Penn State Cult (Joe Knew)

[Taosman]

"WHAT WOULD JOE DO?"
"Let's have our own investigation so IT LOOKS LIKE WE CARE!"

 

[409fold]

With respect to the Bold - I'm sorry... I thought there was a consent decree that was signed. As your four points indicate... they didn't HAVE to sign it. And, as LJB observes, to the extent that the option was "sign this or we're going to shut you down" then PSU still made a choice it didn't HAVE to make. That, my friend, is participation, like it or not.

I don't know, but I'd give it about 60%-40% odds that if and when NCAA e-mails come out as part of the Paterno lawsuit against the NCAA ----- we'll see some correspondence between the NCAA and Penn State that says something like "sign this consent decree, or we're applying the death penalty. Sincerely, Mark Emmert."

You're right, PSU didn't HAVE to sign the consent decree even given that "virtual gun" pointed at their head. Penn State still had a "choice." But if that was the "negotiating tactic" that Emmert used, I can't say I agree with it. Again, I'm not a Machiavellian - IMO, the ends do not always justify the means by which one gets there.

Fair enough if you disagree.

I don't know if that e-mail exists, but for some reason, BOTH the NCAA and Penn State are fighting against the release of correspondence e-mails between the 2 during July 2012.

 

[Joe Pa Thetic]

I don't know, but I'd give it about 60%-40% odds that if and when NCAA e-mails come out as part of the Paterno lawsuit against the NCAA ----- we'll see some correspondence between the NCAA and Penn State that says something like "sign this consent decree, or we're applying the death penalty. Sincerely, Mark Emmert."

You're right, PSU didn't HAVE to sign the consent decree even given that "virtual gun" pointed at their head. Penn State still had a "choice." But if that was the "negotiating tactic" that Emmert used, I can't say I agree with it. Again, I'm not a Machiavellian - IMO, the ends do not always justify the means by which one gets there.

Fair enough if you disagree.

I don't know if that e-mail exists, but for some reason, BOTH the NCAA and Penn State are fighting against the release of correspondence e-mails between the 2 during July 2012.

409. how reflective do you think BWI is of the Penn St, alumni as a whole? By that, I mean what percentage of the alumni views Paterno as more important than than the university itself? What percentage do you think views the BoT as some evil, corrupt entity whose goal was to destroy Paterno and cover their own asses? What percentage of the alumni find the rehabilitation of Joe's image all-consuming and that Freeh, Emmert, Ganim, Erickson, Frazier, etc. must all pay for their sins?

Anyone that expresses even a moderate view on BWI is quickly run off or ridiculed forever, yet I have seen numbers that only five percent of the eligible voters even vote in the BoT elections. The victimization of Paterno remains such a unifying theme in the PSU community, yet so few people actually bother to vote when it comes time to vote?

What percentage of people on BWI or social media do you think are being paid by the Paterno family public relations firm to expresses such stridently pro-Paterno viewpoints. It seems almost impossible to believe that even the most obscure news article that is the tiniest bit critical of Paterno will have many of the same pro-Paterno people in the comments section. BWI always claims that anyone wanting to "move on" is being paid by the BoT, but I always think that claim is just a way of trying to marginalize anyone not in lockstep who has not been run off the board.

 

[colobuck79]

409. how reflective do you think BWI is of the Penn St, alumni as a whole? By that, I mean what percentage of the alumni views Paterno as more important than than the university itself? What percentage do you think views the BoT as some evil, corrupt entity whose goal was to destroy Paterno and cover their own asses? What percentage of the alumni find the rehabilitation of Joe's image all-consuming and that Freeh, Emmert, Ganim, Erickson, Frazier, etc. must all pay for their sins?

Anyone that expresses even a moderate view on BWI is quickly run off or ridiculed forever, yet I have seen numbers that only five percent of the eligible voters even vote in the BoT elections. The victimization of Paterno remains such a unifying theme in the PSU community, yet so few people actually bother to vote when it comes time to vote?

What percentage of people on BWI or social media do you think are being paid by the Paterno family public relations firm to expresses such stridently pro-Paterno viewpoints. It seems almost impossible to believe that even the most obscure news article that is the tiniest bit critical of Paterno will have many of the same pro-Paterno people in the comments section. BWI always claims that anyone wanting to "move on" is being paid by the BoT, but I always think that claim is just a way of trying to marginalize anyone not in lockstep who has not been run off the board.

I can't/won't answer for him, but I will note that the actions you are describing are textbook cult.

 

[Buckeyeskickbuttocks]

I don't know, but I'd give it about 60%-40% odds that if and when NCAA e-mails come out as part of the Paterno lawsuit against the NCAA ----- we'll see some correspondence between the NCAA and Penn State that says something like "sign this consent decree, or we're applying the death penalty. Sincerely, Mark Emmert."

