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Decanonized Mythologized Disgraced Ped State Monster Coach Joe Paterno (Zombie Icon)

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NFBuck;2097532; said:
There's also the statements from faculty members about how Joe said that he would "handle" the disciplining of his team. Sounds an awful lot like he was taking an active effort to keep things quiet. I think academic fraud, booster issues, etc. happen pretty much everywhere. Penn State is no different. Seems like they just did a better job of keeping that stuff "in house" than most schools.
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State College is in the middle of nowhere and for most of his career the only media he had to deal with was the local newspaper, who sure as hell wasn't digging into the program - they just took his word for everything.

No surprise that as the sports media world grew more things became known, although don't try telling that to anyone in Crappy Valley.
 
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buckeyesin07;2097523; said:
I don't know if I'm willing to agree that this whole Sandusky thing was the only instance that he wasn't a straight up guy, as your post suggests. There were more than a few reports of his players getting in trouble with the law later in his career, and Joe "taking care of it" by having them clean up the stadium.

And serious question--what do you mean by these "teachings he gave for years and years?"
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How about when he forced out the university v-p when she wanted to bring disciplinary procedures for football players in line with those for the student body as a whole....to the point of threatening the university president that he would stop fundraising if she wasn't fired.

And even if he was the saint his followers make him out to be in all other spheres of life, the act of enabling and covering up for a serial pedophile negates all of it. It's all absolutely meaningless when judged against the magnitude of his crime! Fuck Joe Paterno.
 
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Book excerpt posted on Grantland.com seems appropriate given the recent conversation here.

Paterno didn't suddenly decide to abandon his long-professed ideals about the "student-athlete." He still told his players that school came first; he still enforced his team's dress and personal-grooming codes. But to some of those around him, these looked increasingly like empty gestures when he was also directing the team's academic adviser to make sure that players dropped classes that conflicted with football-related activities. "Appearances were very important to him," says Matt Kipnis, who joined Penn State as an assistant coach in 1987. "But the whole 'Grand Experiment' was sort of a sham. Players were there to play football."
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http://www.grantland.com/blog/the-triangle/post/_/id/15314/book-excerpt-death-comes-to-happy-valley
 
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Abenaki;2097610; said:
Book excerpt posted on Grantland.com seems appropriate given the recent conversation here.



http://www.grantland.com/blog/the-triangle/post/_/id/15314/book-excerpt-death-comes-to-happy-valley
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Good read.

This particular segment supports what I have heard from a former player as well:

Many of his coaches didn't like Paterno per se ? "even his longtime assistants thought he was a prick," says Kipnis ? but they saw how vitally important winning was to him and resolved to do everything they could to make sure he wasn't disappointed.
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The guy was not this "cute little grandpa" figure that he tried to present himself as to the media. He was an egotistical asshole whose win/loss record drove everything that he did. I will not be surprised that if the NCAA does indeed descend on crappy valley, that they will find plenty of skeletons in every closet they open.

Success with honor my ass.
 
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NFBuck;2097506; said:
That's one way of looking at it. Another would be if he was willing to treat the fact that he had a pedophile running amok on campus so lightly, what the hell else was he willing to look the other way about to protect his program and preserve his precious "legacy". Hearing this whole sordid tail leads me to believe the catchy "success with honor" mantra was bull[Mark May] for the most part.
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Anyone that's had tickets behind the PSU bench can tell you, "Success with honor" was bullshit. JoePa could berate a kid as well as R Lee Ermey in Full Metal Jacket when it suited him. He cussed like a sailor when the cameras weren't rolling.
 
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Best Buckeye;2097493; said:
I agree that his legacy has been tarnished but even more that he was a straight up guy his whole life except for this instance.
The teachings he gave for years and years cannot be taken away.
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Which teachings? The ones that came out of his mouth, or the ones demonstrated by his actions?

I'm a pretty big fan of aiming for the dissonance-free Walk the Talk form of teaching.

As for all those young football players Joe is credited with skillfully shaping into men: are we to understand that they would have become someone significantly different if they had chosen a different school? Was the effect of daily basking in Joe's radiance enough to forever resculpt the mold of their character? Odd, then, 'cause decades and decades of it sure as heckfire didn't have any measurable impact on Jerry Sandusky.

"This one instance" you mention...this "instance" began in the previous millennium and continued for years. It was not a single, discrete choice that was made and then it ended. To never speak up, to never act, to tolerate the presence of Sandusky on campus for years--this was a choice made over and over and over and over and over again. It's not a momentary twitch in Joe's own character, it's evidence of a lifelong, endlessly recurring nervous tic.

The players' future paths were mapped long before they met Joe. But, the already-deprived boys who, by Joe's inaction, were abandoned to Jerry Sandusky had their futures forever altered. The secret torments they have lived with all these years, are living with at this very moment, and the toxic ripples that spread through our society from their wounds--that cannot be measured. That's a legacy that will pass through generations, and for the man who held enough power to have done something about it but chose not to--that's his legacy, too.
 
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Best Buckeye;2097493; said:
I agree that his legacy has been tarnished but even more that he was a straight up guy his whole life except for this instance.
The teachings he gave for years and years cannot be taken away.
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A lot of rapists and murderers have been straight up people aside from their crimes...
 
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buckeyesin07;2097523; said:
I don't know if I'm willing to agree that this whole Sandusky thing was the only instance that he wasn't a straight up guy, as your post suggests. There were more than a few reports of his players getting in trouble with the law later in his career, and Joe "taking care of it" by having them clean up the stadium.

And serious question--what do you mean by these "teachings he gave for years and years?"
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[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ol28kPTqa4"]Walt Disney - In The Bag - 1956 - YouTube[/ame]
 
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Did anyone read a story by Adam Jacobi about Paterno yesterday or today?

Apparently he was let go because of it. He was a good blogger for CBS Sports and I enjoy his stuff on twitter.

Nevermind- apparently it was over how he broke the Paterno death report. Blah.
 
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