PSU 7/18

Submitted by JeepinBen on

Here's today's PSU thread. Sick of it? This should be the only thread today and you can avoid it. I'll try to update the OP if/when actual news comes out.

That said, I thought this was a very interesting article: bit.ly/OaEcfd

The Author suggests that PSU make it's football program a separate Non-Profit, with all available monies going to a victims fund/preventing future child abuse. While that would show that PSU is actually caring about the victims (for once. I do wonder if they'll announce what they plan to do with the statue before they announce what they're doing for the victims) I wonder the actual feasibility. Did PSU even make money on sports? The Football program already kind of is a non profit, funding that thing called every other sport at Penn State.

Interesting idea, I don't know if it can go anywhere however.

woomba

July 18th, 2012 at 12:13 PM ^

Why spin off it as another entity?  The program can donate its funds to preventing child abuse without going through such measures

Needs

July 18th, 2012 at 3:30 PM ^

Ho-ly Crap.

From BSD...

 

For me, donating AD revenue constitutes payment of extortion to “victims rights” advocates who will smear anybody’s good reputation to promote their agenda.

The victims should be compensated, of course. But not in a manner that rewards the holier-than-thou crusaders who’ll bleed the entire Commonwealth of Pennsylvania dry.

by Willie Green on Jul 18, 2012 3:04 PM EDT upreply

http://www.blackshoediaries.com/2012/7/18/3167087/some-perspective-from…

That appears an extreme position on there but that anyone could even equate AD donations to child abuse social service agencies to extortion boggles the mind.

triangle_M

July 18th, 2012 at 4:00 PM ^

I spent last night reading the Freeh report. I don't recommend it if you want to keep your food down. Not joking around at all here. Its execrable.

On the bright side, I'm drinking a Stone Sublimely Self- Righteous Black IPA and eating a lamb shepherds pie in Lititz, PA. I am working with several PSU folks here, all of them, at least
publically, really don't care about what happens to the football team at this point. So I'm guessing the majority of the slappies aren't alumni--which gives me hope.

justingoblue

July 18th, 2012 at 12:14 PM ^

The PSU BoT failed to pass a proposal which would have significantly enhanced their power over Spainer, Paterno and Curley in 2004. For some reason this never made it into the Freeh Report.

http://espn.go.com/espn/otl/story/_/id/8175462/jerry-sandusky-scandal-p…

Sandusky allegedly abused kids as far back as the 1970's.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/16/justice/pennsylvania-sandusky-probe/index…

CLord

July 18th, 2012 at 12:17 PM ^

BSD wants us to get off his lawn.  I think that's fair.  Except for the part where the guys he worships were pedophile facilitators on that lawn for over a decade.  I think I'll stay on his lawn for a while until the asphalt trucks arrive to pave the fucking thing.

mackbru

July 18th, 2012 at 12:54 PM ^

I was basically undecided re whether to kill the program until I read the BSD post. This, couple with the guarding of the statue by students, proves that too many PSU folks are still playing the Colonel Klink role here. They haven't learned a thing and still aren't doing the right thing. What a bunch of pathetic, hateful rubes. Kill the program, I say. Kill it dead. 

snowcrash

July 18th, 2012 at 1:32 PM ^

The criterion for punishment should not be that some of their fans are Koolaid-drunk idiots. There are delusional idiots in every fan base.

The statue has to go, though. Prospective students (or their parents starting in 2020 or so when the kids will have been born too late to remember it directly) visiting the campus will see it and get the message that the school glorifies people who enable child molesters.

J. Lichty

July 18th, 2012 at 2:39 PM ^

who when discovering one of Hogan's well planned schemes, famously walked out of the room eating a spoonful of something Lebeau was cooking and stating "I know no-thing"

While Klink stood for general ambition and incopetence - which was certainly present in this affair, Schultz opted for willful blindness.

And thanks to reruns, those of us not in our late forties could still enjoy Hogan's Heros.

mGrowOld

July 18th, 2012 at 12:39 PM ^

Hey BiSB....can you please make sure your boss sees that pic?  I'm pretty sure as of yesterday he was in the "punish the four responsible but give the University & football program a pass" camp  My contention (and definitely bolstered by that pic) is that the students and administrators as a whole simply DO NOT GRASP the severity of this issue and want it to all just go away.   And until the NCAA, the Feds, Civil Litigation and any other governing body with authority over them sticks their collective boot in their ass they will simply deny the problem existed at all and blame everyone else for their troubles.

BiSB

July 18th, 2012 at 12:43 PM ^

My boss is a woman, and her first response to this picture would likely be "GO BACK TO WORK YOU LAZY-ASS SLACKER." 

