Penn State Cult (Joe Knew)

[Delaware Buck]

Thank you for the detailed post. I think Audibles is at least more rational than BWI. Of course, some of the same crazies are present on Audibles as well. I was dismayed that the fine "irondoc" poster was run off Audibles, however, a while back. For the first couple years following the scandal, Irondoc was bringing the goods when it came to news before it was released to the public. Irondoc said often on there that he had a source in the state police, and too many of the things he wrote subsequently proved true for him to just be making [Mark May] up. But the Cutlists that are Audibles could not stand the fact that Irondoc was critical of Paterno and said that there were damaging e-mails before they were made public.

I have read so much stuff on the scandal over the past four years that I had forgotten (or maybe I never saw it back in 2012) the Lubrano post you put on BWI recently that sure made it sound as though Lubrano was trying to brace the fanbase for damaging info about Paterno in advance of the Freeh report.

Long before the Freeh report was ever leaked Lubrano verbally attacked one of Freeh's lead investigators at a restaurant in state college. He was drunk, pissed off and had to be restrained by several other people. Apparently he didn't like the questions they were starting ask interviewees as part of their discovery process.

 

[ORD_Buckeye]

Long before the Freeh report was ever leaked Lubrano verbally attacked one of Freeh's lead investigators at a restaurant in state college. He was drunk, pissed off and had to be restrained by several other people. Apparently he didn't like the questions they were starting ask interviewees as part of their discovery process.

Sure. All that may have been true, but you have to admit that he was a hell of a baseball player.

 

[409fold]

There's an entire faction of people that started posting right around the time PS4RS got involved with the alumni elections of 2012. Their sole purpose was to drive an agenda of issues and align those to preselected candidates. It would not surprise me if these people were either being compensated by the Paterno family or some other group.

PS4RS spent something like $200,000 in advertising for the 2013 BoT elections. That's not an insignificant sum of $$$ --- it came from somewhere.

 

[409fold]

The crux of this and the punishments really comes back to JoePed and Spanier. Spanier served on the NCAA infractions committee for years. He got that position by touting the success with honor bull[Mark May]. He was also one of the most hawkish rules enforcers on the committee, always looking to hammer athletic departments for actions that did not meet the success with honor bar. He was also the guy that pushed for heavier penalties against OSU and had no love for Tress. He was also good friends with Ray and Emmert. So when it came out that Spanier was aware of Jerry's actions for years and did nothing to stop it and covered it up, people like Ray and Emmert felt they had been deceived for all those years and needed to take a strong course of action against PSU. So that's some context for why the penalties were presented the way they were and again as other have stated PSU had options.

Why do you think you BOT and Erickson accepted the consent decree? You can take the BWI position that Erickson was an egghead that wanted to do away with football culture or do you think it's possible that Erickson knew that the evidence against C/S/S and Paterno was very strong and he had no interest in it coming to light? It seems like the most likely prospect is that they were already convinced that things had been covered up for years and that accepting the punishment was the best course of action.

Erickson accepted the consent decree because he had no room to negotiate --- the NCAA basically said "sign this or else we shoot this death penalty gun, and you have to decide now." In that case, you eat the "lesser" of the 2 "shit sandwiches."

I have no idea what you mean by "the evidence against C/S/S and Paterno was very strong and he had no interest in it coming to light" --- it ALREADY came to light, via the Freeh Report. If there was additional evidence against them, it would have made the Freeh Report. It didn't.

I am not of the belief that there is/was additional stuff out there and Erickson signed the consent decree in order to avoid that. Fair enough if you believe that --- but I am a guy who likes seeing at least SOME tangible proof when making a claim and I don't think there's any tangible proof for that particular claim.

I also have no idea what you're talking about in terms of "Spanier pushing for heavier penalties against OSU and having no love for Tressel." First time I've heard that claim. Spanier was on an NCAA executive committee in the 1997-2001 timespan, but that's a full 9 years removed from when Tressel got in NCAA trouble.

 

[Joe Pa Thetic]

Erickson accepted the consent decree because he had no room to negotiate --- the NCAA basically said "sign this or else we shoot this death penalty gun, and you have to decide now." In that case, you eat the "lesser" of the 2 "[Mark May] sandwiches."

Why should there have been some kind of obligation to negotiate the penalty? It's not like the school came forward with what happened; PSU sat on the incident/covered it up for a decade. The story blew up because of the incident at Central Mountain High School.

