Joe Paterno Family to Sue NCAA
The story which never seems to end is back in the news. The Paterno family and certain other trustees are suing the NCAA over the Freeh report, etc. What is interesting is that Penn State itself is not part of the suit. Bob Costas was to have had a segment on the suit last night, but I didn't see it.
The suit is designed "to redress the NCAA's 100 percent adoption of the Freeh Report and imposition of a binding consent decree against Penn State University. The reality is that consent decree was imposed through coercion and threats behind the scenes and there was no ability for anyone to get redress," Sollers told Costas.
Note: I assume this is not OT as it is B1G-related.
Shouldn't they be suing PSU instead of the NCAA? I mean PSU agreed to accept the Freeh report and the sanctions the NCAA wanted to levy as a result. Amongst the sanctions:
- four-year bowl ban (no direct impact to Paterno)
- steep scholarship cuts (no direct impact to Paterno)
- $60 million fine (no direct impact to Paterno)
- Vacated 111 wins from Paterno's record - This is the only thing directly affecting Paterno and it was his legacy.
So it all really comes down to Paterno's legacy? Sure there might be financial losses post-death due to a devaluation in his estate via brand/marketing/etc..., but I think the crux of their complaint has to be defamation of character. I think Sandusky's wife and Paterno's wife just need to accept the men they married were the men they married - human with flaws just like everyone else.
While I can't really say I feel sorry for PSU as a whole - they really need to just move on. The outside influence of the Paternos to mar the image of PSU is staggering, and I think it shows just how the Sandusky incident unfolded - by pride and power of Joe Paterno aqnd the influence of football over common sense. Unfortunately, that lack of humility and self-rightousness has spilled over into his estate after his death.
Their lawsuit is based on the negative impact the Freeh report had on their legacy and estate. What they don't seem to realize is they are damaging the Paterno name and legacy more than the Freeh report ever could have by simply not letting it go and/or using this as opportunity to accept responsibilty and heal the community.
Such litigious jerks are we.
Am I the only one struggling to reconcile Penn State football currently trying to win in any capacity? I realize the kids on the roster had nothing to do with Sandusky and his facilitator JoPa, but still, they are all striving for the exact same thing JoPa and management strived for, thus permitted the ongoing Sandusky ass rapings of innocent boys - the preservation of Penn State's winning football tradition.
Yes, the preservation of Penn State's winning football tradition is the gorilla in the room. If Penn State didn't win games, JoPa would've been fired or left long ago.
If Penn State didn't win games, the importance of preserving that tradition would have been less likely to outweigh the need for JoPa and Curley and others to inform authorities about Sandusky.
I never had much against PSU, especially since I wanted them strong to deprive OSU of Pennsylvania recruits, but last season and going into this season, I find myself morally opposed to watching them all strive to preserve the same thing JoPa and staff strived to preserve at the expense of innocent boys.
Morally, I want to see Penn State go 0-12 for the foreseeable future. I don't want to see anything even remotely resembling an ongoing Penn State winning football tradition.
you should not want anything close to a winning Michigan football tradition. If your problem is that college football is too big and too important, then your beef should be with USC and Oregon more so than Penn State, and your objection should not even be limited to one school but should be directed at the whole machine.
The Sandusky scandal was an anamoly, it happenned while a school was trying to win at all costs, but is not an example of that school trying to do so. One could argue just as hard that Paterno was the reason Penn State was not better than they were after Sandusky's actions instead that Joe Pa's presence was the reason that Penn State was such a power (which the clearly were not). As much as you want to think it is, the Penn State scandal is not a "winning at all costs" scandal, it does not fit the bill. I doubt the NCAA could have reasonably imposed sanctions(that were not agreed to) on Penn State and had them be the least bit coherent to the trained eye in the framework of the NCAA as an entity.
"winning tradition" to the extent they were winning would have continued if Sandusky was initially reported, then Paterno would have gotten the label of the coach who wins but still puts the youth of America ahead of winning. Paterno's image was not in jeapordy until knowledge of Sandusky's actions was converted to action(though it arguably was, just not action including the criminal justice, so agreed, not enough action), and his failure to do so was a personal/interpersonal failure, not one designed to preserve a winning tradition. Like I said, it was beside the point. It happenned at a school that had won a lot, but it did not happen because the school won a lot or wanted to continue winning.
How do you know any of that? How do you know that PSU would have continued to win had it come out that one of their most prominant coaches was a child molester? And how do you know that wasn't Paterno's biggest reasoning for not going to the police like he should have?
