Poor Joe Pa. He is playing the victim card. The King of Happy Valley doesn’t think he did anything wrong. Ask the mothers of the defenseless little boys whether they think Paterno did anything wrong. Put yourself into their shoes as the parent of one of these boys. What would you say to Joe Paterno? Would you tell him he was innocent until proven guilty? Or would you punch him in the mouth and curse him for thinking of his beloved football team over the lives of little boys?
Mothers of two of Jerry Sandusky’s alleged victims lash out at Penn State officials’ handling of scandal
He was the last victim, that we know of, to come forward.
But in many ways, he was the first.
He was one of the first with enough courage to say something. To stick around for three years while police and a grand jury talked to dozens of people and combed through thousands of documents.
To hang on emotionally.
To take a stand against a Goliath. A legend. A man that some saw as a god.
He was the first to be believed. Authorities even call him Victim One.
The mother of the Clinton County boy is telling her family story. It’s a story that launched a three-year grand jury investigation that resulted in sexual assault charges against former Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky, allegedly involving eight boys.
“I’m very proud of him,” the mother said of her son, on the brink of adulthood and at the heart of what some are calling the biggest scandal in college sports.
“He’s a brave kid,” she said. “And his major concern in the whole thing was for anybody else. That was his big thing. He said, ‘I just don’t want this to happen to anybody else.’”
And now he knows that he’s not alone.
Ten years before he came forward, another child, now 24, had also spoken up. He wasn’t believed. Allegations he made against Sandusky about touching during a shared shower at Penn State in 1998 never resulted in charges.
Sandusky, through his attorney, denies all the charges. Attorney Joe Amendola, said Sandusky attributes the allegations to troubled kids who are acting out.
“I’m so upset,” said the mom of the 24-year-old, who authorities are calling Victim Six. “My son is extremely distraught, and now to see how we were betrayed, words cannot tell you. To see that Graham Spanier is putting his unconditional support behind Curley and Shultz when he should be putting his support behind the victims, it just makes them victims all over again.”
She’s talking about the perjury and failure-to-report charges filed against former Penn State athletic director Tim Curley and resigned Vice President of Business and Finance Gary Schultz.
Prosecutors allege the administrators ignored a 2002 report from a graduate assistant — identified by sources as Mike McQueary — that he saw Sandusky having sex with a young boy in a shower.
McQueary, now an assistant coach for the Nittany Lions football team, went to his father first, then to coach Joe Paterno.
“I don’t even have words to talk about the betrayal that I feel,” said the mom of Victim Six. “[McQueary] was a grown man, and he saw a boy being sodomized … He ran and called his daddy?”
As media from around the country descended on Happy Valley on Monday to dig into the allegations and the details of a possible cover-up, the two mothers decided to talk to The Patriot-News.
Both said they don’t want their sons’ stories to get lost in the scandal.
Victim One
Victim One met Sandusky through the Second Mile — a charity for needy children that Sandusky started — and quickly got drawn into his world of big-time college football: gifts, trips, sporting events, and hanging out with a guy who seemed to be loved by everyone.
But his mother said it came at a price.
The Patriot-News will not identify either women or their sons in keeping with our policy not to name victims of sexual assault. The mother of Victim One specifically asked that other media respect her request for no more interviews.
She brought the psychologist who has been helping her son cope with the trauma to the interview.
Almost from day one, psychologist Michael Gillum has met regularly with the boy and counseled him through the protracted police investigation.
A few weeks before her son broke down and confessed to a principal at Central Mountain High School in Clinton County that he was being molested by Jerry Sandusky — a volunteer football coach at his high school — his mother began to suspect something was wrong.
First, it was because her son was acting out. When she grounded him, she said Sandusky demanded he be able to “take care of it.”
“I said, ‘No way, he’s my kid,’” she said.
Then, her son began asking her about an online database for “sex weirdos.”
“You don’t want to just accuse people of that,” the mother said. “I called the school principal and the guidance counselor and said, if nothing else, he’s taking my son out of classes. He’s leaving the school with him. … So I asked them to call him into the office and ask [my son] how he felt.
“They did call him to the office that day and I remember [the principal] was in tears and she said, ‘You need to come here right away.’”
Her son, then 15, broke down and told them what happened.
“They told me to go home and think about what I wanted to do, and I was not happy,” she said. “They said I needed to think about how that would impact my son if I said something like that. I went home and got [my son] and we came to [Children and Youth Services] immediately.”
Officials at Central Mountain High School have said they immediately reported the abuse, and Attorney General Linda Kelly praised them for doing the right thing.
The boy’s story would evolve over the next few weeks as he was interviewed by police. That’s not atypical for sex cases involving teens, Gillum said.
“It’s essentially peeling back the layers of an onion,” Gillum said. “Because it’s so humiliating. It’s so much mental anguish. … They typically want you to know something inappropriate happened, then there was a progression where boundaries were violated.”
But sometimes it takes time for the victim to get it all out.
That’s something Sandusky’s attorney Joe Amendola points to in defense.
He said it appears someone coaxed this victim into embellishing his story because it changed from groping to more graphic sex acts.
Gillum called it a typical defense tactic.
