Former Penn State Coach Arrested

[ASTalumna06]

I think after reading this article, I've finally figured out what I'm looking for.. An apology. I want someone, anyone, to take some kind of responsibility. I want an explanation from the school, Spanier, Paterno, McQuerey.. Whoever! I want someone who, even if they fulfilled their legal responsibility but not their moral one, to stand up and say, "I'm sorry.. I f***ed up."

http://mobile.lehighvalleylive.com/a...l=true#display

It's too late for anyone in real-life Railton to undo any of the unimaginable damage Sandusky has done, but it's not too late for Paterno, Spanier and their ilk to begin to do the right things.

To forget about appearances and self-preservation, and to fight for the only thing that matters anymore.

The victims.

[Shelacious]

Originally Posted by ASTalumna06

I think after reading this article, I've finally figured out what I'm looking for.. An apology. I want someone, anyone, to take some kind of responsibility. I want an explanation from the school, Spanier, Paterno, McQuerey.. Whoever! I want someone who, even if they fulfilled their legal responsibility but not their moral one, to stand up and say, "I'm sorry.. I f***ed up."

http://mobile.lehighvalleylive.com/a...l=true#display

Originally Posted by SOPi_Jawbreaker

That being said, while JoePa may have done his legal duty, I feel that he failed in his moral duty. He is a man that has always been about Integrity, Honor, and doing the right thing even if it's not the popular thing. His life's work has been about teaching, guiding, and molding young men into outstanding, good men. For him to just report the incident to his higher ups and wash his hands of it and consider his duty done is deeply troubling to me.

I certainly don't know all the details, but I feel like a man of integrity and honor would have kept pursuing the matter if he saw Sandusky still roaming around free around campus all those years later. I know that people have said that abuse cases can be slow-moving and that the admiinstration may have told JoePa that they were taking care of it, but I feel a man of integrity and honor would not have just taken their word and would have been much more insistent and persistent in making sure that action was being taken and that Sandusky was being brought to justice. Yes, JoePa fulfilled his legal obligations as a coach. But I feel he failed in his moral obligations, especially as a leader and role model to young men and especially as he has built up such a stellar reputation and was always so on the up-and-up.

ITA with you both (your whole post, SOPi). It just seems that on every level, the course of least resistance was taken. And all these articles I've read seem to act like Sandusky is some sort of cipher-that he can float about it all without anyone bothering to chin-check him on any level. It seems that if I suspected one of my former coworkers/friends of doing some morally/criminally reprehensible behavior, I would have least driven to their house, confronted them, demanded they turn themselves in (or I would) or something. No one ever seems like they actually even confronted him about it--just made minor decisions about him around him and let him keep "horsing around" with boys. There's a lot of culpability, and I don't think any of these are immune from blame: McQuerey, the temporary janitor, Joe Pa, Second Mile president, the missing DA, the VP and AD, the HS, etc., etc. and of course Sandusky himself. I do believe instead of doing the "right thing" everyone tried to do the "best thing" by taking away Sandusky's "tools"--access to kids, access to locations--that whatever damage was already done and that he wouldn't be able to do it again, and still be able to keep the whole situation under wraps.

But they should have known that nothing like this is going to stay in its box forever. That outside of coming forward from the beginning, and offering up Sandusky as the pedophile he is and burning him on the altar of the law, that it was going to make everyone associated complicit in his perversion when it finally broke free of the box.

And no, I don't know what I'd do in McQuerey's situation, but I know that I have spoken out to right a wrong at my own peril before, and I cannot imagine that I would simply walk away from a child (or an older person, or an animal) being brutalized. Maybe from two consenting adults, maybe. But not otherwise.

[thetaj]

Has this been posted? Joe Paterno has announced his retirement.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-400_162-...abuse-tragedy/

[MysticCat]

Originally Posted by thetaj

Has this been posted? Joe Paterno has announced his retirement.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-400_162-...abuse-tragedy/

Yes.

Originally Posted by MysticCat

And Paterno will retire at the end of the season.

[thetaj]

LOL. Idk how I missed that.

[TSteven]

Lauren Acquaviva, left, her husband Michael and 10-month-old son Matthias protest on the Penn State campus on Tuesday, objecting to the university administration's handling thus far of the sex-abuse scandal.
Matt Rourke

So it had come to this. For much of the day a thoughtful woman, her baby in hand, her husband at her side, had sat on these same steps hoping to remind anyone she could that evil can triumph when good men stay silent. And then the students came, the masses, occupying the same place she had — but now celebrating the man who had stayed as silent as anyone.

This, too, is the world Joe Paterno and his football program now inhabit: one shaped by the silence, one in which the question of culpability — of evil — rests in how easily we excuse the kind of cowardice that leads to the worst kind of crime.

From Chaos has engulfed Happy Valley

[shirley1929]

Just heard on Headline News that the president of PSU is possibly going to announce his resignation as well. Will look for link and return...

http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/ind...aham_sp_6.html

[knight_shadow]

This is supposedly from the Grand Jury (not sure how to verify)

http://i.cdn.turner.com/dr/teg/tsg/r...ygrangjury.pdf

[KSigkid]

ESPN is reporting that Paterno has been fired.

I agree that there are a lot of areas, including Second Mile, that need to be investigated here.

ETA, has everyone seen this...from April?! http://www.timesonline.com/columnist...r-comment-area

[knight_shadow]

Originally Posted by KSigkid

ETA, has everyone seen this...from April?! http://www.timesonline.com/columnist...r-comment-area

Yep

[lovespink88]

Live stream on campus. http://www.wgntv.com/videogallery/65...ews-conference

Kind of a lame shot right now, but maybe they're change it. Kinda interesting.

[ThetaDancer]

From the New York Times:

“I think the point people are trying to make is the media is responsible for JoePa going down,” said a freshman, Mike Clark, 18...

Demonstrators tore down two lamp posts, one falling into a crowd. They also threw rocks and fireworks at the police, who responded with pepper spray. The crowd undulated like an accordion, with the students crowding the police and the officers pushing them back.

“We got rowdy, and we got maced,” Jeff Heim, 19, said rubbing his red, teary eyes. “But make no mistake, the board started this riot by firing our coach. They tarnished a legend.”

I don't understand the riots in support of him, or blaming the media and the board. At all.

[MysticCat]

Originally Posted by ThetaDancer

From the New York Times:

I don't understand the riots in support of him, or blaming the media and the board. At all.

I do sort of get it -- the blaming the media and the support, at least, not the riots. It's a fairly common human response, I think, when something like this comes out to react based on loyalty -- loyalty to family members, loyalty to the Church, loyalty to an institution like a college or an institutional icon like a coach. More than one Penn Stater here has described him as being like a grandfather to Penn Staters. It doesn't seem that odd to me for the initial response for these college students -- still kids in some ways -- to be to defend him. The rioting on the other hand . . . .

From everything I have seen, I think Paterno failed here. He may not have the legal culpability that the AD or the GA have, but he failed, and that failure threatens the integrity of the school. I do see sadness in what has been a pretty brilliant career coming to an end like this, but I don't think the Board of Trustees had any choice but to fire him and fire the president.

[agzg]

That kid is saying the board tarnished a legend!?!? You have got to be kidding me.

[ThetaDancer]

Buzzfeed has a roundup of pictures of Penn State students rioting here.