Why no talk of death penalty for Penn State?

[ZooCougar]

The point is that punishments have second and third order effects. In this case there will be a ton. Secondly, there is a clear lack of institutional control. It is clear that Penn State has not been operating its football program responsibly for quite some time. The football coach was running the place. There was no responsible adult at the helm. That is more than enough to hand down a staggering penalty. And it will happen, mark my words.

I don't believe that you have to destroy something to fix it. But the whole reason they are in this predicament is football. You don't reward bad behavior by allowing them them to continue on without penalty. It's a testament to the hubris of Paterno; when Penn State suspends football operations it will be because Paterno never thought his actions through. The families of the student athletes that choose to transfer can blame him, the blood is on his hands so to speak.

I also think that if they don't suspend football, then they should not be on TV for three years and be banned from the postseason for five, to include any sort of conference championship game.

Replacing trustees and having an ombudsman is just meaningless. It's exactly what Penn State is hoping for, it's like saying "please don't throw me in the briar patch".

 

[SubbaBub]

We see the cause and remedy differently.

If you want individuals within any organization to stand up when the leadership is acting poorly, then the disincentive for keeping quiet has to be greater than that for speaking out. Which is why the conspirators need criminal charges beyond perjury, if they came clean to the GJ they would have lost their jobs, same as if they spoke out. Thats the cause, all this talk about protecting the FB program is BS. I

f they reported it when they found out it they FB program would have survived, it's unlikely given the '98 story that any of the four men would have kept their jobs for not reporting the '98 incident to the Trustees. They mistakenly thought 98 was a one time misunderstanding and got burned. From 2001 on they were protecting themselves to the detriment of the university.

The remedy is to structurally assure that secrets like this can't be kept. Apparently in 98, one man (Shultz) had the power to bury an investigation report. That's the key moment.

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[businesslawyer]

1. I do understand that you don't just show up with your backpack at a new college.

2. Ready, Fire, Aim.

3. NCAA action here or type thereof is not an automated function. There is a place for deliberation.

4. If your Dad commits murder, should I then kick you out of school as punishment if you can afford to stay?

The direct punishment here is the criminal and civil penalties that are forthcoming. The NCAA stuff is a separate and distinct add-on. I am suggesting that rather than make a show that does nothing to prevent this from happening again. Use the enforcement power to do something that will and is in the best interests if the NCAA, assure a governance structure that works where the current structure failed.

By their noteriery, affect on donors, and visibility, there will always powerful sports programs and coaches. What's needed here are equally powerful administrations and trustees. I'll take that over a, "boy did we hammer them good," and, I'm suggesting the NCAA hammer to get it by strengthing the ombudsmans office, requiring a more diverse board of trustees that includes outsiders and a professional support staff separate from the administration, including an independent compliance officer.

This is not new ground we are covering.here. Use what works.



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Please. You want the NCAA to tell the soveriegn State of Pennsylvania how its statutes should be amended to appoint a board of trustees to its flagship university that meets the NCAA's idea of what is prudent? You have to be kidding. The NCAA should do that under what authority?

The NCAA has the power to regulate and punish a member institution's athletic programs, and only to do that. The decision the NCAA has to make here is whether the cover up is such that it constituted a violation of the institutional control requirements and thus provided Penn State an unfair advantage. I think it could reasonably decide to give Penn State the death penalty and could reasonably decide to pass on the theory that this was a criminal matter and not primarily an athletic one. I don't see where the NCAA is going to find a middle ground.

 

[Carl Spackler]

Simple question subba - yes or no response, before I write anything else.

Do you think that the culture of Penn State community is NOT at fault to any degree, for the length of time that it took before Jerry Sandusky was first suspected of being a child sexual predator to when he was put behind bars - a period of known to be at least 14 years - and maybe longer? Yes or No?

P.S.

It's ready, aim, fire......doesn't make much sense to aim after you've discharged the weapon.

 

[CL82]

Emmert doesn't rule out the death penalty. My gut says we won't see it even though Emmert said he's "never seen anything as egregious as this in terms of just overall conduct and behavior inside a university."

