paterno failed to act. But let a higher power make the decisions on who and who does not deserve eternal damnation or whatever it is.
"The unexamined life is not worth living." Socrates.
I look forward to reading the
I look forward to reading the report later this morning on what the school did or did not do to protect the victims.
Abort, Retry, Fail?
Senial
Senial
'Try growing up in Texas a Michigan WOLVERINE'. Follow me on Twitter: RudygoBLUE
A mix of senile and denial?
A mix of senile and denial? I like it. Let's get it added to the DSM-V.
Denard has spent the offseason working really hard and smiling at people.
I have some doubt as to
I have some doubt as to whether Paterno, close to his death bed, even penned the letter himself. I have long thought that Paterno's lawyer son, Scott, was drafting all sorts of material attributable to Joe, including that he had a treatable form of lung cancer, which he died from a few short months later. From my perspective, and I really have no axe to grind re PSU, it seems like more of the denial, from the family and from many of the Penn State faithful, that Paterno helped enable a pedophile for more than a decade.
This story from State College has a copy of the letter: http://www.centredaily.com/2012/07/11/3258124/joe-paterno-sandusky-scandal-not.html
I have also wondered whether the program was as spanky clean as PSU would have you believe, separate and apart from the Sandusky debacle If they would treat a matter involving the sexual assault of numerous young children as they did, how far would they go to cover up an NCAA violation, speaking of which, may still be another chapter in this sordid book.
Agree with OP Completely
I'm glad someone posted this. I must admit to reading BSD a lot these past weeks, not for schadenfreude (grew up in PA, always repsected JoePa and even rooted for PSU in my younger years) but rather to see if there were voices of people who "got it" there. I'm sad to report that there are not many at all who see this for what it is, the attempts to rescue the legacy of a powerful and flawed man whose life of many good works was minimized in his final days by the Sandusky situation. Out of over 300 posts on a thread about the letter, maybe one person noted the letter for what it actually was; embarrassingly inappropriate . While the group of posters on a blog site are subject to selection bias (yada, yada), the fact that there was almost complete denial among such a large group was really really sad.
I did the same thing and
I did the same thing and checked out BSD. It was sad, but not surprising. My question about JoePa is if the Sandusky cover-up was the only thing he covered up. If he was willing to keep a pedophile on the loose to protect his program and his job, maybe he brushed other things under the rug as well.
it's reasonable
to suggest other cover-ups. The ends justified the means for ol' Joe Pa when he covered up Sandusky's illness.
Every man at some point is gonna lose a battle. He's gonna fight and he's gonna lose. But what makes him a man, is that in the midst of that battle he does not lose himself. This game is not over, this battle is not over. So let's hear it .
horsey
I think we're approaching this:
Aside: I find it interesting that the people (not necessarily the OP here) most incensed by the Penn State happenings are those with transparently authoritarian personalities. Disasters like the Sandusky one often occur with the complicity of just those types. (For the record, I'm as appalled as the average person by what happened at PSU. Just making an observation ...)
"500 channels and nothing but cats."
Maybe we are approaching the
Maybe we are approaching the "horse" in terms of blogs, but not in terms of what has yet to be played out. We are through with the first of at least three criminal prosecutions. We have yet to begin the civil phase of the process which, unless settled, will go on for at least a year, and then there is the NCAA, assuming they take a stance on the matter.
This will not end soon or well.
Passing Judgement
The capacity to convert reality lies within all. Your keen observation concerning authoritarian personalities might be extended to judgemental people, e.g. homophobes. Binding what could eventually described as a form of self-loathing to passing judgement is a common enough practice, e.g. "you hate in others what you most hate in yourself"
It is interesting
The more "certain" a person is as to exactly what they would have done the less actual self-inspection they have actually done. Most of the people who claim they would have torn Sandusky limb from limb could not and would not confront a person who cut in front of them at the grocery store.