“They will imply … that I must have led the witness,” he said. “But when you’re specialized in children and adolescent child abuse, you’re trained to make sure you wouldn’t compromise the evidence.”
Victim Six
Victim Six cried when he read the 23-page grand jury presentment released Saturday, his mother said. And not for himself.
“He had no idea how bad it was,” she said. “He was lucky. He only had that one contact with him.”
It allegedly happened in May 1998, following a tour of the football locker rooms. Her son and another boy, both 11, shared a shower with Sandusky.
When he got home he said, ‘If you’re wondering why my hair is wet, we took a shower together,’ and ran into his room, his mom recalls.
She called police.
But after a six-week investigation that included the mother confronting Sandusky in her home as police listened in the other room, Sandusky was cleared.
Then-Centre County District Attorney Ray Gricar decided there wasn’t enough evidence.
“And you’re going to tell me that Spanier and Paterno weren’t informed of something that was that huge that Ray Gricar was in on it but Spanier was kept in the dark?” she said. “I’m just not that stupid. I’m so upset I just can’t believe it.”
Paterno’s son, Scott, has said that lawyers for Penn State assured him his father was never told about the 1998 report — investigated by university police.
It’s unclear from the presentment if Spanier knew. However, Schultz, who was in charge of the police force, acknowledged knowing about it.
When the mother confronted Sandusky, he said: “I understand. I was wrong. I wish I could get forgiveness. I know I won’t get it from you. I wish I were dead,” according the presentment from the grand jury.
An investigator for Children and Youth Services broke the news to the mother: It was all a big mistake, the mother said she was told. The police officer who investigated won’t comment. Neither will the former police chief.
“Jerry Sandusky admitted to my face, he admitted it,” the mother said. “He admitted that he lathered up my son they were naked and he bear-hugged him. If they would have done something about it in 1998, and then again in 2002 — there was two chances they dropped the ball and I think they should all be held accountable.”
Her son, she said, can’t stop thinking about Victim One.
“That poor child,” she said. “My heart is like breaking for this boy and his family. And what about all the boys we don’t know about? They could have all been saved.”
The only semblance of comfort their family has had in the last three days is from community support.
“At last, my family and I are believed,” she said. “Because they tried to make my son and the other boy out to be liars.”
Every day was a struggle
Finding the courage to come forward was supposed to be the hardest part.
“We expected you just arrest people who do stuff like that,” Victim One’s mom said. “We didn’t realize it was going to be this difficult and take this long.”
The three-year investigation eventually ended with a grand jury finding that Sandusky had eight victims — two of them had long-term relationships with Sandusky and six involved shared showers in Lasch Building at Penn State, which houses the football program.
“I am upset that it took this long, but I also realize that the more people they find, the less impact it’s going to have on my son … and it’s only going to help everybody else,” the mom said.
Hearing that he wasn’t alone was a challenge of emotions for her son.
“He wasn’t happy that it happened to somebody else,” she said.
But in a way, there was some relief: more chance that he would be believed.
It was very hard to keep their cool, to keep the allegations a secret, and not talk to anyone. But they did it.
When the arrests were announced Saturday, and the family learned that two Penn State officials had known about a prior incident and didn’t report it to police, she flipped out.
“I’m infuriated that people would not report something like that,” she said. “I still can’t believe it. I’m appalled. I’m shocked. I’m stunned. There’s so many words. I’m very mad. They could have prevented this from happening.”
Her son has accused Sandusky of four years of abuse, and it started not long after Curley and Schultz were notified of a abuse report in 2002.
The attorney general has said their inaction allowed Sandusky to molest this boy.
His mom said he knows that.
“He’s very angry,” she said. “I just can’t fathom how anybody could do that. When I read the indictment, I was very shocked that there was so many people that didn’t do anything … and there had to be more people covering it up, I think, for him to get away with it for this long.”
When her son first came forward, every day was a struggle. There was this overwhelming feeling of deception. Sandusky was supposed to be a role model.
“In the beginning, it was extremely upsetting. I was so shocked. It got so bad we didn’t know what to do,” she said. “[He] is really, really afraid of Jerry. He told me numerous times when he started backing away from him, you just can’t tell him no. I said, why not?”
Her son replied, “You just don’t do that.”
“His attorney was saying how these disadvantaged children, you can’t trust them … because they come from low income. I don’t think that has any bearing on anything,” she said. “I was warned that is what this basically would be about, because kids in The Second Mile are basically disadvantaged.”
In the first page of their presentment, grand jurors noted that, too. They accused Sandusky of using the charity to find his victims, “many of whom were vulnerable due to their social situations.”
“Obviously it’s a price that the brave victim pays,” Gillum said.
At some point, Joe Paterno and the leadership at Penn State University came to the realization that they were responsible for the rape of children, and that they did nothing to stop it. Maybe it was a week later, a month later, a year later. And then the Grand Jury came, and they had no choice. They knew the day was coming that the report would be released and charges would be forthcoming. So, the leadership at the university decided to defend and make excuses and ‘unconditionally support’ men who lied under oath about the rape of children. In other words, to continue a coverup that had lasted nearly a decade.
