What Made you Smile/What Ticked you off Today?

[dsheinem]

what a sad morning

[Luke]

what a sad morning

So odd. At 5am this morning his publicist said the rumors of Joe's death were all false.

Very sad. Without a doubt the stress from the past few months took his life. If Joe is cleared of any cover ups, I hope Penn State makes him an honorary coach for 2013. However if Joe is guilty...I won't speak bad of the dead.

[the King]

As big of a sports fan as I am, I have trouble finding sadness in the fact that someone who helped to cover up the rape of minors in order to protect his own legacy is no longer with us.

[dsheinem]

As big of a sports fan as I am, I have trouble finding sadness in the fact that someone who helped to cover up the rape of minors in order to protect his own legacy is no longer with us.

that's fucking uninformed bullshit

[the King]

At the very least he had knowledge of alleged repeated sexual assault on young boys by a member of his staff, and did the absolute bare minimum in response. I am not quite sure what other types of transgressions could be viewed as more heinous than those, or what kind of actions would warrant for him to do more. In my view, that forever taints his legacy as a coach, a leader, and as a man.

[BoneSnapDeez]

I agree with King, basically. I've heard people try to argue that the stability of a FOOTBALL PROGRAM is somehow more important than the protection of young children, which is pretty messed up.

[dsheinem]

At the very least he had knowledge of alleged repeated sexual assault on young boys by a member of his staff, and did the absolute bare minimum in response. I am not quite sure what other types of transgressions could be viewed as more heinous than those, or what kind of actions would warrant for him to do more. In my view, that forever taints his legacy as a coach, a leader, and as a man.

First, thanks for bringing up a contentious and unsettled topic on the day he died. Very classy.

he had knowledge of alleged repeated sexual assault on young boys by a member of his staff, and did the absolute bare minimum in response

That's bullshit. There's not a shred of evidence for this. There is evidence that he was told on one occasion about "inappropriate conduct" (and that he wasn't given the full details), reported it to one of his superiors who was the head of police at Penn State, and was give assurances it would be investigated. Was he supposed to become super-cop and pursue the case himself? There's no evidence that he personally had any kind of ongoing relationship/friendship with Sandusky at any time after he retired, or that he had ever heard of "repeated cases" of abuse. So yeah, your statement is uninformed bullshit, and especially hurtful today.

[dsheinem]

I agree with King, basically. I've heard people try to argue that the stability of a FOOTBALL PROGRAM is somehow more important than the protection of young children, which is pretty messed up.

This may have been the case for the people who were arrested, but there's not a shred of evidence to suggest this was true for Paterno. There IS a mountain of evidence to suggest that Paterno was an upstanding, moral person in every area of his life, that he often sacrificed football success by pushing academic rigor, that he donated extensively to education and charity, and made a lasting postive impact on thousands. To think that he was somehow protecting football at Penn State or his old assistant coach makes for a nice story, but there's no ACTUAL FUCKING EVIDENCE that this is the case, and nothing in his past to suggest he'd be the kind of person to do this.

[cookie monster]

I am truely saddened by the death of joe pa he was a great coach and so much more he gave so much back to his community he did not deserve the treatment he got from penn st or the hate mongers ignorant comments about him if anything the cancer and stress of this all contributed to his death

[the King]

Q: Without getting into any graphic detail, what did Mr. McQueary tell you he had seen and where?

Mr. Paterno: Well, he had seen a person, an older — not an older, but a mature person who was fondling, whatever you might call it — I’m not sure what the term would be — a young boy.

Q: Did he identify who that older person was?

Mr. Paterno: Yes, a man by the name of Jerry Sandusky who had been one of our coaches.

That sure seems detailed enough to me.

And yes, I would expect anyone to follow up and find out what happened with a investigation involving something like this. Let alone on your campus, in your teams shower by a man you coached with for 30 years and when you are the most powerful person on campus. So, yes there is no hard evidence of him knowing about multiple victims, but isn't one child enough? That also doesn't mean he didn't know about the other victims either. There is certaintly enough circumstantial evidence to make that conclussion.

I would also hope that most people if told a child was being sexuality assaulted wouldn't wait to report it because they didn't want to inconvenience anyone. That's real class right there.

Q: You recall this taking place on a Saturday morning, the conversation with Mike?

Mr. Paterno: Yes.

Q: When did you — did you do something with that information?

Mr. Paterno: Well, I can’t be precise.

I ordinarily would have called people right away, but it was a Saturday morning and I didn’t want to interfere with their weekends.

So I don’t know whether I did it Saturday or did it early the next week.

I’m not sure when, but I did it within the week.