You're right, PSU didn't HAVE to sign the consent decree even given that "virtual gun" pointed at their head. Penn State still had a "choice." But if that was the "negotiating tactic" that Emmert used, I can't say I agree with it. Again, I'm not a Machiavellian - IMO, the ends do not always justify the means by which one gets there.

Fair enough if you disagree.

I don't know if that e-mail exists, but for some reason, BOTH the NCAA and Penn State are fighting against the release of correspondence e-mails between the 2 during July 2012.

For me, it's not a matter of the ends justifying the means. The inescapable fact is that the ncaa has the appropriate jurisdiction to issue punishments as it sees fit. Emmert- assuming an option was given - did not need to offer any alternative. Now, I'm no particular ncaa apologist, but it is the governing body of college athletics. From what I know regarding the psu case this was a complete lack of institutional control. Did it make a difference on the field? I don't know. But, with a lack of a compliance office ... with the head coach being involved in the university's response to the Sandusky allegations ... to say nothing of the "we are because he was" mentality.... it just screams to me the inescapable. ... Joe Paterno. .. a fucking football coach... ran that school. Not the board. Not the president. The football coach.

I'm on my phone here, so I'm sorry for the lack of a particularly in depth response and any autocorrections. Lol.

 

[Buckeyeskickbuttocks]

As to both the ncaa and psu seeking that emails etc not be produced there are any number of reasons why they would be united in that position. These reasons need not be nefarious. For example, and I realize the court in Paterno v. Ncaa disagreed, but the plaintiff in that case has no standing in the first place. Bear in mind, Penn state was punished. Penn state didn't appeal it. Paterno's idiot son did. Penn state and the ncaa are rightly united in attempting to prevent the disgruntled family of a fired coach from nosing around in their records. These, to my knowledge, are not public records. No small sense of irony that Pennsylvania law was interpreted in such a way so as to keep Paterno s salary a secret. Despite his having clearly been a public employee. And I don't say that because he was a public personna. I say it because he worked at a state funded university. The people of Pennsylvania had and have every right to know what their money is being spent on.

 

[BuckeyeNation27]

I don't know, but I'd give it about 60%-40% odds that if and when NCAA e-mails come out as part of the Paterno lawsuit against the NCAA ----- we'll see some correspondence between the NCAA and Penn State that says something like "sign this consent decree, or we're applying the death penalty. Sincerely, Mark Emmert."

Is that wrong? Isn't that just saying "Well.....you did this, this, this, this, this, and this wrong. Your penalties are *what they got*, or you get the death penalty. Pick one,"?

 

[409fold]

409. how reflective do you think BWI is of the Penn St, alumni as a whole? By that, I mean what percentage of the alumni views Paterno as more important than than the university itself? What percentage do you think views the BoT as some evil, corrupt entity whose goal was to destroy Paterno and cover their own asses? What percentage of the alumni find the rehabilitation of Joe's image all-consuming and that Freeh, Emmert, Ganim, Erickson, Frazier, etc. must all pay for their sins?

Anyone that expresses even a moderate view on BWI is quickly run off or ridiculed forever, yet I have seen numbers that only five percent of the eligible voters even vote in the BoT elections. The victimization of Paterno remains such a unifying theme in the PSU community, yet so few people actually bother to vote when it comes time to vote?

What percentage of people on BWI or social media do you think are being paid by the Paterno family public relations firm to expresses such stridently pro-Paterno viewpoints. It seems almost impossible to believe that even the most obscure news article that is the tiniest bit critical of Paterno will have many of the same pro-Paterno people in the comments section. BWI always claims that anyone wanting to "move on" is being paid by the BoT, but I always think that claim is just a way of trying to marginalize anyone not in lockstep who has not been run off the board.

Those are good questions.

I've always said that Tom McAndrew is on the Paterno payroll. At the very least, he is DEFINITELY a Paterno insider. A DEEP insider. He knows stuff. Shoot, he was the first person back on that Saturday afternoon in January 2012 who had the news that Joe's death was rather imminent. He also knew that the Paternos were going to use Outside the Lines on ESPN to announce their lawsuit against the NCAA --- he previewed that story a couple days before the actual Sunday morning ESPN broadcast.

I also think that the Paterno family is a strong bank-roller of PS4RS. And why not? Bank-rolling PS4RS is a pretty good "back-door" way for the Paterno family to have BoT members do their bidding within the walls of Penn State. I've expressed my belief about the Paternos being bank-rollers of PS4RS a number of times on BWI: those posts tend to get deleted quickly. I think one reason for that is because PS4RS has Tom McAndrew on THEIR bank-roll. Note when McAndrew posts: he often is parroting messages that come from PS4RS leadership. Shoot, he had a post like that just within the past 48 hours.

http://bwi.forums.rivals.com/threads/a-message-from-ps4rs.67610/

One fact about BoT elections that I've pointed out a few times is that "the alumni-elected trustees, people like Anthony Lubrano, are only getting 40% of the votes from the 6% of alumni who vote." Those numbers are not exactly correct --- but they are close. The Paterno Loyalists may say "our alumni trustees are getting elected, thus the majority of the alumni agree with us!!!!" --- but it's a fact that (a) they don't even get 50% of the votes of people who do vote, they benefit from fractured elections where 35 different alumni run for only 3 spots, and (b) not even 10% of the alumni who are eligible to vote do so.

