• Follow us on Twitter @buckeyeplanet and @bp_recruiting, like us on Facebook! Enjoy a post or article, recommend it to others! BP is only as strong as its community, and we only promote by word of mouth, so share away!
  • Consider registering! Fewer and higher quality ads, no emails you don't want, access to all the forums, download game torrents, private messages, polls, Sportsbook, etc. Even if you just want to lurk, there are a lot of good reasons to register!

Penn State Cult (Joe Knew)

OH10;2173247; said:
Paterno's legacy is destroyed. The others are likely to go to prison. The program would be in a better state RIGHT NOW had they done the right thing from the beginning. Paterno could have maintained his reputation. The other guys, sans Sandusky, would be free and employed.

How did the lies work?

They spent the last ten years filling their stadium and appearing on national TV. They were able to recruit their full complement of top-notch football players. They were able to make it to high-profile bowl games. Most if not all of those things would have at least been interrupted for a few years by revealing what was really going on in 2001.

From a purely football standpoint, I'm not so sure they'd be better off at this very moment if they had been forthcoming back then. Penn State was struggling to win games at the time. A scandal like this would have added an additional stain on top of the losing results. Instead of bouncing back, they might spent the last decade like UCLA or Tennessee.
 
Upvote 0
OH10;2173254; said:
And they're going to get nailed financially.
Probably. But they were counting on covering it up and skating on the whole thing. They have spent a minimum of 10 years profiting from their lies and deception. The penalty needs to be far greater than what they gained in the last 10 years or there is no penalty.
 
Upvote 0
jlb1705;2173255; said:
They spent the last ten years filling their stadium and appearing on national TV. They were able to recruit their full complement of top-notch football players. They were able to make it to high-profile bowl games. Most if not all of those things would have at least been interrupted for a few years by revealing what was really going on in 2001.

From a purely football standpoint, I'm not so sure they'd be better off at this very moment if they had been forthcoming back then. Penn State was struggling to win games at the time. A scandal like this would have added an additional stain on top of the losing results. Instead of bouncing back, they might spent the last decade like UCLA or Tennessee.

If you were right, then the school would be getting their asses kicked in recruiting right now and they'd have no hope of filling the stadium next year. What is coming out now is way worse from a public relations standpoint than what would have happened had they just reported it from the beginning.

Sandusky rapes = bad. Sandusky rapes plus cover-up plus more Sandusky rapes = worse. And yet all of your predictions aren't coming true despite the fact that this is probably the worst thing that has ever happened to a college program.


I'm confident the program would have survived had they done the right thing. They're surviving now. All you're doing is giving credence the Paterno's horrible rationale that he needed to protect the program. He was wrong.
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0
OH10;2173261; said:
If you were right, then the school would be getting their asses kicked in recruiting right now and they'd have no hope of filling the stadium next year. What is coming out now is way worse from a public relations standpoint than what would have happened had they just reported it from the beginning.

If you don't want to believe me, believe BN27 - this statement completely misunderstands the level of inbred stupidity that inhabits Central PA.

Sandusky rapes = bad. Sandusky rapes plus cover-up plus more Sandusky rapes = worse. And yet all of your predictions aren't coming true despite the fact that this is probably the worst thing that has ever happened to a college program.

The can of worms is open and once the Feds, the NCAA, the AAU, the CIC and all of the lawyers and victims claims are done, there won't be much left.
 
Upvote 0
BuckeyeMike80;2173265; said:
If you don't want to believe me, believe BN27 - this statement completely misunderstands the level of inbred stupidity that inhabits Central PA.

Oh, I agree. In fact, that's my point. Penn State did not benefit at all from this. They'd have filled the stadium in 2001 even if the story had come out likee it should have. They'd still have recruited well. They still would have made all that money.

That's what makes this even sadder; that Paterno thought he was protecting the program. He wasn't protecting anything. The program would have been fine. He was protecting a pedophile. That's all it was.
 
Upvote 0
OH10;2173266; said:
Oh, I agree. In fact, that's my point. Penn State did not benefit at all from this. They'd have filled the stadium in 2001 even if the story had come out likee it should have. They'd still have recruited well. They still would have made all that money.

That's what makes this even sadder; that Paterno thought he was protecting the program. He wasn't protecting anything. The program would have been fine. He was protecting a pedophile. That's all it was.
And I would beg to disagree. I believe Paterno thought he was protecting Paterno. That was his goal. If he needed to protect a pedophile in order to accomplish his goal, so be it.
 