Assuming you mean Brian, though, I'm guessing he's seen it. Check out the link he just posted in the UV post about the Facebook response to the Paternoville/Nittanyville name change.  The brainwashing is becoming more and more obvious.

CRex

July 18th, 2012 at 12:46 PM ^

Check out how Victim 1 was forced into Witness Protection for daring to tell prosecutors that Sandusky raped him.  That just makes my blood boil.  Even today with the Freeh Report, with the stories of the victims, with the internal emails talking coverup, people still defend this.  Burn the program down, salt the earth, and send a message about what will not be tolerated.  

CRex

July 18th, 2012 at 2:07 PM ^

In addition, Brown is already purging him.  PSU is having defend JoePa camp outs while his alma mater is dropping his accomplishments in the shredder.  At Brown has some class.

Meanwhile, in Providence, R.I., Brown University removed Paterno's name from its head football coaching position and a student award and is reviewing whether to remove him from the Brown Athletic Hall of Fame.



 

BluByYou

July 18th, 2012 at 12:33 PM ^

The legal system and the NCAA will do what we hope is right.  PSU will be punished for what it did and did not do for many years and will pay in loss of stature and many dollars for its crimes.  The program, rightfully so, will never be the same.  So the author wants the program to be non profit for what, 40 years, 50 years?  Who cares about the statue.  That does not help the victims, nor will 50 years of non profit.

justingoblue

July 18th, 2012 at 12:49 PM ^

helps the victims at this point. Every one of them named in the criminal trial will have multi-million dollar settlement offers at this point, or may have the satisfaction of going to court to hear a jury verdict, but other than that, what does help?

The Department of Education could come in and say "sorry, no more federal funds of any kind", effectively shut the school down, and I don't think that would do one thing for the victims. Likewise, the NCAA could put the death penalty on the football team and the Big Ten could expel Penn State, and I don't see that helping the victims either.

Personally I believe everything at this point boils down to either 1) Penn State showing some type of contrition for the school's actions or 2) DoE, NCAA, Big Ten, ect. all making PSU into a deterrent example, so the consequences of cover-up are so horrific that nobody will ever calculate risk/reward and come out with "cover-up" as the best course of action.

I do agree that them going non-profit doesn't do anything to help the victims, but I'm just wondering what actually would help Sandusky's victims.

Erik_in_Dayton

July 18th, 2012 at 1:14 PM ^

I don't think there's a great answer.  But I was thinking about this the other day, in part b/c my family has a bunch of ties to PSU,and my answer (somewhat similar to part of the OP) is this, FWIW:  PSU needs to step up and say that it realizes that it can never wash away the stain of what happend on its watch and that it is instead determined to use this situation as a rallying point to raise funds and awareness to fight child abuse.  PSU should say that it will make sure that the victims didn't suffer in vain because it is going to use their plight, and their survival of their plight (most importantly of all), as inspiration to either help future survivors of child abuse and/or to try to curb child abuse.  It needs put a major effort  and major funds into some kind of center, charity, whatever (I'm not sure about the details here) to help survivors and/or deter child abuse.  PSU also needs to make it very, very clear that the survivors did nothing wrong and that any supposed PSU supporter who gives them a hard time in any way will forever be banned from any PSU property or events. 

You can't undo what happened, but the above is my two cents re: what PSU needs to do. 

justingoblue

July 18th, 2012 at 1:45 PM ^

I also think that most institutions would have already announced some type of plans for such a charity or center, or at least have come out and said they formed a group to look into the best possible way to confront abuse. Penn State and the Paterno family are seriously behind where they should be, at least publicly.

CRex kills it below, talking about the culture change that needs to occur and the future of the football program relative to the core mission of the school, I have nothing to add, he put it prefectly.

I would add that I want to see at least one case go to a jury. I want it in the public record that a jury and judge bitchslapped PSU for their actions, and that they don't get away with just checks and confidentiality agreements.

Needs

July 18th, 2012 at 1:58 PM ^

To be fair, PSU has created and endowed a Center for the Protection of Children at their medical college in Hershey and donated their bowl proceeds to the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape (link below). These kind of actions, however, remain pretty silent, except for those people directly involved in them and that they help. And I'm sure that the $2.6 million here will be a starting point for a much larger, ongoing commitment (at least that's what the creation of a center implies). PSU fans have also raised a ton of money for child abuse prevention and services.

 

The larger sticking points are the symbolic acts surrounding Paterno and his place as the program's patriarch, where there doesn't seem to be much give, at least among a significant portion of PSU fans.

http://progress.psu.edu/resource-library/story/penn-state-donates-more-than-2.6-million-to-abuse-prevention-efforts

justingoblue

July 18th, 2012 at 2:16 PM ^

I feel like I've followed this case pretty closely and don't remember hearing that. Still, the Paterno family needs to do something similar, and $2.6m is a joke for an institution the size of Penn State. They're going to have to do something much more significant for victims before they can put a check in their to-do list.