I’m sure glad my tuition dollars are being used to pay for the lawyers of dirtbags that were accomplices to the rape of 17 little boys.
What? One Joe Pa thread isn’t enough?
Your just doing this to TORMENT sss, aren’t you? Fess up!!
Mike McQueary — a most unfortunate surname …. considering the circumstances.
Admin – the tens of millions of dollars that the university will be paying in civil suits will require that you pay 15% more in tuition in the coming years – but hey, on the bright side, the football team should still be good.
Robmu1
The Penn State students should do what the Iraqis did to Sadaam’s statue.
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Looks like Joe will be running out on the field on Saturday, in front of 100,000 screaming fans. So 8 or 9 or 10 kids were raped…beat Nebraska!
Stucky, No more unfortunate than the fact that Penn State is playing the “Cornhuskers” this weekend.. I share Admins rage. And McQueary is a pussy for not fighting for that boy. Right then. With all the strength he had.
Admin, I don’t know what’s in the water on the Penn State campus, but the students I saw on “Nightline” last night were standing outside Paterno’s house screaming “We love you, Joe!” Hundreds of students.
It makes my skin crawl to think of what Sandusky did to those children. But nothing creeped me out more than seeing throngs of Penn State students cheering for Paterno. I am truly ill over it.
May I suggest, for the sake of your psychological well-being, that there not be another thread devoted to the subject of Joe Paterno and his culpability. No amount of debate can remedy this travesty, and no deliberation is required. (don’t twist your balls over that statement, SSS… this isn’t a court of law… read the transcripts and calibrate your moral compass.)
However, it the rabid idolatry being exhibited by the students begs some discussion. To me, it is evidence of how psychologically compromised the Millennials are. How did this come to be? Isn’t this truly an indictment of our entire society? What the fuck are we doing? It’s as awful to know that a significant percentage of our people do not have the ability to process and appropriately respond to violence as it is to know that child rapists are lurking in the shadows. This poses an even greater threat to our society than the rapists themselves.
What I saw on “Nightline” with those screaming, adoring, college kids was nothing short of a sociological nightmare. We can turn over, drink some cognac and/or take a fucking Ambien, or we can try to wake the fuck up.
indiejen
When my local news came on last night showing the throngs of students cheering Paterno and him leading a cheer and raising his arms like he just won the National Championship, I started to scream and curse at the TV. My wife can vouch that I did so for about ten minutes. I’m beyond livid about this situation and will need to write an article to get it off my chest.
What has happened to this country? I am no longer proud to be a citizen of the United States. Our society has degraded to such a point that I fear we can never recover. I’m disgusted, angry and depressed.
Admin, I am right there with you. Not that company provides any solace in the pit of despair.
Paterno is a gen Xer.
indiejen
It keeps getting worse. FOX just reported that Joe Pa will retire at the END of the season!! Fuck Fuck Fuckity Fuck.
I’m disappointed in the student support for Joe Pa. But, not surprised. Winning is everything. Bob Knight was worshipped my millions of Hoosier fans, despite his often abhorrent behavior … because he won National Championships.
Hero worship rules the day. How else does one explain the continued adoration of Obama by a large segment of the population. How else does one explain an INCREASE in Cain’s poll numbers after all the sexual misconduct charges?
I doubt it’s just Millennials. Wait until Saturday and 100,000 fans cheer wildly for Joe Pa … people of all age groups and many demographics … cheering their beloved Joe Pa. A real winner!!
THIS IS NOTHING BUT A POWER PLAY BY PATERNO TO CONTROL HIS OWN DESTINY. THE TRUSTEES NEED TO TELL HIM TO GO FUCK HIMSELF!!!
Paterno Wants to Retire at End of Season
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — Penn State Coach Joe Paterno announced Wednesday that he plans to retire at the end of the football season, though it remains unclear if the university will allow him to coach that long in the wake of a sexual abuse scandal that has implicated top school officials.
The New York Times reported Tuesday that Penn State’s Board of Trustees had determined that Paterno would not coach next season, but was still discussing the precise timing of his exit. Despite Paterno’s statement Wednesday, his immediate future is still in the hands of the board, which is scheduled to meet Friday. Gov. Tom Corbett plans to be in attendance.
One of his former longtime assistants, Jerry Sandusky, has been charged with sexually abusing eight boys over a 15-year span. Paterno’s actions with regard to the allegations have come under criticism. Upon learning about a suspected 2002 assault by Sandusky of a young boy in the football building’s showers, Paterno redirected the graduate assistant who reported the assault to the athletic director, rather than notifying the police. Paterno said the graduate assistant who reported the assault, Mike McQueary, said only that something disturbing had happened that was perhaps sexual in nature.
Late Tueday, the Board of Trustees released a statement saying it was “outraged by the horrifying details” in the grand jury’s report on the case and promised it would take “swift, decisive action.” It said it planned to appoint a special committee to undertake a “full and complete” investigation.
“At this moment the Board of Trustees should not spend a single minute discussing my status,” Paterno said in the statement. “They have far more important matters to address. I want to make this as easy for them as I possibly can. This is a tragedy. It is one of the great sorrows of my life. With the benefit of hindsight, I wish I had done more.”