 

[409fold]

Thank you for the detailed post. I think Audibles is at least more rational than BWI. Of course, some of the same crazies are present on Audibles as well. I was dismayed that the fine "irondoc" poster was run off Audibles, however, a while back. For the first couple years following the scandal, Irondoc was bringing the goods when it came to news before it was released to the public. Irondoc said often on there that he had a source in the state police, and too many of the things he wrote subsequently proved true for him to just be making [Mark May] up. But the Cutlists that are Audibles could not stand the fact that Irondoc was critical of Paterno and said that there were damaging e-mails before they were made public.

I have read so much stuff on the scandal over the past four years that I had forgotten (or maybe I never saw it back in 2012) the Lubrano post you put on BWI recently that sure made it sound as though Lubrano was trying to brace the fanbase for damaging info about Paterno in advance of the Freeh report.

I still can't believe Lubrano posted that --- it was at like 10:00 PM on a sleepy Wednesday evening, so not during a high traffic period. He outed himself as both (a) a leaker and (b) a spinner.

That's a guy who is selling himself as a seeker of "truth." Uh huh.

 

[409fold]

Why should there have been some kind of obligation to negotiate the penalty? It's not like the school came forward with what happened; PSU sat on the incident/covered it up for a decade. The story blew up because of the incident at Central Mountain High School.

Negotiate is probably the wrong word in my post --- "advocate for themselves" is a better phrase. I know the NCAA is not our criminal justice system, but all "defendants" should be able to "advocate for themselves" during the punishment phase, IMO.

It was TEN DAYS between Freeh Report release and NCAA deciding on punishment. Why exactly the rush again?

Shoot, Ed Ray, who was on-stage right next to Emmert on 23-July: 10 days wasn't enough time for him to even read the Freeh Report, as he admitted last fall (I can't believe he actually admitted that, but good for him for being honest).

I know you joke about "haven't read the fax and evidents", but in Ed Ray's case, it was LITERALLY TRUE!!! This from the guy on-stage with Emmert! That's pretty absurd, IMO.

http://www.pennlive.com/pennstatefootball/index.ssf/2015/01/former_ncaa_chair_ed_ray_admit.html

 

[Joe Pa Thetic]

Negotiate is probably the wrong word in my post --- "advocate for themselves" is a better phrase. I know the NCAA is not our criminal justice system, but all "defendants" should be able to "advocate for themselves" during the punishment phase, IMO.

It was TEN DAYS between Freeh Report release and NCAA deciding on punishment. Why exactly the rush again?

Shoot, Ed Ray, who was on-stage right next to Emmert on 23-July: 10 days wasn't enough time for him to even read the Freeh Report, as he admitted last fall (I can't believe he actually admitted that, but good for him for being honest).

I know you joke about "haven't read the fax and evidents", but in Ed Ray's case, it was LITERALLY TRUE!!! This from the guy on-stage with Emmert! That's pretty absurd, IMO.

http://www.pennlive.com/pennstatefootball/index.ssf/2015/01/former_ncaa_chair_ed_ray_admit.html

I know Ed Ray has stated he had not read the Freeh report, and it was stunning that he even admitted that. I don't understand why Ed Ray had not read the Freeh Report. It's not like the Freeh report was the Warren Commission report on the JFK assassination length-wise.

That being said, what is there to advocate for when the school sat on the shower incident for a decade? If the school would have come forward or went to law enforcement back in 2001, I could see your point that they deserved a chance to "advocate" for leniency. Cover-ups (or at the least sitting on the information for a decade) deserve no leniency.

 

[Woody1968]

Not sure what you're talking about, but PSU had a compliance department prior to November 2011 (although in Freeh's opinion it was under-staffed) --- and there was nothing in Freeh's report that indicated the department was violating NCAA rules.

I have no doubt that if the department WAS in violation of NCAA rules, it would have been made reference to in the Consent Decree. No references were made in the Consent Decree.

Since the scope of Freeh's investigation was limited to the Sandusky case, we don't know if he uncovered any additional NCAA violations, which is why I believe the Administration were so quick to sign the consent decree. They didn't want the NCAA poking around, and wanted to control the damage. Now they look like freaking geniuses, as pretty much every single penalty has been rolled back, and the NCAA no longer has a basis for poking into the past. Instead of hating Erickson, idiots like 9fold, pennylion etc should be down on their knees blowing him. The JoePed cultists are complete morons for continuing to push for the truth, as they have no idea what kind of crap they are going to expose, and there is ZERO PERCENT chance that Pedterno is going to be exonerated.