Confronting someone who cuts
Confronting someone who cuts in line vs Sandusky is a huge difference. The point is the implications of letting the act continue are grossly different. Waiting a couple more minutes by letting someone cut has little significance to my life. Letting Sandusky continue is a deep moral issue. I do agree that there are a lot of tough guys on the Internet who probably wouldn't have done anything. Remember Sandusky was a friend to these guys, I think, so think about it that way. They should have wanted to help their friend (as in help get treatment) in addition to preventing atrocities from happening. Maybe they all intended to do something but never did. I don't know. But to preserve a football reputation by ignoring this is utterly despicable if true.
The Paterno family and
The Paterno family and supporters have been in high spin mode for several days now. They probably have an idea of what's coming out in the Freeh report, and are trying to get out ahead of the story. The thing is though, there's no sense of reality of sincerity in this letter or any of the spin, and if this letter truly was penned by Joe himself and is his last word on the subject (which as others have pointed out, might not have been the case), there really is no way to rehabilitate his reputation.It's words to sooth those who are too afraid to face the prospect that their beloved JoPa was not the paragon of virtue they all thought he was. To those with any skepticism at all about his reputation, the letter just shows how clueless and undeserving the man is of adulation.If he were the JoPa his supporters believed him to be, he would have manned up and accepted responsibility for his role in allowing a sociopath to continue abusing children.
It's almost like JoPa sold
It's almost like JoPa sold his soul to the devil.
DEVIL: I'll give you your record number of wins and the adulation of everyone while your alive but I'm gonna make people realize just how gutless, egotistical and morally reprehensible you really were after your gone.
JOPA: Ok. I'll just leave a letter blaming it all on the Penn State administrators. That should do it.
I modded this +1 normal
because there was no "funny, yet sad/true" option.
This blog SO needs a larger moderate vocabulary (think post tags).
Love & Hate are horns on the same goat.
For the love of all that is
For the love of all that is third grade grammar it's "you're" if you are meaning "you are." It is only "your" if you are communicating ownership. It isn't difficult. I hate you so much right now.
or uh, Duder, or El Duderino if you're not into the whole brevity thing.
Appalling. Denial ain't just
Appalling. Denial ain't just a river in Egypt.
If initial reports are at all
If initial reports are at all accurate, At 9:00am this morning the demi-God Joe Paterno will be brought down. It is not hard to understand why the PSU family & faithful would want to deny this reality to the bitter end; they've invested a TON of emotional capital in perserving his "legacy".
I feel like this is a great
I feel like this is a great photoshop opportunity (for those who are good at photoshop) that involves a picture of that statue of Paterno they have in front of Beaver Stadium...
Not that I loved Rich Rod less, but that I loved Michigan more.
from Onion comments:
"I heard they want to take down his statue. I say they should just turn it around...so he can look the other way."
Just read the first few pages
Just read the first few pages of the report. PSU is F'd
I got the shotgun. You got the briefcase. It's all in the game though, right?
Strange Letter
The first paragraph of the letter I was thinking, "man he's really skirting the issue", however, if you can get past that, his point is valid. Just my 2 cents.
His point *might* be valid,
His point *might* be valid, but he's so tunnel-visioned he doesn't get within two area codes of the real point: that he and his cronies let a pedophile run loose inside the program for over a decade. From the tone of the letter, I can't help but feel that he would do it all over again at the drop of a hat if it could protect his precious university or football program in any way.
He really should have had a
He really should have had a paragraph in there about concern over the victims. I hate to think that he had more concern for the program than the kids.
"Wasn't that Michigan drive just great. That's like Patton riding into Berlin." ~Bob Ufer
If it was written by Joe,
If it was written by Joe, it's clear he still didn't get it. It's pretty sad that he was still much more concerned with the image of the university, the football program and by proxy his own legacy than the pain caused to the victims. This, along with the freeh report, paints a pretty clear picture of why and how such gross negligence of responsibility to those kids could have happened the way it did. *shakes head*
In The End...
"This is not a football scandal and should not be treated as one." - from Paterno's letter
It seems to me that this is where Joe Paterno had the opportunity to dissociate football and the acts of an individual, acts he had knowledge of, and could not make that separation. No, it isn't really a football scandal in the sense I think he means, but it involves a former subordinate of his in the program and the complicit silence of Joe Paterno and others who were part of the football program.