Stucky, I agree with you. It’s not just Millennials. It’s everybody.
I keep having a waking nightmare: it’s Joe Paterno on a campus sidewalk, on the fucking quad or whatever, with his dick up a 9-year old’s butt, smiling and waving to the throngs of adoring fans, with the crowd pumping their fists in the air and chanting “Joe, Joe, Joe, Joe, Joe!” as if cheering for keg stands at the frat party.
I’m going to stick my finger in the nearest electrical outlet. Gonna need some shock therapy for this one.
Penn State Unveils New Statue Honoring Paterno and Sandusky
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Another record low point for our civilization… so much for producing open minded critical thinkers at our universities… thanks also to the mass media for their fair and balanced reporting
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This begs for a caption …
Just slide it in like this.
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Ok. Enough levity.
Time to make you all puke.
Rally outside Joe Pa’s house.
His knowing about what happened and doing nothing of any consequence is the same as old Joe sticking his dick up a ten year boys sphincter. Just because he’s catholic doesn’t excuse him from reporting ass-raping.
And now, back to our regularly scheduled program: “Baby Boomers eat shit”
In every man’s life there is some point where you actually need to be a man and do the right thing. Unfortunately, Joepa proved he is a gutless scumbag and no man at all. He is a disgrace!
Where does the PA State Attorney General stand on all of this? Has anybody heard? Has any resident of PA made any phone calls to the AG demanding a sweeping investigation?
I mean, there was a goddamn District Attorney that was DISAPPEARED over all this. Jeezus.
Penn State has been allowed to police itself in this entire matter. The trustees themselves should be ousted. As far as I’m concerned, the NCAA should sanction the Penn State football program. If there’s no football, the junkies can’t get their fix and they might detoxify their brains enough to actually THINK.
Mind you, I love football. I’m just not a sociopath.
Research suggests that, “psychopaths are a stable proportion of any population, can be from any segment of society, may constitute a distinct taxonomical class forged by frequency-dependent natural selection, and that the muting of the social emotions is the proximate mechanism that enables psychopaths to pursue their self-centered goals without felling the pangs of guilt. Sociopaths are more the products of adverse environmental experiences that affect autonomic nervous system and neurological development that may lead to physiological responses similar to those of psychopaths. Antisocial personality disorder is a legal/clinical label that may be applied to both psychopaths and sociopaths” (Walsh & Wu, 2008).
Sandusky: psychopath
Paterno: psychopath
Millennials: sociopaths, for having been born and raised in a morally bankrupt environment governed largely by psychopaths
OUR VIEW: Penn State’s Graham Spanier, Joe Paterno need to leave as result of Jerry Sandusky case. Doing what the law required wasn’t enough
Published: Tuesday, November 08, 2011, 7:00 AM
By Patriot-News Editorial Board The Patriot-News
There are the obligations we all have to uphold the law. There are then the obligations we all have to do what is right.
It has become increasingly clear that while Penn State University President Graham Spanier has not been charged with breaking any laws, he did not do what is right — for his school or, more importantly, for the alleged victims of coaching legend Jerry Sandusky.
Spanier needs to step aside. If he doesn’t, the university board of trustees needs to take that step when it meets this week.
As for Joe Paterno, the face of Penn State and the man who has pushed for excellence on the football field and for the entire university, this must be his last season. His contract should not be extended.
This is not about age. This is not about rebuilding a football team.
It is impossible not to cringe when hearing the charges against Sandusky. From 1994 to 2008, he is said to have sexually abused eight boys as young as 8 years old. Some victims reported up to 20 incidents.
Though Sandusky is said by the attorney general’s office to have found the boys through his Second Mile charity for kids, many incidents are said to have happened in the football locker room at Penn State — both before and after Sandusky retired as a Nittany Lions coach in 1999.
The allegations are horrifying in nature, stupefying in quantity, nauseating in detail.
The courts will determine whether Jerry Sandusky is guilty of any crime. Until then, he is presumed innocent. That is the bedrock of our democracy.
The court system will also determine whether Athletic Director Tim Curley and university Vice President Gary Schultz committed perjury. The twists and turns of such things as the statute of limitations and legal definitions will play key roles in the courtroom.
But right now, here, today, we know what Spanier and Paterno did — and did not do.
According to the grand jury, in 2002, then-graduate assistant Mike McQueary saw Sandusky performing a sex act on a young boy in the football locker room showers. Distraught, he went to head coach Joe Paterno.
Paterno’s response was to tell his boss. He called Curley at home, on a Sunday — he knew it was serious.
He told Curley that Sandusky had been seen “fondling or doing something of a sexual nature” with a boy in the showers.
That is what Paterno said under oath.
And with that, the attorney general has determined, Joe Paterno fulfilled his obligation under the law.
Graham Spanier, too, apparently did everything the law required.
Curley and Schultz told Spanier there was “inappropriate conduct” between Sandusky and the boy.
Curley insists that is what he heard from McQueary. Schultz concedes that he heard “Sandusky might have inappropriately grabbed” the young boy’s private parts.
So how did a college football legend, known nationally for the integrity of his program, respond to a report of “something of a sexual nature” occurring between his longtime colleague and a little boy?