 

[upstater]

Emmert doesn't rule out the death penalty. My gut says we won't see it even though Emmert said he's "never seen anything as egregious as this in terms of just overall conduct and behavior inside a university."

Inside a university athletics department maybe. But, it's a weird point to put yourself in a position where you are saying, what's worse, covering up murders and letting the murderer roam around campus, or covering up child rape and letting the rapist roam around town? I can see argument being made on both sides.

 

[CL82]

I wonder if OJ's private investigators are available.

LINK

 

[CL82]

Inside a university athletics department maybe. But, it's a weird point to put yourself in a position where you are saying, what's worse, covering up murders and letting the murderer roam around campus, or covering up child rape and letting the rapist roam around town? I can see argument being made on both sides.

Moot question. It's probably enough to decide that cover up at PSU was egregious. It doesn't have to be the most egregious ever.

 

[Jimmy Serrano]

Simple question subba - yes or no response, before I write anything else.

Do you think that the culture of Penn State community is NOT at fault to any degree, for the length of time that it took before Jerry Sandusky was first suspected of being a child sexual predator to when he was put behind bars - a period of known to be at least 14 years - and maybe longer? Yes or No?

P.S.

It's ready, aim, fire......doesn't make much sense to aim after you've discharged the weapon.

I'm just gonna ask.....are you serious about your correction here, or are you being funny?

 

[Carl Spackler]

I'm just gonna ask.....are you serious about your correction here, or are you being funny?

 

[Carl Spackler]

In all seriousness Jimmy, I'm interested to see what Subba's got to say. I thought I laid it out pretty clear yesterday, I think a page ago. Subba's repeated comments about punishing innocent players, clearly demonstrates some kind of issue of differentiation between the culture of PSU community, and the individuals in that community.

It's either an inability on his part, to differentiate b/w the individual and the culture that individual is part of, or he simply doesn't think the culture of the PSU community is in any way at fault for the way Jerry Sandusky was handled for so long.

Because a death penalty type punishment to the football program, is most definitely NOT a punishment of individual players, as Subba keeps inferring, it's a punishment meted out to an entire community/culture.

It's the interesting thing here, that I believe it's the product of living in one of the most prosperious, free, safe and secure societies in the human history, if not THE most, that affords people (usual of the liberal mindset) the luxury of the debate over whether or not the personal freedoms of the individuals in a society outweigh the entire culture, when it comes to something like punishment for some kind of transgression determined by an external source of power/influence.

When it comes to inflicing damage, punishment of an entire culture, whether it be PSU, the dancing boys of Aghanistan, the drug cartels of Colombia, the Somali pirates, Bosnian genocide .....there will always be collateral damage to 'innocents' when the bombs are dropped.

It leads you to another question - are entire cultures ever at fault for anything? Or is it all individuals? Because the only way you can ever justify avoiding collateral damage to an 'innocent' is by failing to ever find fault with an entire culture for anything.

Again, only in a safe and secure society, where freedom of thought and expression is encouraged, does a question like that even matter.

 

[Carl Spackler]

They should be more fearful than ever. PSU isn't interested in change, they just want to put this in the rear-view as fast as possible and move on. They are following the Vatican playbook step-by-step.

I agree W. That's my perception, and that's why the solution is to shut down the football program and get the people of Pennsylvania, to demand change. IMNSHO.

 

[SubbaBub]

Please. You want the NCAA to tell the soveriegn State of Pennsylvania how its statutes should be amended to appoint a board of trustees to its flagship university that meets the NCAA's idea of what is prudent? You have to be kidding. The NCAA should do that under what authority?

The NCAA has the power to regulate and punish a member institution's athletic programs, and only to do that. The decision the NCAA has to make here is whether the cover up is such that it constituted a violation of the institutional control requirements and thus provided Penn State an unfair advantage. I think it could reasonably decide to give Penn State the death penalty and could reasonably decide to pass on the theory that this was a criminal matter and not primarily an athletic one. I don't see where the NCAA is going to find a middle ground.

