Jerry Sandusky and Related Trials

[count2infinity]

I would be willing to bet that those who share the views of anyone associated with PSU being child rape supporters are a minority. Or at least I hope so.

[ulf]

I would be willing to bet that those who share the views of anyone associated with PSU being child rape supporters are a minority. Or at least I hope so.

And they'll probably never have an impact on your lives except maybe a weird look. I think 99 percent of people smart enough to hire or make business decisions are smart enough to understand the situation.

[columbia]

And you certainly wouldn't want to work for them.

[columbia]

Factorial: Has anyone ever brought this up to you at work?

[Crankshaft]

I don't think you would even get a weird look. The only people who will bring it up will be some college football nut who will say anything just to get under the skin of an opposing fan.

I just can't see a HR professional looking at a resume with a PSU degree and thinking any different.

[Shyster]

the University maintained a "culture of reverence for the football program that is ingrained at all levels of the campus community"

I think that means the PSU community has an extraordinary attachment to the University in general and its football program in particular. And to be perfectly honest, I think your use of "we" and "our" in relation to PSU reinforces that impression. I never think "we" in regard to anything Pitt does or doesn't do.

[Factorial]

Factorial: Has anyone ever brought this up to you at work?

No, but I've never been one to "brag" that I went to Penn State. I wouldn't want to work for anyone who would judge me based on the success/failure/scandal of the fb program of the college I attended.

[columbia]

Aside from my boss, I don't think that I've ever discussed where I went to college with any of my co-workers. That kind of thing never comes up (and who cares at this point, anyway).

[tifosi77]

Aside from my boss, I don't think that I've ever discussed where I went to college with any of my co-workers. That kind of thing never comes up (and who cares at this point, anyway).

That is so odd to me; I literally can't think of a coworker with whom I have had any level of personal interaction over the last 20 years that I do not know their alma mater.

[King Sid the Great 87]

Any perceived lumps a Penn State person takes from a fringe lunatic is an equal and opposite reaction to all the years of the Penn State lunatic fringe telling everyone how Penn State did things "the right way", which was almost always a reference to Paterno.

You will live. Trust me, nobody outside of Happy Valley really cares that this story drags on.

[count2infinity]

I'm sort of confused here... what possible motive would Freeh have to coordinate with NCAA? Wasn't he being paid by PSU to do the report?

Any ideas here? Makes no sense...

[columbia]

Are you questioning that it happened or saying that it doesn't make sense that it did?

[count2infinity]

Are you questioning that it happened or saying that it doesn't make sense that it did?

The latter. PSU paid him to make this report. Why would he have contact with the NCAA, and why would he take any sort of direction from the NCAA to come down hard on PSU? The whole thing just doesn't make sense unless the NCAA was sending money to him as well, thus why I ask, what sort of motivation does he have to collaborate with the NCAA?

[CrazyJoeDavola]

At the risk of sounding like a conspiracy theorist...

The idea is that Freeh, the NCAA, and a few of the top players on the PSU Board of Trustees collaborated to frame this issue as a "football/culture problem" and to pin it on a few administrators and an 85 year old football coach. That was their way of trying to deflect the attention away from the university as a whole (i.e. themselves). The only way Freeh is motivated to write a report catering to the NCAA's wishes is if there were trustees involved.

[ulf]

Says crazy Joe. Hehe

[Sam's Drunk Dog]

@jagolinzer PA State Senators Yudichak & Corman pen letter to #psubot Chair Masser (and identical letter to Gov Comm Chair Eckel)

So does the BoT continue to push through their BoT "restructuring" plan that not only maintains the status quo but most likely increases the power of the "power bloc" that have been in power since prior to the Sandusky Scandal? Not likely with the knowledge of how these clowns normally operate.

[Sam's Drunk Dog]

http://onwardstate.com/2014/11/13/espns ... _id=183622" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[DudeMan2766]

Lord, that excuse that Paterno legally couldn't do anything else than he did is so lame. Its nothing more than to paint a picture of Joe saying, "Welp, I'd like to delve into this more but, legally cant. Guess we have no choice than to allow Jerry continued access to our facilities."

[Shyster]

http://onwardstate.com/2014/11/13/espns ... _id=183622

"When a football program becomes the cultural, psychological, and economic pulse of an entire region, it can put the value system out of whack."

I think the problem is properly phrased as "The value system of an entire region is out of whack when a football program is considered its cultural, psychological, and economic pulse." I'm sure not everyone in the greater PSU community has this cultish attitude, but it sure looks to me like a lot of them do. I must admit I find it both fascinating and profoundly creepy.

[columbia]

I'm glad that I lived long enough to see Shyster agree with a writer from The Nation.

[Shyster]

I'm not entirely agreeing with him. And as a libertarian I believe that lefties like the folks at the Nation are right about some things. Not everything, of course, but they are right about some things.

[Sam's Drunk Dog]

So you contend that this only happened at PSU because of the reverence for the football program by the community? The fact that Sandusky manipulated trained child care workers and other experts as well and hid behind a charity devoted to helping kids, that had less to to with it.

[Shyster]

No. What Sandusky did could have happened just about anywhere. And assuming for the sake of argument Penn State personnel participated in some sort of cover up, that also could have happened in plenty of other places. Take UNC Chapel Hill (which I’ve already mentioned) as an example. For years, that university offered fake, no-show classes in order to inflate the grades of its football and basketball players. Lots of people knew about it—professors, coaches, administrators, and players. If one university is willing to engage in and cover up rampant grade-cheating for years, and could certainly imagine another school concealing (or at least not reporting) abuse committed by someone connected to the primary athletic program.

But what I was really referring to as cultish and creepy is not the acts or omissions in relation to whatever the heck Sandusky did, but rather the response of Penn State students and alums in terms of internalizing this issue. It’s obvious that a lot of people have a tribalistic approach to PSU in which the university’s acts or omissions have someone become “our” acts and omissions. I find it interesting and rather disturbing that people identify so strongly with what is essentially nothing more than a multimillion-dollar-earing corporation. To me, it’s like being angry over something that you perceive as impugning the reputation of Wal-Mart or Coca-Cola.

[tifosi77]

For many of us, Penn State was part of the fabric of our lives, not just a school. I grew up in Altoona/Hollidaysburg which is about a 45 minute drive south of State College, and has a PSU branch campus. The school's presence was ubiquitous, and that's not even taking athletics into account. We had school field trips to PSU all the time. I ended up going there over the other two universities that accepted my applications simply because of finances, but I would be very interested in how this case moved along even if I wasn't an alum. Penn State is part of the identity of where I was raised. They are The Company in the company town of Central Pennsylvania.

And, as has been noted, a large element of the chip on the shoulder comes from the guilt-by-association nonsense from people like Colin Cowherd who said that this was an outgrowth of the culture of the community. Essentially saying we students and alums and citizens of State College all aided and abetted because we created an atmosphere where this sort of thing could be swept under the rug. It's kind of hard to separate yourself and be dispassionate when you have national media figures using PSU as a slur.

[Shyster]

To be perfectly honest, the way a lot of students and alums and citizens of State College have responded to this has made me much more willing to accept that Penn State did sweep this all under the rug. When I see the rantings of people like Jay Paterno, I see people who are placing the reputation of Penn State on a high pedestal (or perhaps altar). I see people who seem to place that reputation above their own. If that is how so many people believe, then I can certainly imagine them suppressing something that would be injurious to PSU's reputation, like for example the fact that a former coach was molesting young boys.