And how did a university president responsible for the welfare of thousands of young people respond to the very idea that an older man was showering with a boy and engaging in “inappropriate conduct” on campus?
They banned Jerry Sandusky from bringing children on campus.
That was all.
Here is what they did not do:
Neither Joe Paterno nor Graham Spanier called the police.
Neither Joe Paterno nor Graham Spanier seem to have demonstrated any concern for the victim. They never tried to find him. They never tried to get him the emotional help he might need.
When Paterno heard that the milquetoast response was to ban Sandusky from bringing kids on campus — a ban that Curley himself called unenforceable — there is no indication Joe ever went to Spanier to warn him that this could be far more serious.
Spanier didn’t even think it important to speak personally with McQueary. If he had, McQueary would have told him what he told the grand jury: that he saw a boy pinned against the shower wall and Sandusky engaged in what the law calls “involuntary deviate sexual intercourse.”
How about more recently?
Paterno and Spanier both knew that a grand jury was investigating Sandusky for possible sexual abuse. They were called to testify. Yet Sandusky continued to have a private office on campus and access to any building.
At midnight Sunday, Spanier issued a statement that said, “The protection of children is of paramount importance. The university will take a number of actions moving forward to increase the safety and security within our facilities and make everyone aware of the protocols in place for handling these issues.”
Where was Spanier’s concern when he first heard about the investigation?
That was the time to think: “Whether Jerry Sandusky committed a crime or not, I need to ensure the safety of children on our campus right now.”
The attorney general has determined that Paterno and Spanier did everything the law required. But a university president must be held to a higher standard. The most famous coach in college football history must be held to a higher standard.
Since taking the reins in 1995, Graham Spanier has done great things for Penn State. He has built world-class facilities, added a law school, increased fundraising and strengthened the school’s reputation as a center for research.
But a leader who lacks moral authority has nothing. By doing the absolute minimum when hearing potentially serious allegations, by doing more to protect the school’s reputation than to protect children, Spanier has lost that moral authority.
Joe Paterno is a different story. That doesn’t let him off the hook. He should have done more. A man who has spoken with such affection for 46 years about “his kids” failed real kids when they needed him most.
But this incident does not undo a lifetime of achievement.
Some people will argue that Joe should step down immediately as well. Given what we know now, we don’t agree. Paterno should be allowed to finish out the year and retire with the honor and admiration he has earned since taking over as head coach in 1966.
It might always be honor with an asterisk, admiration with a shake of the head. Joe will have to live with that.
There will be other people who argue that Graham Spanier and Joe Paterno should not be punished at all. After all, they obeyed the law.
Eight little boys would have said: that simply isn’t enough.
Read the reviews of Jerry Sandusky’s book on Amazon:
OMG, so in the annals (not to be confused with anals) of sports history, we’re now doling out asterisks for child rape as well as steroid use.
Fucking fabulous.
At Penn State, football is more important than morality and the law
Karen Heller, Inquirer Columnist
In Happy Valley, JoePa is pope. In his 46th season as head coach, and most likely his last, Joe Paterno can claim 409 career wins for a program annually generating $72 million.
To many proud alums, Joe Paterno and his Nittany Lions football program are Penn State.
Penn State takes its football very, very seriously.
Credible accounts that a former assistant coach was sexually abusing young boys? Not so seriously.
Eyewitnesses saw former defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky do horrible things in the Lions’ locker room, according to the grand jury presentment.
In 2002 a graduate assistant, now Penn State’s wide receivers coach, saw a naked boy about age 10 “with his hands up against the wall, being subjected to anal intercourse by a naked Sandusky,” a brutal incident difficult to forget or misinterpret.
The assistant reported the matter to Paterno, who told officials that Sandusky was “fondling or doing something of a sexual nature.”
In possibly the worst version of Whisper Down the Lane ever, athletic director Tim Curley subsequently deemed the episode “horsing around.”
Rape, horsing around. Why not characterize the episode as tickling?
Calls were made, an internal report filed, but outside authorities were never called.
This wasn’t the first time.
In 1998, Sandusky’s illicit behavior was observed and investigated by Penn State officials, actions Sandusky actually acknowledged.
That was 13 years and who knows how many young boys ago.
As with the Catholic Church’s priest scandals, Sandusky’s alleged hideous actions and the inexcusable inaction on the part of Penn State’s administration occurred in an all-male, cloistered, and hierarchical community where the authority of top officials is never questioned and the reputation of a moneyed institution, venerated by the faithful, takes precedence over morality and the law.
According to Scott Paterno, his father never spoke about the allegations to Sandusky, an assistant for 32 years.
Seven of the eight juvenile victims reported that Sandusky engaged in criminal sexual behavior on campus property.
What happened at Penn State stayed at Penn State, all secrets sacred in the temple of football.
The rationalization appears to be that Sandusky had retired from coaching – even though he continued to “mentor” foster children from “absent or dysfunctional families” while enjoying full access to Penn State’s facilities.
Loyalty was to the football program, not the well-being of young children.
“This has been as hard on Joe as anything I’ve ever seen him endure in the sense of trying to come to grips with ‘How did this happen?’ ” Paterno’s son said.