I agree about the association with Paterno. He needs to be purged from their campus in every way, including returning that four million and renaming the library, hopefully for a child abuse cause.

Needs

July 18th, 2012 at 1:51 PM ^

I agree with those steps, but I think there also needs to be some kind of symbolic disassociation from Paterno, since he's so central to the program and so central to its failing. I don't know if that's tearing down the statue, cutting it off at the knees and putting Ozymandius on a plaque next to it (HT: M-Wolverine), or something else (CRex's point below about the suspension of football being a chance to reevaluate the real strength of their university is also another route)..

That will, of course, be a provocation to those fans who still look on Paterno as some kind of unhuman god figure, but having those fans publicly abandon Penn State might be the best thing for the university's reputation in the longer run.

mackbru

July 18th, 2012 at 1:56 PM ^

I agree, but with the caveat that PSU can't be allowed to get away with grand generalities about building a better future and blah, blah. Nor should they be allowed to just throw some money at the problem. PSU also needs to self-impose very specific penalties that exceed those the NCAA will ultimately force them to accept. TV restrictions, no home games, or even suspending football for a year or two -- penalties that hit them where it hurts most. Whatever the penalties, PSU needs to be proactive for once. Submit, now. This will be the best and most expeditious way for PSU to regain the trust of the public it's supposed to serve.

 

Feat of Clay

July 18th, 2012 at 3:18 PM ^

Looking back at the Catholic abuse cases, not very many victims got more than $2 million in the end.  A LOT of them got less than a million.  Granted a number of the cases were consolidated and that may have been a factor.

I don't mean to nitpick; I simply question what the end result will be, and would caution anyone from imagining that victims will come out of this "set for life" from a financial standpoint.  I expect they will get settlements, and said settlements will improve their financial security.  But the awards may not be as huge as we might think they will get, or will deserve.

Attorney opinions most welcome.

justingoblue

July 18th, 2012 at 3:35 PM ^

is going to pay whatever it can to keep any of these cases from going to court. Whether that may not equate to millions per victim, I don't know or pretend to know. From the guesses I've seen in some of the articles and whatnot, it doesn't sound unreasonable to me, but as I said before, I don't know.

The larger point was simply that there isn't really anything to be done for the victims besides writing a check and offering counseling at Penn State's expense.

Erik_in_Dayton

July 18th, 2012 at 3:44 PM ^

First, PSU's liability is less cut-and-dry than the Church's was, IMO.  Some sort of sovereign immunity issue may come up too. 

Second, the PSU victims may be better off than some of the priest-abuse victims, depending on how things are handled, because there are fewer of them.  The Church settlements often weren't that much for a given victim because they (the settlements) were split up among so many people. 

I'm hestitant to guess at a number for a given settlement.  The specific facts of each case may make a difference, depending again on how this is all handled.   I'm also not sure if the victims intend to sue Paterno, Shultz, etc. individually in addition to PSU.  I do think you're probably correct, though, in that at least some of the victims will probably settle for something like 1-2 million.  Some might even get less. 

A final note:  This is not legal advice.  I am a chimp sitting at a computer in a zoo in Sweden. 

justingoblue

July 18th, 2012 at 4:00 PM ^

remember that Penn State operates under a different relationship with the Commonwealth than every other "public school" just about anywhere (excepting Pitt). From what I've read, they're in deep shit over arguing for years in front of lawmakers that they're not a state entity. It seems like that's going to be hard to overcome.

Also, I have no idea what a court would award from Paterno's estate, but there's money to be had there, and I'm assuming the Sandusky's lose everything between lawyer's fees and civil judgments. If you're just talking about the ten involved in the trial, there could be up to several hundred thousand dollars each from Sandusky/Paterno.

Wolverine Devotee

July 18th, 2012 at 12:46 PM ^

Guarding a statue huh? Wish someone would have guarded the children.



These vile pieces of shit (psu program) deserve the death penalty and then their fans will realize how much of a hero their beloved joeped was. They'll realize it when they're playing their new in state rivals after they get the hit- the Penn Quakers.

oakapple

July 18th, 2012 at 1:04 PM ^

The football surplus funds most of the other sports at Penn State, as it does at most big universities. If you route the surplus into a victims' rights charity, you kill the whole athletic department, including swimmers, gymnasts, wrestlers, hurdlers, etc. Now, maybe that's the writer's real agenda, but he sure didn't say so.

A charitable football entity would raise many questions. If Penn State upgrades the weight room, people will say it's a travesty, because it's supposed to be a charity. That complaint will be made about any investment made in the football program. There is no precedent for a charitable football team. No one knows how that is supposed to work.

