Penn State Said to Be Planning Paterno’s Exit Amid Scandal

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The more I read about this, the worse Joe Pa comes off. Eff Joe Pa! And eff Mike McQueary! I'm not sure how those guys slept at night for the past 10 years.
 

Handsome Pete said:
I can honestly say I have never, not ever, heard a story so hideous in any sport in my life as what I read today about what has apparently been going on at Penn State since at least 2002. One piece said that since his retirement and throughout this entire timeframe, Jerry Sandusky has maintained an office at the football complex and was there just last week to "work out." When Paterno, the AD, and the school VP found out about Sandusky's molesting and raping, they told him he couldn't bring boys to the building and that he couldn't hold his football camps at the campus anymore. Regarding the latter, he was allowed to move his camps to another state campus near Erie.

I must admit I am a little hot under the collar but I will make some bold predictions here: (1) Paterno is sacked by Thursday at the latest; (2) everyone else falls, up to and including the University president; and (3) we are talking low nine figures for the school's minimum legal exposure when all is said and done. One of the foremost lawyers in the nation in cases concerning institutional sexual abuse (see: Catholic church) lives here in town and apparently has already been contacted by more than one victim. Whoever said Joe Paterno's pathetic, disgusting, sh*t eating presser at his bedroom window was a trial lawyer's wet dream hit the nail on the head.
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You are so right about the upcoming massive lawsuits that will happen. Each of these coaches/adminstrators will be sued and obviously PSU will be sued to the max. It will be amazing to watch this unfold.

It's easy to say that this is the biggest scandal in the history of sports and the most significant and most dramatic fall from grace for any athlete or coach. EVER.

Go Gophers!!
 

BleedGopher said:
Wow, these videos are alarming. Clearly Joe doesn't understand the severity of the allegations and the lives that have been destroyed through this mess. What happened to these kids is about the worse thing a person can endure and it can ruin a family for generations...that's how big these actions are and saying "Beat Nebraska" and "We Are Penn State" are shocking.

Go Gophers!!
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It took your comment for me to realize that I haven't seen one "We Are Penn State" commercial on ESPN today.
 

If Paterno reports to anybody, then he's not Paterno.

Get it?
 

BleedGopher said:
You are so right about the upcoming massive lawsuits that will happen. Each of these coaches/adminstrators will be sued and obviously PSU will be sued to the max. It will be amazing to watch this unfold.

It's easy to say that this is the biggest scandal in the history of sports and the most significant and most dramatic fall from grace for any athlete or coach. EVER.

Go Gophers!!
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While your comments may seem over the top, they are exactly what I have been thinking all day. Think of the biggest scandals in NCAA history and you will find slapping players, free tattoos, point shaving, and illegal benefits from schools, Ponzi schemers, boosters, and agents. The Penn State situation doesn't involve any of that. We are talking raping children here. Raping children. At Penn State. Joe Paterno knew Jerry Sandusky was raping children. So Paterno called his boss then let it slide, kept visiting with Sandusky, standing next to him at school events, and even allowing Sandusky to keep an office at the football complex for all of the past 12 years. I seriously do not think I can get my head around this.
 


Was always a fan of Paterno and his program. It is shocking and sad that he (apparently) didn’t (and still can’t) distinguish between legal responsibility and moral duty. And now this latest video -- disturbing on many levels -- only adds to this tragic story. Happy Valley doesn’t seem quite so idyllic anymore.
 

The guy's fricken senile, fricken out of touch. He should of retired or been forced out before this. Someone at Penn St has to grow a pair and fire the guy. Hell, he'd coach until he was 100 if you left it up to him.
 

zambam said:
So because he is the head coach he is held to higher moral standards than everyone else? Ridiculous.
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It's called leadership, and you're ridiculous if you don't understand that. People are blaming the GA, their blaming the GA, Paterno, and everyone else who knew about it.
 

Some Day...Is Coming! said:
The guy's fricken senile, fricken out of touch. He should of retired or been forced out before this. Someone at Penn St has to grow a pair and fire the guy. Hell, he'd coach until he was 100 if you left it up to him.
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Yeah, the videos make him look a confused old man. He appears to be completely oblivious to the seriousness of the situation. It's pretty sad to see, really.
 



Handsome Pete said:
While your comments may seem over the top, they are exactly what I have been thinking all day. Think of the biggest scandals in NCAA history and you will find slapping players, free tattoos, point shaving, and illegal benefits from schools, Ponzi schemers, boosters, and agents. The Penn State situation doesn't involve any of that. We are talking raping children here. Raping children. At Penn State. Joe Paterno knew Jerry Sandusky was raping children. So Paterno called his boss then let it slide, kept visiting with Sandusky, standing next to him at school events, and even allowing Sandusky to keep an office at the football complex for all of the past 12 years. I seriously do not think I can get my head around this.
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It's neck and neck with the Baylor Basketball scandal.
 


