Arena Abuse Scandals in Sports

Hey gang, since this discussion is likely to continue through the weekend, let's leave the College Football thread for on the field stuff.

 

JoePa might as well have pulled the zipper down. May he rot in hell.

 

Ok so I have a little bit of beef with this. Having worked in education, having been a grad student as well, you're told to go immediately to your superior for everything on campus. That's the chain of command. Even when I was a teacher at the Junior College no matter what happened you were supposed to report it to your superior first. The superior could then tell you to call the police, but in this case Paterno said "I'll take care of it." At that point the grad student has to back off because he thinks it is being handled.

My mom as a 6th grade teacher is told to look for child abuse on her students. She can't immediately call the cops though if she thinks/knows (if a student told her about it). She has to go to her principal first for how to proceed.

 

Yes, but what would your mom do if there was no follow up?

Paterno knew about this for 13 years!

 

I'm not addressing Paterno at all. I'm talking about McQueary. I think Paterno holds more fault than the grad student.

 

If we're dragging JoePa's name through the mud, we've got to do the same for AD Tim Curley. JoePa reported it to him the next day. Neither one did enough.

 

I would say the same goes for McQueary. If you know a crime has been committed, reported it, then didn't follow up, that is a crime in and of itself...at least morally.

I mean, no follow up for 13 years? By anyone?

 

The same goes for Paterno as well. He did report it to his superiors....like he was supposed to do.

Both men should be fired, but McQueary actions IMO is even more heinous since he sat on it for a day after witnessing a boy getting raped.

 

Paterno sat on it for 2 days after he was told. Why is that not more heinous? As a grad student you have NO POWER. NONE. Paterno actually had loads of power and an almost god-like status. He could've got something done. That's why his actions to me are more damaging.

 

A local radio show just tweeted this:

That's a good point.


I'm not trying to deflect any blame away from Penn State as an institution, they deserve it. But there's got to be some clues from Sandusky's charity, too.

 

I want McQueary fired as well. If he stays on, I will be even more furious than I am right now. I don't care if he was worried about the integrity of the program, I don't care if it was one of his superiors; the fact remains that his decision to run away and call his dad instead of doing the right thing and trying to stop the perv is appalling. Why isn't the media crucifying him as well?

Edit: Grad student or not, he could have tried something. Heck, he could have snuck away like he supposedly did and tried to find another coach or official so it wouldn't be his word against the perv's.

 

There was no follow up and then Sandusky was still being allowed on the grounds. That is the 2nd biggest gripe I have with the whole situation, if they knew something was going on why was he allowed to continue visitation to the facilities. Paterno is Penn State, are telling me that if he blinks an eye 20 people don't jump? Come on the guy ran that joint for 40 years. If he wanted something done it would have happened.

 

It is not as heinous because he didn't witness the crime, McQueary did and did absolutely nothing. Paterno has to go for not following up, but at the end of the day the biggest moral failing belongs to the guy who ironically hasn't been fired yet.

 

Rox, Lisa & Thrawn pretty much sum up my feelings on this. It's insane/surreal to think of how perceptions & knowledge of a well respected man & program can change so suddenly, but the wrath being given upon Paterno & the others involved is well deserved/justified.

 

students rioting now. Media van flipped over and some stampeding. Now street lights being torn down

 

You cannot say he did absolutely nothing! He REPORTED IT TO HIS SUPERIOR WHICH IS WHAT YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO DO IN EDUCATION.

Morally is this guy an idiot? Yes. But I don't think he should be fired. He did what the institution was asking him to do, ie report it to his superior.

Paterno, on the other hand, had the clout to make something happen and didn't do it.

 

and McQueary had the clout to stop it as it occured.

 

He witness a boy getting raped and didn't call the police......that is awful.

Paterno fulfilled his legal obligations and yet he doesn't have a job today. You can't give McQueary a pass for telling his superiors when Paterno did the same thing and he didn't even witness the crime.

 

He absolutely should be fired! It doesn't matter how much power a person wields, or what the "rules" for reporting are. A CRIME was witnessed. If he went straight to the police, he would have been protected under whistle blowing laws. Once there was no follow up, McQueary IS obligated to do something more...as a human being.

I agree totally on Paterno. With the power he had, something could have been done. He knew what happend, then did nothing when the guy went back on campus...

 

Taken from a Penn law website:

(c) Staff members of institutions, etc.--Whenever a person
is required to report under subsection (b) in the capacity as a
member of the staff of a medical or other public or private
institution, school, facility or agency, that person shall
immediately notify the person in charge of the institution,
school, facility or agency or the designated agent of the person
in charge. Upon notification, the person in charge or the
designated agent, if any, shall assume the responsibility and
have the legal obligation to report or cause a report to be made
in accordance with section 6313. This chapter does not require
more than one report from any such institution, school, facility
or agency.