Upvote 0
buckeyeintn;2173269; said:
And I would beg to disagree. I believe Paterno thought he was protecting Paterno. That was his goal. If he needed to protect a pedophile in order to accomplish his goal, so be it.

In his mind, there was no distinction. Paterno, the program and The Legacy were all one and the same. Hell, add the entire university to the list. He saw himself as the center of that universe right up until the last couple of months when it became expedient for him to play up the doddering old man act.
 
Upvote 0
It's impossible to forecast where ped state would be right now had they done the right thing in 2001. Most likely, paterno would have lost his job. That was right when the tide started to turn against him in public opinion as they had been underperforming on the field for a few seasons and their recruiting was starting to slump. What would have happened next would tell where they'd be now. They could have hired their Jim Tressel or Pete Carroll and won a ton of games. Or, they could have hired a Ron Zook, Rick Niuheisel, or any other schlub and become a coach carousel. Who knows.
 
Upvote 0
OH10;2173261; said:
If you were right, then the school would be getting their asses kicked in recruiting right now and they'd have no hope of filling the stadium next year. What is coming out now is way worse from a public relations standpoint than what would have happened had they just reported it from the beginning.

Sandusky rapes = bad. Sandusky rapes plus cover-up plus more Sandusky rapes = worse. And yet all of your predictions aren't coming true despite the fact that this is probably the worst thing that has ever happened to a college program.


I'm confident the program would have survived had they done the right thing. They're surviving now. All you're doing is giving credence the Paterno's horrible rationale that he needed to protect the program. He was wrong.

Maybe you're right. Maybe they would have rolled right along had they been forthcoming at the time. I wish they had believed that to be the case as much as you do, and done the right thing back then.

Believe me, I'm not giving credence to their decision-making. Refusing to sanction the program because ten years have passed would do exactly that though. They were wrong, and they don't deserve to get away with protecting ANY of the things they were trying to protect by lying - be that their jobs, freedom, reputations, or the football program.

Innocent people get harmed all the time by the punishment of friends, loved ones or employees who commit criminal acts. I'm sure there is a significant number of wives, parents, sons, daughters, grandchildren, etc. who are going to be harmed in at least some small way from the likes of Curley, Schultz & Spanier going to prison. The harm that comes to those people is not the fault of the crimnal justice system, it's the fault of the criminals. Why should NCAA sanctions work any differently? If players and coaches are harmed by the sanctions brought about by the acts of others, it's not the NCAA's fault for enforcing their rules, it's the fault of the people who committed the act.
 
Upvote 0
The key is that Paterno was completely unwilling to let himself, his legacy and his program take any risk whatsoever of being viewed as anything less than the embodiment of all that was perfect and noble in college football. Maybe the program would have suffered; maybe it wouldn't have missed a beat. Who cares that many would have applauded him for going public. It still would have been a weakness and imperfection in the program and to his carefully crafted and managed image that he wouldn't tolerate.

And so for these vain and sickeningly petty reasons however many more young kids were left to suffer.
 
Upvote 0
ORD_Buckeye;2173278; said:
I really wonder about two things.

  1. Do they have the guts to take down that fucking statue?
  2. If they do, will the pedtards chain themselves to it, create a human shield and so on?

It reminds me of my stance on the Baseball HOF. They shouldn't be whitewashing the history of the game by excluding gamblers and PED users. Enshrine them, but put EVERYTHING on their plaque, for better or worse.

They shouldn't take the statue down and pretend that Paterno and his shrine were never there. Just fill in the remaining blanks. Include EVERYTHING that he will be remembered for. Tell the story not just of what he did to help the place, but what he cost them as well. It's a chance to teach something to every student and fan who walks by it. By comparison, tearing it down would be the gutless act.

I don't think that would happen in a million years, but a re-made regime at Penn State would gain a measure of my respect if they did it.

The more likely scenario - I think the statue might go be whisked away in the middle of the night - much in the same way the Colts were moved out of Baltimore. On a quiet night when nobody expects it, they'll tear it out and deal with the fallout that comes after it's gone. In it's place they'll probably put some kind of memorial that makes generic reference to the people who were harmed by this scandal without making any direct references to it or taking any responsibility for it.
 
Upvote 0
Back
Top