moragmacpherson: (Default)
moragmacpherson ([personal profile] moragmacpherson) wrote2011-11-10 05:46 am

No, JoePa, You Don't Deserve Anyone's Respect Anymore

Last night, the Penn State Board of Trustees met and fired University President Spanier and Coach Joe Paterno. effective immediately.  Paterno had announced his intention to retire at the end of this season earlier in the day following the indictment of his long-time assistant coach and one-time heir apparent, Jerry Sandusky, on forty felony charges associated with molestation of at least 8 children since 1996.  Sandusky's known victims, many of whom were sexually molested and assaulted for years, ranged in age from seven to fifteen during the abuse and were all participants in The Second Mile, a charity that Sandusky founded to assist at-risk youths.   Said Paterno on Sunday: "...the nature and amount of charges made are very shocking to me."   CBS News reported last night that, "The legendary football coach was said to be stunned by his firing. Said the source, "You give your life to this place, and that's how you're treated."

Yes, Paterno, you miserable piece of slime, that's how you're treated.  No, you don't get to leave on your own terms.  No, I don't give a shit that you won 409 football games or that you're a "legendary coach".  No, I couldn't give two shits about how disappointed your seniors are going to be at the Nebraska game this weekend.  You may shut up and go enjoy the remaining time you have left before the Federal government indicts you.

And the worst part is that you're pretending not to understand why.  That's what makes you slime.  But, for those of you who didn't read last night's post or who tried but could not stomach reading the entire twenty-three page Grand Jury Statement, here's a sampling.  Bear in mind, these exerpts, which I've tried to keep as un-triggery as possible while maintaining their meaning, are all drawn from just one of the eight victims reported (the most recent, Victim 1, ended his contact with Sandusky in 2009).  Emphasis is mine.

Excerpts from Victim 2
On March 1, 2002, a Penn State graduate assistant... entered the locker room at the Lasch Football Building on University Park Campus on a Friday night... It was about 9:30 pm... As the graduate assistant put the sneakers in his locker, he looked into the shower.  He saw a naked boy, Victim 2, whose age he estimated to be ten years old, with his hands up against the wall, being subjected to anal intercourse by a naked Sandusky...

... Joseph V. Paterno testified to receiving the graduate student's report at his home on Saturday morning... Paterno called Tim Curley ("Curley"), Penn State Athletic Director... and reported to him that the graduate assistant had seen Jerry Sandusky in the Lasch Building showers fondling or doing something of a sexual nature to a young boy...

... The graduate student heard back from Curley a couple of weeks later.  He was told that Sandusky's keys to the locker room were taken away and that the incident had been reported to Second Mile.  The graduate assistant was never questioned by University Police and no other entity conducted an investigation until he testified in Grand Jury in December 2010...

... there were similarities between the 1998 and 2002 allegations, both of which involved minor boys in the football showers with Sandusky behaving in a sexually inappropriate manner...

... the University Police or other police agency never sought or reviewed
a police report on the 1998 incident and never attempted to learn the identity of the child in the shower in 2002.  No one from the University did so.  [Senior VP of Finance] Schultz did not ask the graduate assistant for specifics.  No one ever did.  Schultz expressed surprise upon learning that the 1998 investigation by University Police produced a lengthy police report...

... The records revealed that the 2002 incident was never reported to any officials, in contravention of Pennsylvania law...

... this and other privileges were negotiated when Sandusky retired in 1999... As a retired coach, Sandusky had unlimited access to football facilities, including the locker rooms.  Schultz testified that Sandusky retired when Paterno felt it was time to make a coaching change and to take advantage of an enhanced retirement benefit under Sandusky's state pension.

Both the graduate student and Curley testified that Sandusky himself was not banned from any Penn State buildings and Curley admitted the ban on bringing children to campus was unenforceable...

...  An oral report should have been made to Centre County Children and Youth Services but none was made.  Nor was there any attempt to investigate, to identify Victim 2 or to protect that child or any others from similar conduct, except as related to preventing its recurrence on University Property.

 


Joe Paterno, this is why you have lost any iota of respect that you may have once merited and why no one should ever speak your name again without thinking "that miserable piece of slime."  You are famous for your iron-fisted control over the football program.  Half of the incidents described in this report occurred in your facilities.  You knew about the 1998 incident wherein Sandusky admitted that he had fondled an eleven year old boy in the showers and that he knew it was wrong.  And you testified before a grand jury that in 2002 you informed your superiors that Sandusky had "fondled or doing something of a sexual nature to a young boy." 