“When he was first told this [in 2002], he was 75. This was so far from what he could possibly conceive of. You come back to him now, he’s 84. It’s so outside of what he can even imagine.”
Let’s get this straight. Papa Joe, at 84, isn’t too old to coach football. He’s just too old to comprehend or deal with alleged illegal and immoral acts in his locker room.
“This guy grew up in a Norman Rockwell painting and wanted to live in one in State College,” Scott Paterno said.
It’s a little too late for that.
Horrors happen. The goal should be to stop them from happening again.
Penn State president Graham Spanier, a family therapist by training, should have been sensitive to charges of sexual abuse.
Instead, he pledged “unconditional support” for Curley and senior vice president Gary Schultz, the pair charged with failing to report the crimes and lying to the grand jury.
Meanwhile, Sandusky’s lawyer argued that his client has “helped thousands of kids. It’s just a shame this comes down to this stuff.”
Right, stuff.
So many grown men protecting each other in the service of football, money, and reputation. The school’s alma mater pledges, “May no act of ours bring shame.”
At Penn State, in the nation’s second-largest stadium, football is the holy church, the almighty.
And all these men, these football-worshipping men, are complicit in their silence and the anguish they might have spared so many innocent young boys.
Report: Penn State president will be gone by end of day
With news that longtime head football coach Joe Paterno plans to retire at the end of this season, Penn State president Graham Spanier will either resign or be voted out by the board of trustees by the end of the day, according to The Express-Times.
The school’s executive vice president and provost Rodney A. Erickson is likely to serve as interim president while a nationwide search for a permanent replacement gets underway.
In 2002, Spanier was made aware that then-graduate assistant Mike McQueary saw former defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky allegedly sexually assault a young boy in a shower in the team’s football locker room. According to grand jury testimony, Spanier did not contact police when finding out about the assault. While he has not been charged as of this time, many around the campus and across the nation have called for Spanier’s resignation.
Meanwhile, athletic director Tim Curley and vice president Gary Schultz face charges related to a cover-up in the sex scandal. Spanier has shown his support in recent days for both of the administrators.
Admin – seriously, have you considered pulling your son out of school there at end of semester? He is a bright kid and could attend elsewhere. Vote with your feet.
Soooo … the president gets canned.
And ….. Paterno stays??
Holy Fuck. Joe Pa is one powerful mo fo.
is there any doubt or reasonable debate that the football program and the university would be better served if paterno voluntarily resigned effective immediately?
he is so full of shit. his first press release directly contradicted his grand jury testimony, as reported in the GJ presentment/statement of facts. his second was self-serving bullcrap. what possible good to the institution for him to remain another minute? he could show his love for the university by leaving now.
JVPES
fuck him.
Are you people just ignorant or just stupid? Explain to me why there is more emphasis being put on Joe Paterno, who followed University and legal guidelines (and there was the head of the campus police present when Paterno reported this), as opposed to the Athletic Director who did in fact sit on top of these allegations and fail to report them? How do you know Paterno did not follow-up? The AD more than likely told him it was handled.
If you want blood – go after Mike McQueary who witnessed this and did nothing. WTF? Someone needs to lather him up. I want to know why the hell he did not stop it. What a punk.
Lee – with an opening comment like the one in the last post, you are about to get you ass kicked. Seriously. Peddle your bullshit “are you just ignorant or stupid” somewhere else, dickhead. People around here eat numbnuts like you for a snack. Admin is likely going to fillet your nuts for that, if he sees it. And I will happily point it out to him. Nice future you have around here.
But ignoring your first comment and focusing on the last – McQuery needs shit kicked out of him. Walking away while a boy is raped is below despicable.
Can the generalized insults and maybe you will survive.
..nothing new here…Sexual assault have been much a part of sports for decades. Football is the US’s pagan idol whose image must not be tarnished ,regardless the crime….no sacrifice is too great for the team.go ass grabbers!
http://espn.go.com/magazine/vol5no12uab.html
If Brittany had been lonely from day one on campus, she felt absolutely isolated during those first days in Blazer Hall. The Benefields say in their complaints that, because the school didn’t offer her another RA for a roommate, they chose a single room for Brittany. They say they preferred Brittany living alone to her sharing space with female students who might have beer in the fridge and boyfriends staying over. On her third day in Blazer, Brittany says, she entered the elevator and encountered a mountain of a man, a Blazer football player with a bushy afro and hands as thick as cinder blocks. Brittany tried to avoid making eye contact, but the man faced her as the doors shut. “Whussup, shorty?” he huffed, according to Brittany. She remembers feeling the blood drain from her face. He said he knew her; she was that child genius. He asked if she’d help him with a paper. Brittany panicked and stammered: “I’m 15.”
“Well, you don’t look it,” she says he told her.
Brittany’s emotions swirled as she stepped off the elevator. The comment about her appearance transformed her initial fear into a feeling that surprised her: acceptance. Maybe she belonged in this strange place after all. “That made me feel a lot better,” Brittany says. That night, she says, the player brought his paper — and a six-pack of beer — to her room. Brittany says she had never had a beer — or any kind of alcohol — but felt compelled to accept when she was offered one. According to Brittany, one led to another. And another. Brittany got wasted. She’d never even kissed a boy, and now she was making out with the player. Then they had sex.