The program and the university bear responsibility through their inaction and continued enabling of Sandusky, and as we discussed in a thread a couple weeks ago, there is very much a case for the NCAA to step in and look at the behavior of this program and those who represent it. It is a scandal which involves the football program and its employees, current and former. It will affect the football program as if it were directly about the sport itself due to the horrifying scope of the crimes.
In a sense, the letter itself is sad - in the end, Paterno really believed in the infallibility of his program and it seems like he even thought himself to be as synonymous with it as the fanbase does. Even in retrospect, he did not see the problem or understand why it should affect him.
"Funny isn't it, how naughty dentists always make that one fatal mistake."
Follow the random tweets of a Michigan alum - http://twitter.com/#!/LorneEC3
Dropped the ball
I agree. This is the point I was most disappointed in. This was not an academic scandal; but, to deny that this is a football scandal highlights precisely how this tragedy was born. There is no doubt that if Sandusky was not associated with the football program, he would have never had the perks to offer these kids and his actions would have been reported immediately. It was his status within a beloved football program that enabled the initial abuse and allowed him to avoid detection. To deny that this is a football scandal fails to acknowledge the problem and only leaves the door open for further abuse. This mentality has got to go.
TO: J. Paterna
FROM: M.
TO: J. Paterna
FROM: M. A.
RE: your letter
Harvard: The MICHIGAN of the East
We're not arrogant, we're just better.
Minimum of the right thing to do
I understand that Joe Pa did not want to blow the whistle on Sandusky, his friend. Under these circumstances I can not personally accept that excuse. This crime is too heinous!
But Joe could have provided provisions to Sandusky to follow and if not complied with would be forced to publically expose him to authorities.
These would be the provisions:
1) Disassociate himself with his charity and all minors.
2) No access to Penn State facilities, especially with any minors.
3) Seek professional help.
Could this have been done without somebody figuring out what was going on? That would be the risk. But at least this course of action could then, even if exposed, be tolerated to some extent.
That letter is dreadful and
That letter is dreadful and his family and supporters must continue to be blinded by their loyalty to him, if they think this "defends" him.
It's dreadful IMO because of what it doesn't say. No regrets, no mention of the harmed children (HINT, Joepa: no matter how the football program suffers, it is not the real victim here), no condemnation of the monstrous acts committed by Sandusky.
Jesus, his family could have at least ghostwritten in a sentence or two about that.
Not a football scandal?
You're damn right it's not a "football scandal". It's way way WAY WAY WAY more important that a stupid football game. You're talking about ruining the lives of several young boys, not whether some teenagers won a football game against some other teenagers.
The fact that Paterno would see it as somehow necessary to wave his arms around and say "BUT IT'S NOT A FOOTBALL SCANDAL" just shows how unbelievably out of touch with reality he was. WE DON'T GIVE A CRAP ABOUT YOUR STUPID F"ING FOOTBALL PROGRAM JOE. Children's lives were at stake here, and you threw them away, all to protect your own glory and the glory or your damn football program.
Paterno will go down as a poster child of someone who got so caught up in the cult of himself that he lost touch with what is really important in life. He lost the ability to determine what is right and wrong and instead was only concerned with what was good or bad for him and Penn State football. So what if a buch of young boys lives are destroyed in the process right?
Honestly, if JoePa had been
Honestly, if JoePa had been 20 years younger when this happened, would anyone sympathize with him? I understand that it can be awkward bashing a guy that old (especially now that he's deceased) but this makes him look terrible.
I don't like the whole "he was an old man, he grew up in a different culture" line of thinking. It was JoePa's choice to keep on coaching that long. It was his choice to keep coaching in an era in which you do not sweep sexual predators under the rug. It was his - and Penn State's - responsibility to make sure that he understood what is expected of a person of authority in the 21st century.
What are
What are the Penn State faithfuls saying about him and the report?
agreed, never once addresses the real issue which is that he and the other admins where covering up for Sandusky
"What" ain't no country I ever heard of. They speak English in What?