Big Ten Sanctions Against Penn State

Via the LA Times

The Big Ten Conference issued its own penalties Monday to Penn State, banning the school's football team from appearing in the Big Ten championship game for four years and stating the school won't receive any conference bowl revenue during that same span.

That revenue is estimated to total about $13 million, bringing the grand total Penn State has been fined to $73 million.

. . . "The accepted findings support the conclusion that our colleagues at Penn State, individuals that we have known and with whom we have worked for many years, have egregiously failed on many levels -- morally, ethically and potentially criminally," read the statement from the Big Ten Council of Presidents and Chancellors.

I guess it could be worse, as the Bleacher Report states:

Penn State was effectively delivered a death knell by the NCAA, but at the least the Big Ten had the decency not to spit on its grave.

NCAA Guts Penn State's Prestige

The NCAA slapped the Nittany Lions with sanctions that will reverberate through College Station for the next four years and beyond. They gutted the revenue earned this year from the Penn State football program, banned the team from bowl games for the next four years, and "vacated" all wins from 1998 through 2011, effectively destroying the legacy of Joe Paterno, who is no longer the "winningest coach in history."

So the football team survives and players can play the game, but the prestige is gone along with Joe Pa's statue, and that's fitting. Why should a team and a university have bragging rights when the so-called "ethical" leaders were nothing but apologists and enablers for a serial child molester?

I find all of it very satisfying, since it puts the priorities of the university back where they should have been in the first place.

Penn Live

Penn State will be banned from bowl games for four years. It will lose 20 scholarships a year for four years. It will pay a $60 million fine -- a year's average gross annual revenue for the football program. That money will be used to fund programs to prevent child abuse. Penn State can't pay that fine with academic money or by cutting other athletic scholarships.

And the Nittany Lions 109 wins between 1998 and 2011 have been vacated. Joe Paterno is no longer the winningest Div. I football coach of all time.

NCAA president Mark Emmert said the NCAA crafted the punishment as a consent decree, which the university has signed. No appeal is expected.

The penalties are meant to carry a message, Emmert says. Big sports he said, have become too big to fail, and in some cases, too big to question.

At Penn State a Statue Falls

Penn State took down the statue of Joe Paterno this morning with little ceremony beyond the sound of jackhammers on a Sunday morning. They had the area cordoned off with barriers and blue tarps so little could be seen. The plaques of football players on the wall behind him were also removed, but his name will remain on the library. Now the town of College Station awaits tomorrow's announcement of possibly strict sanctions from the NCAA. For football fans and supporters of Paterno still in shock over the Sandusky scandal, it's hard to say which day will be the hardest.

Philadelphia Inquirer: Twitter Response to the Statue

Here’s iconic image of Paterno statue coming down. twitter.com/ClayTravisBGID…

— Clay Travis (@ClayTravisBGID) July 22, 2012

From Centre Daily News:

By 7:45 a.m. this morning, jackhammers rattled behind a metal fence covered by a blue tarp. The statue was tied to a forklift. The fence shielded the statue, covered in clear plastic and protective packaging materials.

The statue was removed at 8:24 a.m. The forklift carried it into the stadium's Gate A as about a dozen workers followed.

A moment later, a man in the crowd started a "We are Penn State" chant. After it finished, another man yelled, "We love you, Joe."

An hour later, Penn State workers began removing lettering and plaques from the wall behind where the statue stood.

From Huffington Post - Onlookers React

Many of those watching the removal stared in disbelief and at least one woman wept, while others expressed anger at the decision.

"I think it was an act of cowardice on the part of the university," Mary Trometter of Williamsport, who wore a shirt bearing Joe Paterno's image. She said she felt betrayed by university officials, saying they promised openness but said nothing about the decision until just before the removal work began.

. . . Derek Leonard, 31, a university construction project coordinator who grew up in the area, said the construction workers on the project told him it was like watching a funeral when the statue was lowered onto the truck and then rolled away. He didn't completely agree with the decision but worried more that the NCAA would shut down the football program.
"It's going to kill our town," he said.

Richard Hill, 67, West Chester, a Penn State alumnus, said, "If you punish the football program or Joe Paterno – they're tied together – this town is going to suffer. The revenue does an awful lot to keep this town viable and lively."

Colby Walk, 40, who grew up in the Penn State area, wondered why an NCAA punishment was necessary, given the criminal charges, officials fired or forced out, Paterno's death and now the statue's removal.
"It's kind like we already have the death penalty," he said, referring to the worry that the NCAA would shut down the Penn State football program.

Freeh Fall at Penn State after Report

Complete Report by Former FBI Director Louis Freeh

Philadelphia Inquirer Story

The idea that Paterno paid no attention to the '98 incident "is completely contradicted by the evidence," Freeh said.