 

[Delaware Buck]

Erickson accepted the consent decree because he had no room to negotiate --- the NCAA basically said "sign this or else we shoot this death penalty gun, and you have to decide now." In that case, you eat the "lesser" of the 2 "[Mark May] sandwiches."

I have no idea what you mean by "the evidence against C/S/S and Paterno was very strong and he had no interest in it coming to light" --- it ALREADY came to light, via the Freeh Report. If there was additional evidence against them, it would have made the Freeh Report. It didn't.

I am not of the belief that there is/was additional stuff out there and Erickson signed the consent decree in order to avoid that. Fair enough if you believe that --- but I am a guy who likes seeing at least SOME tangible proof when making a claim and I don't think there's any tangible proof for that particular claim.

I also have no idea what you're talking about in terms of "Spanier pushing for heavier penalties against OSU and having no love for Tressel." First time I've heard that claim. Spanier was on an NCAA executive committee in the 1997-2001 timespan, but that's a full 9 years removed from when Tressel got in NCAA trouble.

Spanier still had NCAA infractions responsibilities right up until he was canned in Nov 2011 - I have no idea how you came up with the 2001 date. One of his last correspondences with Emmert was to resign those committee assignments when Emmert used the now famous "dearest empathy" line. Up to that point Spanier was still very much influencing NCAA punitive actions against member schools with Ray and Emmert. I know for a FACT that he was consulted on tatgate. You can choose to believe that or not. I couldn't care less either way.

Freeh had access to a very limited data set (the scope was kept to 1998 - 2011). You have to be completely delusional if you don't think there's more out there that simply was covered up or not yet investigated or identified by Freeh. Because to believe that you'd have to accept that Jerry started his molestation spree in 1998 (in his mid 50's) and not any earlier and that he was able to keep this under wraps for decades. When that flies in the face of the every pedo study that has ever been done. There were strong indications that he had been suspected of acts as early as the 80's which is more in alignment with how pedo's act. And it would have been impossible to keep that a secret at a place like penn state.

So, YES I do believe that there were more kids molested, that Penn State facilities and football was used as the bait and that it was long known or tolerated by high ranking officials. Having been at PSU for 30+ years I do think Rod knew "where the bodies were buried" and simply wanted to move on before things got interesting.

 

[409fold]

Spanier still had NCAA infractions responsibilities right up until he was canned in Nov 2011 - I have no idea how you came up with the 2001 date. One of his last correspondences with Emmert was to resign those committee assignments when Emmert used the now famous "dearest empathy" line. Up to that point Spanier was still very much influencing NCAA punitive actions against member schools with Ray and Emmert. I know for a FACT that he was consulted on tatgate. You can choose to believe that or not. I couldn't care less either way.

Freeh had access to a very limited data set (the scope was kept to 1998 - 2011). You have to be completely delusional if you don't think there's more out there that simply was covered up or not yet investigated or identified by Freeh. Because to believe that you'd have to accept that Jerry started his molestation spree in 1998 (in his mid 50's) and not any earlier and that he was able to keep this under wraps for decades. When that flies in the face of the every pedo study that has ever been done. There were strong indications that he had been suspected of acts as early as the 80's which is more in alignment with how pedo's act. And it would have been impossible to keep that a secret at a place like penn state.

So, YES I do believe that there were more kids molested, that Penn State facilities and football was used as the bait and that it was long known or tolerated by high ranking officials. Having been at PSU for 30+ years I do think Rod knew "where the bodies were buried" and simply wanted to move on before things got interesting.

Per his own C.V., Spanier was on the NCAA Executive Committee from 1997 to 2001. Chair of the NCAA D-1 Board of Directors from 1998 to 2001. I'm not sure Spanier was ever on the NCAA "Committee on Infractions", although I admittedly may be incorrect on that one.

http://brockinternationalprize.org/nominees/Spanier.pdf

The "dearest empathy" line, maybe it's famous, but I google-searched both "Spanier dearest empathy" and "Spanier deepest empathy" and wasn't getting any hits. Link to that correspondence?

Even if Spanier was consulted on "tatgate" (or more correctly, "not reporting what he should have clearly known was an NCAA infraction"-gate) --- so what? The Tressel case was not very complex to adjudicate, it was a very black and white issue. It doesn't matter who was "consulted", the end result would have been the same: some form of punishment for both Tressel and OSU.