The next morning, the burly football players seemed a lot less menacing to her. In fact, Brittany says, they began to treat her as if she belonged. That night, another player asked for homework help, and brought over more beer. Brittany says she got drunk again and the player persuaded her to perform oral sex. The next day, she says she got drunk and had sex with a third player, who introduced her to pot. “I felt accepted,” Brittany says. “I felt like they were my friends.”
The players joked with her that she was becoming their “play thing.” She began hanging with them all the time. They’d sit outside Blazer downing beer, bumming cigarettes, watching cars go by.
Brittany’s story may prove to be the most extreme recent case of sexual abuse in college sports, but it is not unique. Since August, athletes have been accused of sexual assault and rape at Colorado, Georgia, LSU, Notre Dame and Oklahoma State. And those are just the public accusations. In many college football towns, police forces have long had officers designated to deal with athlete-related investigations. They’re often the first dispatched to the scene and have a prior working relationship with coaches. The Oklahoma State victim, for instance, has alleged that a police officer tried to coerce her into signing a prosecution waiver while she was in the ICU.
“There is such an incestuous relationship [between police and athletic departments],” says Kathy Redmond, founder of the National Coalition Against Violent Athletes. “It’s very frightening.” Seven years ago, Redmond accused Huskers DT Christian Peter, who’d already been accused twice of assaulting women, of raping her four years earlier. No criminal charges were filed against Peter, but Redmond’s lawyers brought a civil suit against him and the university. Soon, she was taking on an entire football-mad state.
Lee, I wouldn’t be surprised if Paterno was taking it up the ass form Sir Dooky,.
And why not.No decent human being would tolerate the ass rape of any one , much less a juvenile , less they approved.Paterno knew and thus approve, therefore Penn State must be purged of the presence of evil by publicly tossing Mcnutless,Coach Patty -cakes and Ass. Sir Dooky into the burning lake of shit. and expunging their image from all University history..
And that’s just the start.
Lee…peel the ball sac from in front of your eyes…..The shower incident happened in 2002. Sandusky wasn’t removed from the Penn State facilities until 2009…7 years later . Don’t yah’ think Joe would have asked,” Why is that guy still around ” if he gave a shit ?
No he cared about one thing…winning and his Legacy.
He’ll have the wins but his legacy is in the toilet along with his morals !!!
So anybody wanna’ bet how the Penn State coaching staff is gonna’ be received this week-end during the game. I hope Joe Pa has his old ass kicked by someone…add McQuery to that too !
Buckhed says:
The shower incident happened in 2002. Sandusky wasn’t removed from the Penn State facilities until 2009…7 years later . Don’t yah’ think Joe would have asked,” Why is that guy still around ” if he gave a shit ?
And, Pat-er-now was just happy for a run-around-hug from Sandicky even as the back of his neck chaffed for the Sandicky’s 3 day old beard stubble.
Showing the love…..aren’t they just the cutest couple.I’m wondering how long it’s been since ol’ Pat and nod played tight end…reckon he’s playing coffee can end now.
I heard a talking shithead rep at Penn State on a talk show today lamenting how awful it is for such a revered figured head as Joe Pappa Cover-Up to have to leave the field in such a cloud of disgraceand thought serves the evil bastard right….fuck ’em with a rusty fork.
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PATERNO HIRES A PR MAGGOT
Joe Paterno hires Crisis PR spin doctor
With his job, reputation and legacy teetering on the brink, Penn State coach Joe Paterno has hired his own Crisis PR specialist to help navigate the child sex abuse scandal centered around ex-defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky.
The 84-year old Paterno has brought in communications expert Dan McGinn of TMG Strategies, according to the O’Dwyer’s PR newsletter. The Arlington, Va.-based firm represents “Fortune 500 companies, leading educational institutions, law firms and non-profits,” according to the company’s web site.
Hey Admin – take a look at what lee said above. Sic ‘im.
I am always happy to instigate an execution if it is warranted.
llpoh
I’m running low on vitriol. I used it all up on SSS.
Lee can kiss my fat ass.
Just in from ESPN…the game this week-end is being called The Cornhusker’s vs The Cornholer’s !
Perhaps it is time for the students of Penn State to do what the administration won’t do: shut down the football program. Don’t go to the game on Saturday. Ask for refunds for their tickets. If Catholics stopped going to church because of the scandal with the abuse of children, shouldn’t football fans boycott Penn State football? Or is football more important to Penn State fans than protecting children?
On Sandusky and This Nation of Cowards
Posted by Ann Barnhardt – November 8, AD 2011 8:09 PM MST
I read the grand jury report on Penn State football coach Jerry Sandusky and couldn’t believe what I was reading. I’m not going to link to it because it is awful. If you want to read it you can find it yourself. It wasn’t the fact that Sandusky was a pedophile that was so shocking. We all know about the horror of pedophilia and that it exists in the world. No, what really shook me were the actions of the people around Sandusky – and two of those people in particular.