It is unclear if Paterno did in fact fulfill his legal obligations. It all depends on how the hierarchy is and I don't have that information. Obviously the board does and I am operating under the assumption that they feel he should've done more. I mean the administration had been leaning on him to step down for several years and he refused and they didn't do anything about it so that leads me to believe Paterno did not in fact have a superior on that campus.

So the grad student didn't do it immediately, fine. However, once he did he was not under an lawful obligation to continue to pursue the matter. I have a hard time with an institution firing someone who did what he was supposed to do (based on the law), but made a bad choice morally that wasn't against the law.

 

This.

As for the McQueary debate, yes, horsey, he did what he was supposed to do according of the letter of the law, but don't forget the circumstances -- he saw Sandusky sodomizing a 10 year old boy. He didn't hear about it a day or two later, it was happening right in front of him. As the mother of another victim said, "He went home and called Daddy?" How do you not try to put a stop to it immediately. If your Mom saw that happening, would should go home, talk to your Dad about, then report it to the principal the next morning?

That said I find it silly to come up with a ranking order for culpability -- while only two people appear to have violated the law, everyone involved was, as the AG put it, morally liable for what happened.

And Pateno may be criminally liable as well. There are reports that McQueary told him exactly what he witnessed, rather than just alluding to disturbing behavior, as Paterno testified to the grand jury.

EDIT. Also, horsey, Paterno is, at least nominally (but definitely not de facto) the subordinate of the AD, so technically he complied with the law just as much as McQueary did.

But this isn't about what the law required them to do. Nothing in the law prevented any of them from going to the police on their own, it only says they don't have to.

 

Never once have I said that was a good decision that McQueary made by walking away from the situation when he saw it. I do fault him for that, but is it enough for him to lose his job over? I'm pretty sure he could make a case for unlawful firing since he did report it to his superior.

I've actually seen quite a few scenarios hypothesized as to why he still has a job and if several of those are true then I'm hoping he goes to jail somehow (ie. people are speculating that he was actually paid to keep his mouth shut and thus if they fire him now then he'll talk about how he was paid to keep his mouth shut.)

 

What I'm wondering most about now is what really happened when Sandusky was first investigated in 1998. A year later he was ushered out the door after having been considered Paterno's heir apparent. The story has always been that Paterno told him he had to choose between coaching and his involvement (meant in a good way) with the charity. Sandusky chose the charity. Hate to speculate, but the the temporal proximity definitely makes you wonder.

 

Two more things:

1. Whatever else you want to say about McQueary he is the absolute KEY to the prosecution, an eyewitness with no ulterior motive who would completely destroy any attempt by Sandusky's attorneys to characterize victim's testimony as coached, which is a predominant defense tactic in cases like this, a tactic already used by his attorney in statements to the press.

2. What the hell did Curley and Schultz do for the 10 days between being told of the incident by Paterno and calling in McQueary. Leaving aside the debate about what McQueary or Paterno should have done, both immediately (especially in McQueary's case) and following up, the buck stopped with them. They're the ones who decided to do nothing but tell Sandusky not to bring kids onto campus anymore. That's it. Basically, sodomoize whomever you want, just do it somewhere else. Even if Paterno told them a cleaned up version of what McQueary saw (sanitized by either McQueary or Paterno himself), the incident is dreadfully seroius, so that they should have called McQueary in right away, and been on the phone with the police as soon as McQueary told them the full extent of what he saw. That 10 day gap really arouses alot of suspicion as to what the two of them, and others in positions of authority at PSU (specifically Paterno and Spanier), discussed and did over the course of those 10 days.

 

The PA Attorney General hasn't charged JoePa in any aspect of this scandal. Curly (the AD) and Schultz (the VP for finance and business) have been charged with failing to report abuse and lying to a grand jury. It has been repeatedly stated that JoePa is not a target of any investigations from Linda Kelly's (the PA AG) office. This is from Tuesday, but nothing about that has changed since.


Did McQuery, JoePa, Curly, Schultz, and Spanier all fail morally? Absolutely. They didn't all fail to fulfill their legal obligations, though.


I'd be shocked if McQuery didn't resign. If I'm the next coach at Penn State, there's no way that he's having anything to do with my program.

Edit - Forgot to mention it earlier, but Schultz also runs the campus police. That's his connection to this mess.