Penn St. is home this weekend, then goes on the road to Ohio St. and Wisconsin. If Paterno is allowed to coach through this season, I imagine it could get really ugly on the road. As we saw tonight, many of the Penn St. faithful are going to support him. It's a lot different in the rest of the country.
 

For any of you who've never seen the linked movie:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_K71iXYGlQ

The Ox Bow Incident, I highly recommend it - great movie (1943)!

Don't you all think that there's a little too much of this [the subject of this movie - mob/pitchfork mentality] going on right now? Everyone's jumping the gun to convict people before their sides of the story have even been told. Of course the subject of the current story is disgusting and vile, but civilized human beings would try to think about the situation a little before being judge/jury/hangman on the people involved (other than Sandusky).

It does appear that people in the Penn State program, including McQueary, Paterno, Curley, Schultz, maybe even Spanier dropped the proverbial ball here. But grabbing torches and pitchforks makes us reactionary animals.

In the end, the people who deserve justice will likely get it. Calling for heads as if they were all convicted of a great conspiracy helps nothing.
 



GophersInIowa said:
Penn St. is home this weekend, then goes on the road to Ohio St. and Wisconsin. If Paterno is allowed to coach through this season, I imagine it could get really ugly on the road. As we saw tonight, many of the Penn St. faithful are going to support him. It's a lot different in the rest of the country.
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Agreed. And the disturbing reaction of apparently 1000s of PSU students in the rallies at JoePa's house and on campus will wash away any sympathy others might have had for the program and institution as a whole. I don't know if these students represent the majority opinion of PSU students or not, but it's a lot of students and there doesn't appear to be a strong counter to it as of yet. It's sickening and amoral. Their actions will further isolate PSU and make it a pariah as the team hits the road.
 

PSU trustees met via a phone conference, and will meet again tomorrow in person, by Friday they expect to name an investigative committee to figure out who knew what and where the ball got dropped. Knowing committee dynamics it'll take at least six weeks to accomplish anything so Paterno coaches the rest of the regular season. I believe that before the final report is ready Paterno will be given the opportunity to retire. If anyone complains, that action should be taken quicker, Penn State will just claim that it is affording everyone due process.
 

I posted this on another board where we were discussing this, but I decided to repost here:

And for what it's worth, and this means nothing, but my gut feeling is that Paterno had to have known, or at least suspected something about Sandusky, and chose to ignore it. I'd even go so far as to say (and this is only a gut feeling) that he may have suspected something going back many years, considering how long they worked together.

Paterno is 84 years old. He would have been 73 at the time of the shower incident. He's from a different generation, and my experience is that for people of that generation, there were certain things that you didn't talk about - you brushed them under the rug and hoped they'd go away. It's kind of like how back in the day, if a teenage girl got pregnant, it wasn't talked about - they were shipped off to a home far away and that was that. Or the nice church-going family down the street - where the husband was beating the wife, but she wouldn't leave him because divorce was a sin, and nobody talked about it or stepped in, even if they knew it was happening.

If that's the case, JoePa deserves to have his reputation ruined. There's no excuse for that. Period. End of story. He can rot with Sandusky for covering it up. I hope that isn't the case, but I have an ugly feeling that it is.
 

Gopher Placenta said:
Agreed. And the disturbing reaction of apparently 1000s of PSU students in the rallies at JoePa's house and on campus will wash away any sympathy others might have had for the program and institution as a whole. I don't know if these students represent the majority opinion of PSU students or not, but it's a lot of students and there doesn't appear to be a strong counter to it as of yet. It's sickening and amoral. Their actions will further isolate PSU and make it a pariah as the team hits the road.
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Amen. The rally at JoePa's house made me want to throw a brick through my TV. That rally is just another big slap in the face to every single victim and their families. Those people should be ashamed.
 

nsmike said:
PSU trustees met via a phone conference, and will meet again tomorrow in person, by Friday they expect to name an investigative committee to figure out who knew what and where the ball got dropped. Knowing committee dynamics it'll take at least six weeks to accomplish anything so Paterno coaches the rest of the regular season. I believe that before the final report is ready Paterno will be given the opportunity to retire. If anyone complains, that action should be taken quicker, Penn State will just claim that it is affording everyone due process.
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One voice that's been silent this week is Delany. Although I'd bet he's burning up the phone lines behind the scenes. The last thing Delany wants is Paterno anywhere near a microphone in Indy the week of the inaugural BT Championship game. Especially after that Bizarro performance on his lawn last night.