Michael Weinrieb wrote a Grantland (RIP) article in October where he referred to "Paterno Loyalists" as "relentlessly vocal." That phrase nailed it. I truly do believe that "Paterno Loyalists" are only ~10% of the PSU alumni base/fan base. But Lord knows: they are a 10% THAT DOES NOT EVER SHUT THE FUCK UP. Do the math: if 10% of people talk about one subject 100% of the time, while the other 90% of people talk about one subject only 10% of the time (they don't talk about that one subject as much because, well, they have a life and other stuff to do) --- well, it at least seems like the 10% of people are the majority.

http://grantland.com/the-triangle/2015-college-football-penn-state-james-franklin/

If one visits the Scout and 247 message boards for Penn State, there is some scandal discussion, but it's mostly just football, football, football. Even the scandal discussion there is not completely one-sided.

I was at the Penn State @ Michigan State game in East Lansing on Saturday. That makes the 19th Penn State game outside of State College that I have attended since November 2011. That's a lot of games. Those 19 games include every B1G outside of Iowa, Maryland and Rutgers. I always sit amongst the opposing fans, because I like to chat with other folk and I find it more fun. Only ONCE in those 19 games have I been heckled with anything Sandusky or child rape related: that was some fan at Wisconsin in 2013, who was promptly told to "stop acting like an idiot" by his fellow fans.

IMO, the internet isn't reality. Tons of Penn State folk could give a damn less about football. Among those who do care about football, I believe that most of them have accepted things and moved on (some, admittedly, slower than others), and just want to enjoy the new era of Penn State football. Most opposing have absolutely no desire to give Penn State folk grief about it --- after all, it wasn't them that screwed up. There's a lot of tough "fuck Penn State" and "fuck people who aren't JoeBots" talk on the internet, but I'm of the firm belief those folk are outliers.

 

[409fold]

Is that wrong? Isn't that just saying "Well.....you did this, this, this, this, this, and this wrong. Your penalties are *what they got*, or you get the death penalty. Pick one,"?

Well, it was of course nebulous as to whether, via a reading of the NCAA Constitution, Penn State was truly "eligible" for the "death penalty."

The "choice" --- again, IF this "choice" was actually given --- is more accurately described as:

(1) sign this consent decree, or

(2) we're giving you the death penalty, although we're not really sure if doing so is really accordant with our own established rules and procedures ------ but let's ignore that question, because we know you guys aren't going to spend millions of dollars to fight us in court on that issue, especially given that you're going to be fighting that battle going massively uphill from a PR perspective -------- so back to the beginning, sign that consent decree or we're giving you the death penalty."

 

[BuckeyeNation27]

Well, it was of course nebulous as to whether, via a reading of the NCAA Constitution, Penn State was truly "eligible" for the "death penalty."

The "choice" --- again, IF this "choice" was actually given --- is more accurately described as:

(1) sign this consent decree, or

(2) we're giving you the death penalty, although we're not really sure if doing so is really accordant with our own established rules and procedures ------ but let's ignore that question, because we know you guys aren't going to spend millions of dollars to fight us in court on that issue, especially given that you're going to be fighting that battle going massively uphill from a PR perspective -------- so back to the beginning, sign that consent decree or we're giving you the death penalty."

I don't think the NCAA can be at fault for not having a rule or procedure in place to account for the possibility that a coach would be told about a former assistant coach raping children, him not going to the police but instead to his "bosses", and them not going to the police and sweeping things under the rug for a decade.

 

[409fold]

I don't think the NCAA can be at fault for not having a rule or procedure in place to account for the possibility that a coach would be told about a former assistant coach raping children, him not going to the police but instead to his "bosses", and them not going to the police and sweeping things under the rug for a decade.

Well, there were other options.

For instance, the NCAA always had an option of saying "our organization's mission statement is to govern competition in a fair, safe, equitable and sportsmanlike manner, and to integrate intercollegiate athletics into higher education so that the educational experience of the student-athlete is paramount. While we are disappointed with everything we read in the Freeh Report, we find that punishing Penn State for what is detailed in the Freeh Report is OUTSIDE OF our mission statement and OUTSIDE OF our purview. As such, we're doing nothing at all. Much like the IRS doesn't go audit guys who are found guilty of murder --- we will not be engaged in mission creep."