One was a 28 year old (at the time) graduate assistant in the Penn State football program. He testified before the grand jury, and the grand jury found him to be “extremely credible”. This grad assistant testified that he literally walked in on Sandusky anally raping a ten year old boy in the Penn State football locker room showers. Right in the middle of the act itself. He even testified that both Sandusky and the child turned and looked at him – in the middle of the rape act.
What did this grad assistant do? He ran away. He ran away from a child in the midst of being raped. The next day he went to Joe Paterno’s house and told Joe Paterno what he saw. In this we have the proof that Joe Paterno KNEW what Sandusky was, and he basically let it slide. For this, Joe Paterno deserves not only to lose his job, but he also deserves to spend some time in prison. Aw, but he’s a kind old man. That may be. But that “kind old man” let a man whom he KNEW to be a child rapist have the run of his football facility until JUST LAST WEEK.
What should Joe Paterno have done, you may ask? Well, let’s look to history. Have you ever noticed, or thought it strange, that there is no significant mention of child rapists in the courts or prisons in Western Civilization up until about 100 years ago? Why do you think this is? Is it because sex crimes against children are a recent invention? No. The difference is that up until recently, society was healthy enough that it was able to police itself when necessary. When men were caught, and I mean CAUGHT IN THE ACT, like Sandusky, of raping a child, justice was carried out almost instantaneously. There was no need to involve the courts and humiliate and further traumatize the poor child. The crime was eyewitnessed, and the penalty was an absolute given. And so, the men of the community would discreetly either shoot or hang the pedophile. And it was over. The child could move on, and the men in the community moved on secure in the knowledge that the pedophile would never harm another child, with most of the community remaining unscandalized having known nothing about it, and the pedophile, knowing that he was about to die, was also afforded the mercy of the knowledge and understanding of the urgent need for his repentance and to earnestly beg God’s forgiveness before he died. This was, by far, the best possible outcome for all concerned.
But what do we do today? Apparently, most people do nothing. They are too narcissistic, too greedy, and too cowardly to act, even if it means to save a child who is being raped. Joe Paterno was more concerned with his reputation and Penn State’s reputation, and so he watered down Sandusky’s crime to mere “horseplay” and let it slide. Joe Paterno spent YEARS sitting in meetings, palling around, back-slapping, glad-handing and socializing with a man he KNEW to be a child rapist. He didn’t even call the police. The mind reels. And I’ll say it again: Paterno should spend some time in prison, as should anyone who aids and abets a pedophile.
Now back to the grad assistant. He wasn’t alone. There was another instance in exactly the same showers when a janitor walked in on Sandusky orally raping another young boy of about 11 years of age. This janitor was so shaken by the grotesquery of what he had seen, even remarking to his co-workers that it was far worse than the intense combat carnage he saw in Vietnam, that his co-workers thought the man was going to have a heart attack. But again, what did the janitor do upon catching Sandusky? He RAN AWAY. He didn’t try to stop any of it. He just ran.
And this is a microcosm of the problem with our culture and why it is collapsing. There is evil in the world, and up until recently, we Christians had the strength and moral authority to not just confront evil, but to literally run at it in a full battle charge when we came across it. That is what we are supposed to do. Those men should have each rushed Sandusky and then either beat him into unconsciousness or broken his arms and legs, thus immobilizing him. They should have then covered and secured the child, and then called 911. But these men were so cowed by their own self-absorption, with both admitting to have feared for their respective positions at the time, that they literally ran away from a child in the midst of being brutally raped.
This is a sick and yet pristine allegory for what is happening to this culture on a macro scale today. We SEE what those “in power”, like Sandusky, are doing. We keep catching them in flagrante dilecto and are so overcome with fear, so far removed from Christ and His strength, that we do NOTHING. We slink away into the shadows of self-preservation. And more children are slaughtered. And more Mexican civilians are killed. And more money is stolen. And more mosques are built.
And so, to finish out the allegory, I am the janitor who came around that corner and saw the child being raped, and instead of running away and keeping my job, I bayonet-charged the rapist like a mercenary honey badger. There is no guarantee that I will be successful. My enemies are now simultaneously the Obama regime and the entire muslim death cult.
BUT, can you IMAGINE how those two boys felt when they saw a man there who could save them, and then seeing that man run away? The wound from that might have been worse than the wound from Sandusky himself. Those boys knew Sandusky was a pervert. What must have been hell for them was trying to figure out why the men who COULD have saved them, didn’t. Being abandoned is far, far worse than being violently attacked. You can get your head around being violently attacked – the violent attacker wants something from you. Abandonment simply says, “You’re not worth it.” Even if those men had just stood there and screamed at Sandusky, at least those boys would have known that someone gave a crap about them.
I guess you could say that what I’m doing between my private war against islam and my tax strike is trying to leave a record that someone actually gave a crap.
Sorry to have conceitedly worked myself into the allegory, but the “put yourself in those shoes” lesson about cowardice jumped out at me as being very instructive. Pray for Sandusky’s victims, which as of this writing are now numbered at over twenty boys. There will likely be more, as Sandusky was a stone-cold predator who had plenty of people “throwing blocks” for him.
Well, you got your wish — Paterno’s been fired.
He should go to jail.