You chalk it up to interpersonal failure, but don't those usually have a motive? Whenever I've used poor judgment in a situation, there was usually a reason behind it. Whenever people decide not to own up to something, it's because they don't want to face the consequences. In this case, those consequences were likely a) PSU not continuing to win, b) Paterno getting fired, and c) Paterno's legacy being tarnished or destroyed.
b) Why would Paterno have been fired?
c) Why would Paterno's legacy have been tarnished or destroyed?
Losing one of your best coaches and recruiters due to scandal can certainly hurt your chances at winning in the future. Imagine if news hit today that Greg Mattison had been fired, and not only fired, but fired for having sex with young boys. How do you think that would affect recruiting?
Had Paterno acted immediately, neither of those other things would have likely happened (though it's possible that association with him could have hurt those based on reputation). But because of reason a) he decided not handle the situation correctly, and once he didn't handle it immediately, continued to cover it up due to b) and c).
Why would Paterno not have done something and made it public is the winning would continue and it would be no detriment to him?
reason most people run the other way when they hear the word "help." Doing more would have included him, while doing nothing did not. It is a normal human instinct to avoid conflict, even if you are on the right side it it. It may not be the correct instinct and following it may often times be cowardly. That is what Joe Paterno ended up being at the end of the day. He was cowardly. Nothing more nothing less.
I really hope Louis Freeh files a frivolous claim notice against them so that all his legal bills are paid by these idiots. The Paternos look like raving lunatics suing everyone who doesn't agree with their clearly biased opinion on the matter. This has gone beyond simple "defending your father's honor" at this point.
Plaintiffs Paterno and others' litigation strategy is apparently to use every discovery means to look into every document related to the Freeh Report, to depose the NCAA investigators and probably Freeh himself, and to dig up enough evidence of questionable NCAA tactics to get the NCAA to settle out of court, to revise the sanctions, and in the process exonerate Joe Pa. As of now about all they seem to have are some allegations that some of their clients felt "coerced" into accepting the sanctions. So Paterno et al will have to build their case largely from the NCAA's files and personnel rather than from any real evidence of "coercion" they already have.
As anyone knows who is or who has been in the law biz, that kind of pretrial discovery can be time-consuming and extremely expensive. A lot depends also on how much chicanery the trial judge is willing to tolerate. He/she might want to control severely any legal claptrap, which could hurt the plaintiff's more than the NCAA.
And how could the NCAA ever "settle" such claims absent a court trial? What good would any of their future sanctions be if they agreed to whittle them down because they wanted to avoid litigation expense? This case is as much about the NCAA investigative process as it is about the sanctions themselves. The NCAA will do everything to defend the integrity of that process. The Paternos et al might have some deep pockets, but they're probably no where as deep as the NCAA's.
Paternos et al, assuming they survive pretrial attempts to have the case dismissed, had better be ready for a protracted, mega-expensive, down and dirty legal battle.
I still think Paterno's only "crime" was not believing, in his heart, that Sandusky was a child molester. I am guessing he didn't want to ruin someone's career over what he thought were unsubstantiated and baseless allegations.
You don't get hindsight in realtime, and realtime is probably a lot harder to decipher when you're in your late 70's and working a 100 hour a week job.
Just because you put crime in quotes doesn't make it not a crime. He must have then believed in his heart that the red head guy whose name I've forgotten was a bold faced liar.
I don't like the ruining someone's career excuse. That means he cared more about Sandusky than the kids getting raped. And that's not OK.
Almost every coach has perfected the "take your punishment and move forward" speach when it comes to their players making mistakes. I wish the Paterno family and all Paterno backers (especially the former players) would heed this speach, which Joe himself must have given countless times to his players when they messed up.
And they have legions of Penn Staters online who don't see why JoePa was fired. Anytime there's a scandal like this, the guy at the top loses his job. See IRS recently. The top IRS guy might have had no clue his employees were doing that, but it's still his responsibility. Similarly, JoePa was the leader of Penn State football and those terrible things that Sandusky did were on his watch so JoePa was right to be let go.
And let's be honest. People had accussed Sandusky of this crap 10+ years ago. JoePa absolutely had to know something was up whether he'd ever admit it or not. Maybe JoePa was really a nice guy, but he made a huge error and lost his job. That's one of the risks of being at the top. The Paternos need to knock this off because they look terrible
Perhaps Fox should film "The Following" TV series in State College next season. It appears they could provide an entire cast of cult followers for the show.