And then you had the gall to pretend ten years later that "...the nature and amount of charges made are very shocking to me."  Oh wait, no:  "Regardless, it was clear that the witness saw something inappropriate involving Mr. Sandusky. As Coach Sandusky was retired from our coaching staff at that time, I referred the matter to university administrators.”  As the father of six children, including two sons, you felt that was all you needed to do?  Oh wait, no: “This is a tragedy. It is one of the great sorrows of my life. With the benefit of hindsight, I wish I had done more.”

Well, it certainly wasn't possible for you to do less, you gutless, arrogant hypocrite.
  If this is a tragedy, then you helped engineer it.  You fostered an environment wherein your employees feared that they would be fired for reporting that Sandusky was fucking pre-pubescent boys up the ass in your locker room and so they said nothing. 

But in the end, Joe Paterno, you are damned because you don't know Victim 2's name.  Or Victim 8's from 2000, also raped in your locker room.  You are slime because you never demonstrated any interest in learning their names, much less protecting them from the vile predator whom you allowed free reign in the facilities and community that bowed to your every whim for four decades.

I can sympathize with the students who are upset that their school protected this child molester for decades and as a result, their degrees are tarnished - my school also publicly imploded my senior year, and it made it harder for us to get jobs after graduation.  But to the thousands of Penn State students who decided to riot in protest of your University's Board of Trustees doing the right thing and throwing that decrepit piece of shit out on his ass where he belongs: learn to read.  Maybe take a moment to think and re-evaluate your priorities in regards to football versus enabling child rape.  Then and only then should you make bold statements about exactly who in this situation is an "embarrassment to our school and a disservice to the student population."



[identity profile] clwright2.livejournal.com 2011-11-10 03:01 pm (UTC)(link)
Ugh, so much this. Also, I'd like to see the graduate assistant come under a little bit more scrutiny. You walk in on a grown man sodomizing a little kid and you do nothing to stop it? And then when the coach does nothing, it doesn't occur to you to go to the police yourself? Ugh ugh ugh.

[identity profile] moragmacpherson.livejournal.com 2011-11-10 03:04 pm (UTC)(link)
Maybe because they made him an assistant coach? But hey, he's well-liked. (The fact that he was deemed the most credible witness from the entire University is not reassuring.)

[identity profile] 13chapters.livejournal.com 2011-11-10 03:20 pm (UTC)(link)
I ran across a blog entry written by someone who went to high school with the graduate assistant. She doesn't dwell on his character, but the implication that he's a bullying asshole and that she's not surprised he didn't do more is pretty clear.

[identity profile] moragmacpherson.livejournal.com 2011-11-10 05:57 pm (UTC)(link)
He doesn't appear to be inspiring loyalty: someone who knows his personal e-mail and cell phone number is posting them to message boards, encouraging commenters to let him know just exactly how shitty of a human being he is. A couple of the message boards aren't as well policed as others and they're still up - not that I encourage or condone harassment, even of bullying, spineless assholes whose silence can be bought.

Other things available on the web that I won't be linking to: there's a Sports Illustrated article that profiled Sandusky and his noble charity work. One of the victims is pictured along with Jerry and eight other kids - some of them adopted or foster children of the Sandusky's. The victim stands out in the picture: he's the one who's holding himself furthest away from his attacker, he's by far the youngest, and he's the only one not smiling. His facial expression and his body language are haunting. Contrasting the look on his face with the text of the article which proclaims that residents of Happy Valley would canonize Sandusky if they could (no mention of the 1998 police investigation)...

He's been abused enough, otherwise I'd be papering that picture all over: Apologists, behold a child whose abuse Joe Paterno, the University administration, the police of State College and the DA of Centre Country could have prevented; but they all chose to cover up the problem instead. This kid got raped in the showers of the house that Joe built.

[identity profile] switchbladesis.livejournal.com 2011-11-10 08:19 pm (UTC)(link)
Guess who's coaching the game on Saturday!

I'm just. I really don't understand the mindset that allows this to happen.
Edited 2011-11-10 20:20 (UTC)

[identity profile] moragmacpherson.livejournal.com 2011-11-10 09:13 pm (UTC)(link)
Well, their interim head coach was Sandusky's replacement, which means he was part of the coaching staff in 2002 and, no, this is still not an acceptable situation. If they don't dump everyone who was a member of the the football staff prior to 2002 during the off-season, they're basically putting a band-aid on the whole situation.

This was a systemic failure. Sandusky kept bringing the kids into the locker room and sauna to molest them for at least six years and everyone turned a blind eye. EVERYONE. Ignoring the child molester (who just loves mentoring children, isn't it wonderful how much time he devotes to them?) became the default setting for the entire community - and if you're all alone and everyone else is insisting that you're accusing a saint? When an ex-employee has so much power that the janitorial staff is too scared of being fired for reporting that he was raping kids in the showers, there's something wrong with the power dynamics at the University. When a man admits to fondling a ten year old and rubbing up against him naked in the shower but the D.A. decides that he's not going to press charges? Then you have something wrong with the power dynamics in the entire city.