Look, I get it. People would have been outraged had the NCAA said that. Ohio State fans would have been particularly outraged, given OSU was on probation for their own issues in 2012.

But the above statement was an option --- and I feel like the above was the correct option. One can think poorly of Joe Paterno (as I do), but one can also think that the NCAA was incorrect for injecting themselves into the matter.

I've always thought that if the NCAA simply stepped back and said "we're doing nothing", you would have seen Penn State leadership self-sanction the football team in some respect (probably sitting out Bowl games, maybe some scholarship reductions) for the 2012-2013 seasons. Of course we'll never know, because we only had 10 days between Freeh Report release and NCAA sanction announcement. The NCAA barely gave PSU leadership time to digest the report before they themselves decided to embark on a course of action. Shoot, even Ed Ray himself admitted last year he never even read the Freeh Report --- this from the guy who was ON THE STAGE (!!!) with Mark Emmert back in July 2012.

Yes, there are a subset of Penn State fans who are acting like "victims and martyrs" ---- an ironic thing is that that group exists to a large degree because of the sanctions. If the NCAA hadn't gotten involved and instead Penn State did self-sanctioning, you wouldn't see quite the same victim-complex and martyr-complex among a portion of the PSU fanbase. Those folk would be forced to be more self-introspective as they would have no outward entity to blame for things. Instead, the NCAA sanctions and overreach actually EXACERBATED that dynamic.

 

[Buckeyeskickbuttocks]

@409fold Yeah, Wisconsin fans are drunk, penny in a marshmallow throwin, assholes. lol

 

[BuckeyeNation27]

Worded differently, you wish the NCAA had said, "While what was allowed to happen at Penn State with direct knowledge of top administrative staff and the head football coach is the most heinous thing we've ever seen.......we don't technically have a preset punishment for the enabling of child rape. You're free to go."

The people who think this isn't also an NCAA issue don't believe that what happened was for the sake of the football team. I think those people are wrong. The NCAA had every right to punish Penn State, and they should have done so more harshly. People looked the other way because they needed to protect the bullshit myth that Penn State was special and better than everywhere else. Not only did they look the other way while children were abused.....this should call into question everything else that they covered up for the sake of Success With Honor.






God that's such a sanctimonious bullshit name it just begs to be outed as fraudulent.

 

[MaxBuck]

I really wish all the Paterno-bashing and BWI-baiting could be moved to another forum.

Do I think Paterno was an enabler who basically fiddled while State College burned? Yeah. Do I think the denizens of BWI are a pack of clueless idol-worshipers? Of course.

But I would occasionally like to read something that's actually related to Nittany Lion Football ca. 2015, and it's tedious as fuck to have to wade through a bunch of gratuitous attacks on these two entities in order to find the needle in the haystack.

Is there any way we can cut off debate on BWI, JoeBots, the Paterno family and the Penn State Board of Trustees here on the College Football forum and move it somewhere else?

 

[409fold]

Worded differently, you wish the NCAA had said, "While what was allowed to happen at Penn State with direct knowledge of top administrative staff and the head football coach is the most heinous thing we've ever seen.......we don't technically have a preset punishment for the enabling of child rape. You're free to go."

I pay my taxes, and I am currently (I think ) in good standing with the IRS. But if I go out tonight and murder somebody and then turn myself into Cincinnati police admitting the murder I committed, I shall be punished.

But it won't be by the IRS. The IRS does what they do, the state of Ohio criminal justice system does what they do. There is no "mission creep."

The Freeh Report found no NCAA violations, besides the infamous "Bylaw 10.1" (unethical conduct). Of course, "unethical conduct" is pretty nebulous. "Unethical conduct" can run the full gamut of activities from (1) the Holocaust to (2) me stealing $0.05 from my colleague's desk so I can by chips from the vending machine, then never paying him back his $0.05, and (3) everything in-between.

Anyway, the July 2012 sanctions were the first time in NCAA history that they referenced "Bylaw 10.1" as a reason for applying penalties without ALSO attaching another NCAA violation to it.

You may say, "well, that particular Bylaw 10.1 violation was so egregious it HAD to be punished." Fair enough. I say that the NCAA engaged in "mission creep" and got involved in something that had nothing to do with them.

Spanier, Curley, Schulz and Paterno were the four people fingered for guilt by the Freeh Report. Three of them are currently criminally indicted, and certainly aren't "free to go." That is as it should be (although they, of course, deserve their eventual day in court to defend themselves).

As for the fourth --- I do feel that many folk cheered the sanctions because they served as a "proxy for punishing Paterno, someone who didn't face justice in this world." Well, Paterno was dead in July 2012. That's simply "a desire to beat up a literal corpse." That's not a justification for the NCAA applying "mission creep" either.