Continued participation in the NCAA at any level.

Some people here think I'm being soft. I am being just the opposite.

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[Carl Spackler]

I agree on the top part, can only go by what I knew personally on the bottom. I think he ruled it like Triponey said he did. He'd been there for 50 years. The idea that Triponey was going to come in and tell him how to discipline football players is farfetched. Yet I know he disciplined people for minor infractions--as in the Enis and Jurevicius cases. The thing in the Triponey article that is incorrect about the violent fight the football players were involved in is that 4 of them were thrown off the team, including Phil Taylor who went to Baylor and Connecticut's own Chris Baker who went to Hampton. So, thought that was weird. But yes, it is bad for the coach to wield this much power.

I don't think the academic stuff was BS because I taught classes there and I was even mildly annoyed by the football program which required weekly reports from me. PITA. I wasn't getting paid to babysit, I was hardly being paid. But they tracked academic progress and forced players to take real courses in majors.

Paterno had old school softness for alcohol drinking and fights. "Boys will be boys." Thefts and fraud were his bugaboos. Nonetheless, look up the case of EZ Smith. Paterno publicly called his year-long suspension ludicrous. I don't know how they got that one over on Paterno but Smith was kicked out for a year for 2 open-container alcohol violations in the dorms in the same year.

Read this first: http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/football/bigten/2005-04-09-penn-state-arrows_x.htm

Note Paterno's attitude. The university punishes, but Paterno decides. Is it hidden? Or out in the open? This was one crotchety old Brooklyn SOB. He was going to have his input. No doubt he bullied Triponey. Occasionally he lost, EZ Smith was off campus for a year because of student affairs (i.e. Triponey)

Read this quote: In 2004, after several incidents involving football players, Mr. Paterno told the Allentown Morning Call newspaper that the players weren't misbehaving any more than usual, but that such news was now more public. "I can go back to a couple guys in the '70s who drove me nuts," he said. "The cops would call me, and I used to put them in bed in my house and run their rear ends off the next day. Nobody knew about it. That's the way we handled it."

Paterno's reach, and the culture he developed over all those years, is exactly why they chose to handle Jerry Sandusky themselves. Everything was handled in house, you're laying it out clearly here upstater - do you see it?

IF - Paterno, didn't develope the culture of superiority for so many years, by the time the 1990s roll around, and a kid is murdered at a different college in PA, and a federal law goes into effect, developed by law enforcement people, PROFESSIONALS THAT DEAL WITH VIOLENT CRIMINALS.......the people that have learned the hard way to how to handle the evil of society correctly - developed training on how to handle and report suspected criminal behavior on college campuses, and began a training program.

But, hasn't it become more than clear now, that nobody was telling PSU leadership how to do things? They don't defer to anyone.

Well, they didn't know how to handle a guy like Jerry Sandusky, and innocent children suffered at his hands because of it - because of their choices not to learn how to handle a guy like Sandusky from external sources that most definitely would tell them how they're supposed to do it.

The very fact that anyone at PSU even thought to tell Sandusky they knew what he was doing - is what makes it so greivous. The very last thing any of the leadership at PSU should have done at any time, was tell Sandusky they knew about his behavior and the very worst thing they could have done is tell him that they can identify the time and place that he was with a specific child.

If they had bothered to defer to federal mandated training on violent criminal behavior and properly reporting, they would've known that they needed to conceal everythign they knew from Sandusky as much as possible and go directly to the police.

I am certain that child in 2001 is dead at Sandusky's hands, and it's because of the culture of PSU.

A court of law has determined that at least 8 children were sexually abused by Sandusky, and it's because of the culture of PSU.

 

[Carl Spackler]

BL - the former director of the FBI (who I believe also has some training in law) has determined that a significant reason for the way Jerry Sandusky was hadnled by the Penn State head football coach, AD, and so on.....was to protect the public image of the football program. I've heard from a lawyer friend of mine, that read the report, that it basically reads like a prosecution case against Paterno, Spanier, Curley, Schultz - and it's a good case.