There's something rotten in State College. Fixing this is going to be incredibly difficult. How many characters live to the end of Hamlet?

[identity profile] switchbladesis.livejournal.com 2011-11-10 09:18 pm (UTC)(link)
Cancel the entire rest of the season, for start. Concentrate on rebuilding for next year, maybe, but would anyone want to be associated with this current PSU football team?

I just donated to RAINN. It did make me feel a little better.

[identity profile] moragmacpherson.livejournal.com 2011-11-10 09:32 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh god: the Nittany Lions will be bowl eligible this year (if they don't cancel the season). Outside of whichever BCS bowl is the designated National Championship this year, those invitations are issued by the venues and corporate sponsors. They have certain priority levels (basically, whichever offers more money gets the higher ranked teams). And you're right: no one is going to want to be associated with this - which bowl will get stuck endorsing this farce? If they don't want to be completely humiliated by the snubs, they really should cancel the season NOW.

Call up Mark Emmert: the NCAA president has chosen to let law enforcement have first dibs but he's an active enforcer type. Have him give the scholarship players an open invitation to transfer without penalty. And then raze the program, rebuild from scratch (avoid any and all Paterno proteges) and beg for forgiveness.
tabaqui: (Default)

[personal profile] tabaqui 2011-11-10 05:34 pm (UTC)(link)
Gaaaaaaaaaaaah.
This whole deal is just *fucked up* and revolting and makes me *rage*. Jayzus.

[identity profile] moragmacpherson.livejournal.com 2011-11-10 06:01 pm (UTC)(link)
Seriously. It'd be easier to stop raeging if I didn't keep finding a new "worst thing" about the whole situation every time I click a link. If you're running low on raeg fuel, check my reply to 13chapters above.
tabaqui: (Default)

[personal profile] tabaqui 2011-11-10 06:08 pm (UTC)(link)
CHRIST.
I would happily engage in *physical violence* on these people. God's *teeth*.

[identity profile] moragmacpherson.livejournal.com 2011-11-10 07:25 pm (UTC)(link)
New "worst thing" yet: Sister of Sandusky victim is student at Penn State where her 'friends' are joking about being 'Sanduskied' and attending the pro-Joe Rally.

/With ~80,000 students, assuming the baseline 27% crazification factor, if fewer than 21,000 of Penn State students side with Paterno, we're actually doing well as a society.

[identity profile] moragmacpherson.livejournal.com 2011-11-11 02:01 am (UTC)(link)
Yeah: I've been waiting for that one since this morning. But it's not our buddy Rick Ass-Juice, but rather the dreaded Peter Labarbera? Why, just last week he was all busy telling psychologists who renounced the ex-gay movement that they had to turn in their "Christian" cards because you can't be Christian and tolerate gays. He's really getting around!

Oh, and we have a brand new leader in the "worst thing" yet race: an investigation by Mark Madden, the Pittsburgh hockey journalist who broke the news on the Sandursky grand jury back in April. He appeared on NESN today to report that he's looking into allegations that The Second Mile (Sandusky's charity victim pool) may have been pimping out more at-risk and under-privileged children to its donors as well. Former Second Mile board members and high money donors are scrambling to remove their names from the website, but apparently have forgotten that archive.org, Google caching, and the Wayback Machine exist. Celebrities whom I have respected in the past but who should be left to the ravening wolves if it turns out they were paying to diddle children include Cal Ripken Jr., Mark Wahlberg, and Arnold Palmer.

... but I may have spoken soon, because: yes, it seems that an attorney claiming to represent several of the Sandursky victims has chastised the Board of Trustees for firing Paterno last night because they didn't consult the victims who "may not want to be associated with the downfall of Mr. Paterno." Because victim blaming is acceptable when the victims do it to themselves? Boy, did all seven of my therapists have it backwards!

For one last bit of raeg: FUCK YOU, AUTHOR OF FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS. This Isn't a Football Scandal No, THIS is not a football program: it's a criminal organization that systematically harbored, abetted, and concealed the rape of dozens of children across multiple decades and it needs to be dismantled. Now.
Edited 2011-11-11 02:05 (UTC)
tabaqui: (uncuddlybyinmonkeys)

[personal profile] tabaqui 2011-11-11 02:33 am (UTC)(link)
Christ, it's just...fucking insane. The comments on that third link of yours, the 'pimping' link - rife with idiots screaming about gay=pedophile. AND some apologists, who just do *not* seem to get it.

And yeah - Friday Night Lights dude- fuck you very much, and the horse you rode in on. So sorry if your pwecious football games are canceled. Suck it up.