Of course, it wouldn't be a bad idea to tear down the statue and make a very substantial donation to charity, but it can't be open-ended. If the real aim is to kill Penn State football or the entire athletics department, then one ought to come out and say so.

CRex

July 18th, 2012 at 1:39 PM ^

Personally I disagree with that on two level.  First off the point of the University is to provide academic and medical services IMHO.  Education and a kick ass research hospital are the two core goals for an university I feel.  UChicago can do it sans athletic department.  So even if the Olympic sports at Penn State suffer, we're not losing a core function of public value.  Also I'd say the NCAA should let ALL scholarship athletes transfer without penalty, in recongition that sans football the athletic department shrinks.  

Secondly the Death Penalty for SMU was one year (and another voluntary year by SMU to get their house in order IIRC).  They then deemphasised football which slowed their comeback.  So even if we double down on SMU and did 4 years of death penalty, which I don't advocate for this is just an example, it's a clear window for donors.  A lot of people are going to keep donating to the Athletic Department in the hope that football can come back strong after the penalty is lifted (keep the facilities up to date, etc).  In reality the death penalty would at worst be a couple of years of PSU surviving on lean times, they deserve those lean times.  

Edit:

As odd as it sounds I really do think no football at PSU for a couple years would do them a favor.  Football did basically build PSU.  It took them from a glorified commuter college up the road from Harrisburg to a member of the B1G and the CiC.  A lot of their academic units have done great things with the CiC money (see the Penn State Hershey Medical Center as an example) and deserve to be lauded for that.  The problem is a lot of people haven't quite grasped that just because football got you a seat at the table means it has to drive the bus and be protected at all costs.  It's time for PSU to make the change over from football cult to credible research institution that is proud of the fact it is also good at sports.  The Sandusky scandal and reaction to me shows that they lack the internal ability to make that switch.  At Michigan we pulled the Fab 5 banners down the minute there was a scandal.  We acknowledge Yost's role in building Michigan but don't play him up as the penultimate Michigan Man because he was a racist.  We don't sit there and argue about his Willis Ward comments being taken out of context.  Instead we laud Ford for standing up to Yost. Some external power needs to try to smack PSU back to reality and get them to stop this cultist bullshit since it doens't look like their internal community will.  

If tomorrow we all woke up and football was gone from Michigan, we'd be pissed but we'd move on and be proud of other aspects of Michigan.  The campus admins would likely be having monkey knife fights over who got space on South Campus for their research labs and the hospital would be planning to convert The Big House into Motts South.  We like sports but we can function without them, PSU needs to become aware of that.

TheTruth41

July 18th, 2012 at 1:23 PM ^

to Penn State on behalf of the abused children fund.

The renovated showers will have a plaque on the wall stating "Shows Facilities donated by Penn State on behalf of abused children's fund".

New weight room will say "Weight Room donated by Penn State on behalf of..."

So on and so forth.

Mr Miggle

July 18th, 2012 at 3:42 PM ^

 

The football surplus funds most of the other sports at Penn State, as it does at most big universities. If you route the surplus into a victims' rights charity, you kill the whole athletic department, including swimmers, gymnasts, wrestlers, hurdlers, etc. Now, maybe that's the writer's real agenda, but he sure didn't say so.

Penn State would simply have to look for an alternate funding source for their other sports. Schools that can use football to fund their entire athletic department are in the minority. PSU has to make choices about how they allocate their funds. Does it really matter if those funds come from football, donors, the state or student fees? Just because they've being doing things one way doesn't mean they can't adapt.

I find it interesting how many commenters worry about how they will replace lost football revenue, while no one talks about how they are going to replace the money needed to cover lawsuits?

All Aboard

July 18th, 2012 at 1:14 PM ^

The more I think about it, the more I believe Penn State should not have a football program. Everything they have ever been is because of JoePa, which means to me that it is forever fatally flawed. Whatever solution there may be to this horrid mess will be very interesting, because I don't think anyone knows what to do.

Dr.Jay

July 18th, 2012 at 1:28 PM ^

Great job moronic PSU fans, guard a statue of a man who stood for nothing. He could have protected children from being raped but turned his head toward winning and money.

On a sidenote see if anyone can wrap their head around this statistic. 1 in 40 children whom are sexually abused come forward ....1 in 40.... 10 kids testified against tickle monster, if you go by that statistic did he rape 400 kids? could be more. Most psycologists say serial pedophiles dont start when they are in their 50's and the amount of kids they abuse is in the 100's.

The NCAA will drop the hammer on the school mark my words, maybe no death penalty but they may as well with the sanctions they will get hit with. If there is a hell may JoePa be burning in it.