OT: Joe Paterno statue to be taken down this weekend (maybe)

Submitted by BeatOSU52 on

reports NFL Network’s Kimberly Jones  and ESPN'Bonnie Bernstein.

 

http://tracking.si.com/2012/07/20/penn-state-take-down-joe-paterno-statue/

 

EDIT: Penn St still has not confirmed this, though:  

Penn State spokesman Dave La Torre: "I'm not aware of any decision being made," regarding the Joe Paterno statue.

Penn State Board member Capt. Ryan McCombie said "We did no such thing," re: voting to take down Joe Paterno statue, made no more comment.

Penn State president Rodney Erickson’s office responded to the reports by telling the school’s donors that “no final decision” has been made regarding the statue.

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Update:  Either way, it sounds like a decision will be made by Penn St President Rodney Erickson within the next 72 hours according to ESPN

 

 

kaykaybroke

July 20th, 2012 at 11:52 AM ^

This honestly looks like the university was just bowing to public pressure..Penn St. needs a rock for a leader right now, who that might be remains to be determined.t

wolverine1987

July 20th, 2012 at 12:48 PM ^

I understand the PSU trustee bashing, the reasons why, and they deserve some bashing. On the other hand, IMO some of the blanket vitriol and also IMO, the competition for who can suggest the harshest punishment for PSU, is getting out of hand. They did the right thing--that's good. That it took longer then you'd like is a silly reason to bash them.

willywill9

July 20th, 2012 at 12:52 PM ^

I agree to an extent, but the point is... Penn State IS reacting to public pressure, and they're doing things piecemeal, like a child, and looking to see if that will satisfy the public.

Figure out, what are the course of actions that would show a commitment to changing the culture.  Paterno died, and the law handled the rest... but what is Penn State doing?  A trustee just resigned today.  This is beyond out of control.

Why not hire a consultant or a team to help them put together logical next steps in the Sandusky after math? 

snarling wolverine

July 20th, 2012 at 1:04 PM ^

Taking down the statue is a no-brainer.  But given what they said a week ago, it doesn't seem like a very sincere gesture on their part.  Let's review what they said again:

"It has to stay up," said another trustee. "We have to let a number of months pass, and we'll address it again. But there is no way, no way. It's just not coming down."

But privately, Peetz, board member Ken Frazier and most of the other trustees, whose leadership on the Sandusky matter as a whole was harshly criticized by the Freeh report, spoke adamantly about the need to keep the statue standing, the sources told "Outside the Lines." They said they hoped the passage of time would prove to be an ally, sources said.

"They don't get to tell us," the source said about members of the public clamoring for its removal. "This is a Penn State community decision."

http://espn.go.com/espn/otl/story/_/id/8166643/joe-paterno-statue-remai…

Quite a change of heart in one week. Could it be in response to the NCAA president saying the death penalty wasn't off the table? 

umchicago

July 20th, 2012 at 4:32 PM ^

if those are actual quotes from the trustees, and if those represent the trustees' general consensus on the issue, then they all need to be fired.  because they still don't "get it".

sure joepa did a lot of great things over his career, but he covered-up and enabled a criminal convicted of crimes of the most dispicable in nature.  sorry, but this far outweighs the good things jeopa ever did.

WolverineHistorian

July 20th, 2012 at 12:07 PM ^

If this is true, looks like those students who have been guarding the statue will have to pack their tents and go home. 

Can't wait to hear what Jay Paterno has to say about this.  Or maybe I can? 

VAWolverine

July 20th, 2012 at 12:00 PM ^

at PSU these days? They need to bring in a consultant who the residents of Pennsylvania trust, are familiar with and who has a proven track record of leadership.The person that comes to mind is Tom Ridge, former governor of PA and initial director of the Office of Homeland Security. He could be objective and not blinded by past PSU loyalty.

Cheesmo

July 20th, 2012 at 12:11 PM ^

I live in PA...and they are reporting that the only thing they will be doing is turning the statue around, as all he did was look the other way the entire time.

lhglrkwg

July 20th, 2012 at 12:21 PM ^

I've always thought of PSU fans as pretty normal but I've been consistently amazed at the amount of craziness that has shown itself through this whole thing. It seems like a large percentage of penn staters have refused to believe this is anything more than a witchhunt

RickH

July 20th, 2012 at 12:51 PM ^

Only know a couple PSU fans but only one really acknowledges what happened.  He's torn obviously but understands what happened is fucked up.  The people that want now hate Paterno and want to take the statue down definitely are the minority from what it looks like...

Niels

July 20th, 2012 at 12:52 PM ^

PSU fans as a whole are actually quite nice. I remember in 1993 some friends talking all kinds of trash in State College ("Welcome to the Big 10"!) after UM won and not getting much of any response until someone mentioned Paterno's name in a benign fashion; the way they described it at that point it was like those ghosts at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark when they went all Crypt-keeper on the Nazi's. 

This really is a perfect storm; an institution that has by far the highest amount of itself wrapped up in the image (now memory) of a single person encountering the worst crisis/fall from grace in the history of organized college athletics. While most PSU people I know have simply crawled into a cave for awhile, others are at a different stage of grief and it ain't pretty. 

snowcrash

July 20th, 2012 at 1:11 PM ^

"...an institution that has by far the highest amount of itself wrapped up in the image (now memory) of a single person encountering the worst crisis/fall from grace in the history of organized college athletics." 

I think this is correct, but there's a causal link. Because Paterno was so idolized he was allowed to amass too much power with too little accountability, and that made the coverup far more likely than it would have been in a system with more checks/balances and transparency.

1201SouthMain

July 20th, 2012 at 1:45 PM ^

you have spent most of your time just on this board ...... cause the PSU fans from the Lloyd era were totally batpoop crazy!  Lloyd was handing JoePa his lunch all blended up in a liquid cause that's the only way JoePa could swallow it ..... and the PSU fans just could not deal with it.  They cried constantly about the refs and they had this big conspiracy thing going where the refs had ties to Michigan and yada, yada, yada.  The Big Ten and ESPN and The Unitied Nations all had it in to bring down PSU so the fix was in for Michigan to win.  There was a period of a few years where the combined scores of the UM PSU games was like 135 - 30 or something stupid like that.  When ever somebody threw that up on the board you could almost hear the PSU fans screaming as they jumped out their office building windows. 

 

LSAClassOf2000

July 20th, 2012 at 12:41 PM ^

One commenter said that if they moved the statue to the sports museum,  they would be fine with that, but if it is removed totally, they shall simply stop donating essentially. It is very sad on one level to see people furiously trying to continue the cult now that the personality is gone and his reputation destroyed. On another level, they really need to just make a clean break someday - moving a statue which now represents something horrible and tragic to another location so it can serve that same purpose is some warped form of bargaining. This university  and the Nittany Lions fanbase are going to be vacillating between denial, anger and bargaining for a long time, I think. 

Removing it totally is the start of whatever healing can be managed there.