Anyway --- the Freeh Report, I do think it's fair that if one (a) takes everything that is in it as facts and proof that stuff occurred, it's is ALSO fair to say (b) if something is not included in the Freeh Report, there's a pretty fair chance it didn't occur. If you get Emmert in a candid moment, I'm sure he'd admit that he would have preferred to also attach an actual NCAA violation to the consent decree, as opposed to solely relying on "Bylaw 10.1." But he didn't attach an actual NCAA violation. Because of such, I don't think I'm incorrect in thinking that such a violation was NEVER found.

 

[409fold]

Since the scope of Freeh's investigation was limited to the Sandusky case, we don't know if he uncovered any additional NCAA violations, which is why I believe the Administration were so quick to sign the consent decree. They didn't want the NCAA poking around, and wanted to control the damage. Now they look like freaking geniuses, as pretty much every single penalty has been rolled back, and the NCAA no longer has a basis for poking into the past. Instead of hating Erickson, idiots like 9fold, pennylion etc should be down on their knees blowing him. The JoePed cultists are complete morons for continuing to push for the truth, as they have no idea what kind of crap they are going to expose, and there is ZERO PERCENT chance that Pedterno is going to be exonerated.

As I said above --- I'm sure Emmert would admit (in a candid moment) that he would have preferred to also attach an actual NCAA violation to the consent decree, as opposed to solely relying on "Bylaw 10.1." PSU 2012 was the first (and still only) time in NCAA history they have handed down penalties solely by referring to "Bylaw 10.1."

But he didn't attach an actual NCAA violation. Because of such, I don't think I'm incorrect in thinking that additional NCAA violations were NEVER found.

In this case, I'm arguing that the "absence of materials" is a form of "tangible proof" in its own way.

 

[409fold]

That being said, what is there to advocate for when the school sat on the shower incident for a decade? If the school would have come forward or went to law enforcement back in 2001, I could see your point that they deserved a chance to "advocate" for leniency. Cover-ups (or at the least sitting on the information for a decade) deserve no leniency.

To be clear, which of these 2 are you arguing --- "they deserved no leniency" or "they didn't deserve a chance to advocate for leniency."?

It becomes a philosophical argument, but I agree (and yes, to state for the 10th time, the NCAA is not the criminal justice system) with what our criminal justice system does: those found guilty of murder get a chance to advocate for themselves before the sentencing occurs.

 

[Woody1968]

As I said above --- I'm sure Emmert would admit (in a candid moment) that he would have preferred to also attach an actual NCAA violation to the consent decree, as opposed to solely relying on "Bylaw 10.1." PSU 2012 was the first (and still only) time in NCAA history they have handed down penalties solely by referring to "Bylaw 10.1."

But he didn't attach an actual NCAA violation. Because of such, I don't think I'm incorrect in thinking that additional NCAA violations were NEVER found.

In this case, I'm arguing that the "absence of materials" is a form of "tangible proof" in its own way.

I don't agree that the absence of NCAA violations cited is proof one way or the other. The pressure was on Emmert to do something, and he needed to act on what he had. Freeh may or may not have uncovered actual NCAA violations, but as they would have been outside the scope of his report, he was under no obligation to include them in it, and was certainly not at liberty to disclose them to a 3rd party, like the NCAA.

 

[409fold]

I don't agree that the absence of NCAA violations cited is proof one way or the other. The pressure was on Emmert to do something, and he needed to act on what he had. Freeh may or may not have uncovered actual NCAA violations, but as they would have been outside the scope of his report, he was under no obligation to include them in it, and was certainly not at liberty to disclose them to a 3rd party, like the NCAA.

Louis Freeh and the NCAA were in frequent communication with each other in the November 2011 - June 2012 time frame. See link below.

http://espn.go.com/espn/otl/story/_...gether-penn-state-nittany-lions-investigation

Articles like that make me think (I would put the odds of such north of 90%) that the NCAA WAS pressuring Freeh to find an NCAA violation. We'll probably agree to disagree, but I'm rather firm in my belief that the "absence of materials is a form of tangible proof in its own way" (as regards a lack of NCAA violations to attach to "Bylaw 10.1").

Another note on that article: I'm a business consultant in real-life. I realize that when I sign on to do work, the communication in terms of results should be ONLY with my client: they are paying me, they are the only ones that I talk about my work with unless I get express permission from them. I believe that is the ethical way to act.

As I've said before, I believe Freeh's conclusions were generally correct. But Freeh, in terms of the role he signed on with Penn State, was a consultant of sorts too. Unless Penn State told him he could communicate with the NCAA (maybe they did) --- I find his communication with the NCAA prior to report-delivery to be rather questionable behavior.