The pristine image of the football program at Penn State, for decades, has been pinned up as a providing a competitive advantage for the Penn State football program.

I think the NCAA has a lot to go on, and it's just a matter of how long and detailed they want to take to build their case.

 

[SubbaBub]

Simple question subba - yes or no response, before I write anything else.

Do you think that the culture of Penn State community is NOT at fault to any degree, for the length of time that it took before Jerry Sandusky was first suspected of being a child sexual predator to when he was put behind bars - a period of known to be at least 14 years - and maybe longer? Yes or No?

P.S.

It's ready, aim, fire......doesn't make much sense to aim after you've discharged the weapon.

I think the fault lies with everyone who knew of the 98 and 01 incidents and said nothing, period. This culture thing you keep bringing up is basic human nature. They instinct to go along to get along occurs in every organization, the church, the military, the government, cossa nostra, and even at the University of Connecticut.

The only prevention is the courage of an individual to use their free will to do the right thing regardless of personal consequences. This is why PSU must continue to dig to discover and remove everyone who came in contact with knowledge of these incidents.

I'll say it again, banning FB, while a good PR move for the NCAA and salute to the angry mob, doesn't do a thing to address the problems at PSU and only causes additional pain to those who don't deserve it.

Fwiw, it sounds like Emmert has already made up his mind. I'm glad he doesn't share my view, it would only cause me doubts.

Someone who I agree with:

http://the-boneyard.com/index.php?posts/282822

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[Carl Spackler]

I think the fault lies with everyone who knew of the 98 and 01 incidents and said nothing, period. This culture thing you keep bringing up is basic human nature. They instinct to go along to get along occurs in every organization, the church, the military, the government, cossa nostra, and even at the University of Connecticut.

The only prevention is the courage of an individual to use their free will to do the right thing regardless of personal consequences. This is why PSU must continue to dig to discover and remove everyone who came in contact with knowledge of these incidents.

I'll say it again, banning FB, while a good PR move for the NCAA and salute to the angry mob, doesn't do a thing to address the problems at PSU and only causes additional pain to those who don't deserve it.

Fwiw, it sounds like Emmert has already made up his mind. I'm glad he doesn't share my view, it would only cause me doubts.

Someone who I agree with:

http://the-boneyard.com/index.php?posts/282822

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Subba - this is going to evolve into a completely different discussion, thanks for answering though. I anticipated that you wouldn't find fault with the culture of PSU, and without me having to respond, you already answered why. I told you we would disagree,and we will continue to disagree.

I believe the change that Icebear wnats to see (I think that's what you meant for me to read?) can only happen through punishment of the entire culture, and the common denominator as to why you would not believe that to be the case - is free will.

Because I believe the concept of 'free will' is a farce. Every action, every decision we make, from the moment we are born and we begin develop consciousness in this world, is what forms us into human beings, and every decision we make, every choice we face, the decision we make, is the product of all the billions of decisions we've made prior to that moment.

Yes, I am a catholic, and I do very strongly believe in God, and pray for strength to be a good person every day.

I would have been excommunicated from the church, 500 years ago. There is a precedent for it. An italian named Spinoza that wrote about Ethics.

 

[SubbaBub]

Subba - this is going to evolve into a completely different discussion, thanks for answering though. I anticipated that you wouldn't find fault with the culture of PSU, and without me having to respond, you already answered why. I told you we would disagree,and we will continue to disagree.

I believe the change that Icebear wnats to see (I think that's what you meant for me to read?) can only happen through punishment of the entire culture, and the common denominator as to why you would not believe that to be the case - is free will.

Because I believe the concept of 'free will' is a farce. Every action, every decision we make, from the moment we are born and we begin develop consciousness in this world, is what forms us into human beings, and every decision we make, every choice we face, the decision we make, is the product of all the billions of decisions we've made prior to that moment.

Yes, I am a catholic, and I do very strongly believe in God, and pray for strength to be a good person every day.