In addition to raising doubt about Paterno's statement that he was unaware of the assault, the report contains evidence suggesting the former coach was the key to a decision by top university officials to back away from alerting state authorities to a 2001 shower incident involving a boy.

Officials initially planned to alert the state Department of Public Welfare about the allegation, which would have triggered an official, outside investigation.

But according to e-mails made public in the Freeh report, Timothy Curley, the athletic department director now awaiting trial in the scandal, urged the university to abandon this plan "after talking it over with Joe."

*snip*

The report's sobering contents include a highly critical glimpse of the once-sacrosanct coach's behavior between 1998 and Sandusky's 2011 arrest. Investigators portrayed Paterno as an active participant in an administrative effort to "conceal critical facts" and preserve the reputation of the university's signature athletic program.
By doing so, the report says, Paterno, Spanier, Curley, and Schultz displayed "a striking lack of empathy" for Sandusky's victims.

*snip*

Freeh told the story of a Lasch Building janitor who had witnessed a "horrific" Sandusky assault but was afraid he might lose his job if he reported an incident involving the much-admired coach.

"He was afraid to take on the football program, and if that's the culture on the bottom [of the Penn State football food chain], then God help the culture on top," Freeh said.

Pittsburgh Post Gazette story on future Civil Suits by the victims:

. . . Emails uncovered by the Freeh team indicated that Mr. Spanier approved a plan to ask Mr. Sandusky to get "professional help" and that he was concerned about making the university "vulnerable" should Mr. Sandusky's behavior continue. Though he denied knowing that Mr. Schultz and Mr. Curley considered reporting the matter to the state Department of Public Welfare, notes from a meeting he attended indicate that was also discussed.

These things don't match up with Mr. Spanier's contention that what he knew about was just "horseplay," said Wes Oliver, a law professor at Duquesne University.
"Based on what we have, there's enough to circumstantially infer that he knew," he said. "If he thought it was just a ... shower after tee ball, you don't recommend a psychologist after that."

Mr. Oliver believes the report could lead to charges against Mr. Spanier for failing to report the matter to authorities or to investigate further. And he believes Mr. Paterno, were he still alive, might have also faced charges, since there's evidence in the emails that he influenced Mr. Curley to not go to DPW.

Jeff Fritz, the attorney for Victim 4, agreed the report lays out evidence that could be used to charge Mr. Spanier. "What is clear is they made a conscious decision to make the wrong decision," Mr. Fritz said. "These weren't mistakes. These were crimes that were committed."

Michael Boni, the attorney for an individual who has been identified only as Victim 1, said he views it as "an admission by Penn State that it's liable to the victims of this cover-up.
"The report makes crystal clear that those four made a conscious, overt decision to not report Sandusky's transgressions," he said. "By not doing it, they brought about a situation where my client and others were abused as a direct result of their action."

The Patriot News has a collection of excerpts from various sportswriters on the Penn State scandal and the so-called "legacy" of Joe Paterno after the Freeh Report. Here are several of the best:

Dave Ruthenberg, Enid Oklahoma News

“The outrage belongs squarely at the feet of Penn State officials, including Paterno, whose family has defended him by proclaiming he didn’t even use email in 2001.
Such a defense actually bears further evidence Paterno had long overstayed his time at Penn State, was out of touch and had become a liability to the program, not to mention the safety of young boys who wanted nothing more than to be around a football program they idolized, only to have their childhoods reduced to haunting memories of horrendous abuse.
It’s also time for the NCAA to step in and take a look. If there ever was a case of ‘lack of institutional control,’ this would seem to be it.
A strong example still needs to be made in the land ironically known as ‘Happy Valley.’ When it comes to protecting kids, there is a far greater principle at stake than protecting a football program’s diminished legends.”

Scott Ostler, San Francisco Chronicle

“Paterno apparently persuaded the group to go easy on old Jerry. The athletic director, Tim Curley, e-mailed the other Sheep, ‘If Sandusky is cooperative, we would work with him.’
Astounding. The Three Sheep, part of a huge flock of JoPa [sic] worshipers, decided that confronting Sandusky rather than turning him in ‘is a more humane and upfront way to handle this.’
Only Paterno knows why he wanted his Three Sheep to call off the dogs. Was it out of compassion for Sandusky, or out of concern that Paterno's program and his legacy might take a hit?
To at least four young victims of abuse, that distinction probably isn't important.
Please, can we never again mention how many wins Joe Paterno racked up or how many libraries he built? The meaningful numbers in his legacy will probably never be known.”