Now PSU has a wicked hard schedule in November, so I doubt they win the Enablers, I mean Leaders Division See tOSU & UW (they get included for allowing a culture of nuking parrots in microwaves). But Delany gets paid to worry about stuff like this. And he's one of the few people who has the stroke to influence the JoePa bobos, I mean PSU board of regents.

The other person to keep your eye on is the governor of PA. He was the state attorney general back in 2002. Can you say CYA?
 

This story is growing by the hour. Experts in child abuse have pegged the likely figure of children affected one way or another by this guy (if the allegations are true) to be around 400. Guess they have some statistical formula they use.

Have also heard about the district attorney back in 2005 that allegedly was looking into these allegations. That DA disappeared and has been missing since 2005. When his computer was seized years ago, the hard drive was gone.

I'm sorry, but the more information that comes out, how can JoePa and McQuery be coaching right now? What about McQuery's dad? It's unfathomable that neither JoePa or McQuery reported it directly to police. You are McQuery. ... you see a naked grown man having his way with a 10-year-old boy in the shower and your conscience tells you (1) don't do anything to stop him and/or (B) don't tell the police?

Paterno had to know about the 1998 investigation. And he did nothing, nothing. He's going to be charged before this is over.
 


BleedGopher said:
Here is a NY Times story about the DA.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/09/s...-sandusky-wrapped-in-2005-gricar-mystery.html

This is absolutely out of control. As Handsome Pete said so appropriately last night, it's hard to even wrap my head around the significance, severity and depth of this disaster.
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I totally agree. It looks bad now - it's only going to get worse.

News is coming out this morning that Paterno is going to retire at the end of the year. I don't even know what to say...
 

End of the year isn't soon enough. Can't envision any scenario, politically or otherwise, that has JoePa coaching another game.
 

SelectionSunday said:
End of the year isn't soon enough. Can't envision any scenario, politically or otherwise, that has JoePa coaching another game.
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I agree 100%. He had to be done yesterday! Saying you will retire at end of the year basically admits you did something wrong.
 

I think he will retire after the season. Either way, it's going to be a very rough time for Penn State football. They aren't going to have a smooth transition like everyone thought before this scandal broke, they are going to have to clean house. This can't be good for recruiting, and combined with the rough transition, that's going to make it even more rough.
 

Handsome Pete said:
While your comments may seem over the top, they are exactly what I have been thinking all day. Think of the biggest scandals in NCAA history and you will find slapping players, free tattoos, point shaving, and illegal benefits from schools, Ponzi schemers, boosters, and agents. The Penn State situation doesn't involve any of that. We are talking raping children here. Raping children. At Penn State. Joe Paterno knew Jerry Sandusky was raping children. So Paterno called his boss then let it slide, kept visiting with Sandusky, standing next to him at school events, and even allowing Sandusky to keep an office at the football complex for all of the past 12 years. I seriously do not think I can get my head around this.
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All I can say is ick. If that was truly the case then Joe needs to be gone now not the end of the year. I honestly don't know how you can allow yourself to be associated with someone like that. Paterno bears just as much responsibility as Sandusky does if this is really what happened. Sad to see him have to retire not on his own terms but he does need to be gone.
 

I think it will get very bad. The more I think of it, the more I believe Sandusky wanted to get caught. Who has sex with kids in public areas?Even a pedophile knows that is likely to end badly. A guy like Sandusky could have bought an isolated cottage (or had his charity buy it) and avoided any chance of getting seen "in action."

Even calling his autobiography "Touched" with all the rumors swirling around after the initial incidents seems to me to be a call for help.

If Sandusky goes to trial this will be devastating that PSU chose to enable a serial pedophile. It wouldn't shock me if Sandusky kills himself if given the opportunity. Sadly, that is probably a positive for PSU.

Makes tatts and tutes seem pretty minor.
 

I don't know if he wanted to get caught, some people just begin to think themselves invincible, that they are too powerful or too clever to ever get into trouble. Once you start doing something wrong, the easier it gets to keep on doing it. It's not rational, sure, but rational people don't go down that road in the first place.
 

Letting Paterno finish out the year makes PSU look like even more of an enabling institution. The Chairman of the Board of Regents needs to clean house, starting with Joe and ending with the University president.
 

They should clean house and hire Tim Brewster immediately.
 

Even if you look at this solely from a football standpoint, it makes no sense for him or McQueary to continue through the rest of the season. As long as they are around, they will be a huge distraction and that's not fair to the players. Paterno doesn't actually coach anymore, he's more of a figure. But that's now tainted.

Obviously, what happened to the children is way more important than the football side. Just trying to understand how keeping either one of them around helps in any way.
 

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