I would have been excommunicated from the church, 500 years ago. There is a precedent for it. An italian named Spinoza that wrote about Ethics.

Your opinion is shared by many. I would rather see it done my way, though it would require a lot of hard work and a complete reworking of the university governance structure. If PSU is the institution they aspire and claim to be, it is something they would want to undertake.

If they succeeded, then they truly could hold themselves up as a model organization.

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[Jimdish255]

Please. You want the NCAA to tell the soveriegn State of Pennsylvania how its statutes should be amended to appoint a board of trustees to its flagship university that meets the NCAA's idea of what is prudent? You have to be kidding. The NCAA should do that under what authority?

The NCAA has the power to regulate and punish a member institution's athletic programs, and only to do that. The decision the NCAA has to make here is whether the cover up is such that it constituted a violation of the institutional control requirements and thus provided Penn State an unfair advantage. I think it could reasonably decide to give Penn State the death penalty and could reasonably decide to pass on the theory that this was a criminal matter and not primarily an athletic one. I don't see where the NCAA is going to find a middle ground.

Mark Emmert NCAA:

"There have been people who've said this wasn't a football scandal. Well, it was more than a football scandal. Much more than a football scandal. It was that and much more," he said. "We'll have to figure out exactly what the right penalties are. I don't know that past precedent makes particularly good sense in this case because it's really an unprecedented problem."


http://www.upi.com/Sports_News/2012/07/17/NCAA-Penn-State-death-penalty-possible/UPI-98931342540557/#ixzz20uH8Ecci​

 

[Carl Spackler]

Your opinion is shared by many. I would rather see it done my way, though it would require a lot of hard work and a complete reworking of the university governance structure. If PSU is the institution they aspire and claim to be, it is something they would want to undertake.

If they succeeded, then they truly could hold themselves up as a model organization.

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I continued this wehre you sent me. Whre this turned isn't about football anymore.

For the record, I advocate strongly that PSU not play any home games in football for at least one season. They don't get what SMU got. They play football, but they play all their games away, so that their conference peers, and their opponents on their schedules - all of those cultures, aren't harmed.

 

[ZooCougar]

I'm just gonna ask.....are you serious about your correction here, or are you being funny?

Someone needs to keep track of these Spacklerisms. Some of these are truly priceless.

Ready, Fire, Aim is actually how you fire a TOW wire guided missile by the way.

 

[Doggie Style]

Mark Emmert NCAA:

"There have been people who've said this wasn't a football scandal. Well, it was more than a football scandal. Much more than a football scandal. It was that and much more," he said. "We'll have to figure out exactly what the right penalties are. I don't know that past precedent makes particularly good sense in this case because it's really an unprecedented problem."​

​

​

http://www.upi.com/Sports_News/2012/07/17/NCAA-Penn-State-death-penalty-possible/UPI-98931342540557/#ixzz20uH8Ecci​

===================================
WOW!! They r screwed!!!!!!

 

[FAIRTIDES]

Eventually they will move it inside the sports museum after all the legal proceedings are complete. It doesn't make sense to keep it in public as a target for vandalism.

They won't move it under duress, or risk pissing off a good portion of the donor base. Reality is what it is. Like it or not, Paterno will always have fans within the PSU community. No amount of screaming will change that, he did too many good things for them that didn't involve football games.

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Thing must be under armed guard. I expect to see pictures of it on a tow line, bouncing down the street behind a wrecker.

 

[mattp]

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/ncaaf...enn-state-scandal-video-143934430--ncaaf.html

i thought since the other thread made it to about a thousand posts that some people might be interested in this. i guess there is now talk of the d/p for PSU. one part that i found interesting was:

"The Department of Education also is weighing in on possible sanctions for Penn State's violation of the Clery Act, which requires federally funded universities to publicly report all criminal activity on or around campus."

i have no idea what the Clery Act is other than what's written here, or what the repercussions are, but if the DoE is looking into them as well this could get interesting

 

[Adios]

The B1G Conference will be fine in the end.