Jemelle Hill, ESPN

"Let's use a reasonable amount of skepticism here. A man with Paterno's power doesn't just relinquish control. Not with something like this. Not when the allegations against Sandusky were so awful and incomprehensible that they could level all those years of goodwill and honor Paterno had built.
Although Curley and Schultz are facing perjury charges, there is a sense now that maybe Paterno was let off the hook.
This is not to say that Paterno deserved to have formal charges filed against him, especially given that the authorities decided otherwise. But what's becoming abundantly clear is that Paterno's image was only what he wanted us to see.”

Buzz Bissinger, Daily Beast

Paterno ran Penn State. We are Penn State? Forget it. Try I am Penn State. He listened to no one, answered to no one. In 2004, when Spanier and the head of the board of trustees reportedly went to Paterno’s house and said it was time for him to retire, he threw them out. The Penn State trains ran on Joe’s schedule in the ridiculous name of football. Yes, he did give $4 million to the school, and no one should ever argue against philanthropy, but charity also is never entirely altruistic: it burnished the avuncular JoePa image, a man above reproach who would never hide or conceal or obfuscate. But the world of Penn State football revolved around Paterno. It seemed inconceivable that in a matter involving someone who had been a loyal assistant coach for 30 years, Paterno would simply step aside and trust the judgment of others, or that others would make a judgment without his input.

It is totally unfair to say that Penn State officials did nothing. They did tell Sandusky he could no longer bring ‘guests’ on campus. There was no way of enforcing it of course, and the humaneness with Sandusky was so effective that he continued to sexually abuse children for another six years.
You can thank Curley for that. You can thank Schultz for that. You can thank Spanier for that. But most of all you can thank Paterno. He was the God of Happy Valley. People scurried and scrambled when he spoke, so you can bet it was he who was the primary driver behind the decision not to report Sandusky to authorities. It was he who on the basis of his own words in his grand jury testimony, gave the false impression that he had placed the matter in the hands of athletic director Curley and then walked away.

And thus ends the so-called legacy of Joe Paterno. The opinion of this blogger is that anyone who defends this man as "ethical" after this needs to read the report again, and then go read the testimony of Jerry Sandusky's victims. They could have been spared a world of pain and suffering, then-now-and in the future if Joe and Company had "done the right thing" and simply called police on Old Jer'. If they had acted like real men. Instead they covered up to be "humane" to their football buddy instead of the innocent children, and for that they deserve whatever they get here and hereafter.

Sandusky Trial Starts Today ~ with Live Links

The Jerry Sandusky child abuse trial starts today in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania.

You can follow the proceedings with these links:
WGAL Livewire - Frequent Updates
Sara Ganim from Patriot News on Twitter
Patriot News Full Coverage

This one twitter just about says it all:

#Sandusky had asterisks next to victim names on lists of second mile children, prosecutor said

— Sara Ganim (@sganim) June 11, 2012

Prosecutor Makes Opening Statement

It is Sandusky -- who sat in a wrinkled green suit and turned his chair and faced a 12-foot projection screen as McGettigan showed pictures of each of his accusers as boys.
One juror shook her head as the prosecutor explained the abuse that each allegedly endured.
All 16 -- 12 jurors and four alternates -- were listening intently, wide-eyed, as McGettigan and defense attorney Joe Amendola made their opening arguments in the historic child sex abuse case against the 68-year-old football great.
Sandusky’s wife, Dottie, and adopted son Matt, both left right before opening arguments when the judge ordered that all witnesses be sequestered.
Almost flush up to the jury box, and in a soft-spoken voice, McGettigan did a rundown of the 10 cases against Sandusky, calling it the “systematic behavior ... of a serial predatory pedophile.”

But the Defense says:

“Jerry loves kids so much that he does things none of us would ever dream of doing,” Amendola said. “The evidence will show these kids had problems. Over the years, Jerry dealt with hundreds of thousands of kids. There’s eight accusers.”
Almost immediately, Amendola attacked the case of Victim 2 -- the case in which assistant coach Mike McQueary says he witnessed Sandusky assaulting a young boy in the Penn State locker room showers in 2001.
Joe Paterno, athletic director Tim Curley, vice president Gary Schultz, McQueary’s father John, his friend, Dr. Jonathan Dranov all heard McQueary’s story and never called police.
“Not one of them said call the police,” he said. “Even after nothing happened (McQueary himself) never called the police.”
Amendola also told jurors that six of the eight men who will testify have civil attorneys.
“You saw those 8 photos, cute kids,” he said. “Why would they lie? Folks, I don’t know if any of you have been involved in family disputes over money. ... The evidence will show these young men had a financial interest in pursuing this case. All of these kids came from The Second Mile by recommendation and referrals ... because they had issues.”
Showering naked with young boys -- that was part of a culture that Sandusky knew, Amendola said. Partly because of his history in sports, and partly because of the way he grew up.