and although I am disgusted by what Sandusky did, and he should be behind bars the rest of his life, I'm not sure I agree with the severe punishment that was handed down by the NCAA.

The football program did nothing in the way of cheating or creating an unfair advantage over other programs. And to take away wins from Paterno, who reported what he had been told (hearsay), to the proper authorities, and to take down his statue is overkill in my opinion.

Some say he should have gone to the police. With what? He was told by an assistant what he either saw or thought he saw. Maybe I'm not as familiar with the timeline as others, but if what I was led to believe happened, the guys at the top of the chain of command were the ones responsible for investigating the situation or turning it over to the authorities.

To punish a program the way they are punishing Penn State, a program that has supposedly played by the rules and graduated players for the heinous act of one sick SOB is in my opinion overkill.
Sending Sandusky to jail for life seems to be reward enough for those young men whose lives were sadly changed by their contact with him.
But to punish others who had no direct responsibility for his acts seems to me to be grossly unfair. My memory of Joe Paterno will always be a man who devoted his life to a university and was a positive image to the sporting world. Obviously others feel differently, but that's horse racing.

I suspect they considered the situation so blatant that there had to be a shot fired across the bow at everyone to get their program in order. Just a guess.

Read the report.
Any teacher, coach (college, high school or youth league), administrator, sunday school teacher, is required by law to report to authorites any suspected child abuse. I did not say confirmed abuse I said suspected abuse. Period. If you do not you are held accountable and can and probably will be charged with failure to report opening yourself up for jail time and litigation. Do you report it to the police or your superiors? What I would do is tell my superiors what I saw and tell them I was going to report that to the police. That way I know it gets reported.
I am still undecided on whether the NCAA should get involved or not. But, does the NCAA want someone who colluded to protect a serial pedophile at the top of its winningest coach list? I think not.
Paterno reported to his AD and the president of the school what the assistant coach told him and then they worked together to hide the truth. This did not come out til a victim finally reported it to authorities last year. Sandusky was in the pressbox at a PSU game the week before he was arrested. Did he have a kid waiting for him in the shower that day?
How many kids would have been saved from being sodomized by or forced to perform oral sex on Sandusky had this been reported to the police FOURTEEN years ago?
The AD and president of PSU should pay dearly for this.
I used to think highly of Paterno. Not anymore. I will always remember him as a man who thought he and PSU were above the law and stood by, looking the other way, while children were being sexually abused. No excuse for that.

As I said, there were probably facts I didn't know. I don't know about the requirement to report child abuse or suspected abuse by teachers, coaches, etc. Life has gotten more complicated since I was a lad. Of course we didn't have child abuse when I was young. As one comedian put it, he didn't have "time out" at his house when he misbehaved. He had "lights out". You woke up about thirty minutes after your father knocked the snot out of you. Not to make light of the situation. Just trying to find a little humor in the world, which isn't easy these days. Difficult to go from Saint to Sinner in a short time, but I guess Papa Joe managed to do it. Truly sad.

From Rivals:

"Time was you knew the sketchy neighborhoods in college athletics.
The Southeastern Conference and the old Southwest Conference – basically the states of Texas and Oklahoma – were outlaw territory. Schools went on an off probation like workers changing shifts at a power plant. According to folklore, gossip and the NCAA Committee on Infractions, there were two kinds of programs in those leagues at those times: those that were caught cheating and those that hadn't been caught yet.

Today, the scofflaw geography has changed. The Big Ten can put on quite a perp walk, as can the Atlantic Coast Conference. Out in the Pac-12, Oregon may replace USC in the NCAA pokey. Before Syracuse exits the Big East for the ACC, it likely will have to face NCAA justice for failures of its drug-testing policy in regard to men's basketball. And we already know about Connecticut basketball.
It's suddenly a lot harder for one power league to claim moral superiority over another."

(07-24-2012 07:32 PM)MICHAELSPAPPY Wrote:  From Rivals:

"Time was you knew the sketchy neighborhoods in college athletics.
The Southeastern Conference and the old Southwest Conference – basically the states of Texas and Oklahoma – were outlaw territory. Schools went on an off probation like workers changing shifts at a power plant. According to folklore, gossip and the NCAA Committee on Infractions, there were two kinds of programs in those leagues at those times: those that were caught cheating and those that hadn't been caught yet.

Today, the scofflaw geography has changed. The Big Ten can put on quite a perp walk, as can the Atlantic Coast Conference. Out in the Pac-12, Oregon may replace USC in the NCAA pokey. Before Syracuse exits the Big East for the ACC, it likely will have to face NCAA justice for failures of its drug-testing policy in regard to men's basketball. And we already know about Connecticut basketball.
It's suddenly a lot harder for one power league to claim moral superiority over another."

I don't think the NCAA had much choice. What could better fit the definition of "lack of institutional control". There were emails indicating that the University President was going to go to authorities but "after talking to Joe we decided to take a more humanitarian course of action" (toward Sandusky, not the abused children). Joe Pa was aways one of my favorites, but there is little doubt he was, at least, an "enabler" in this horrific situation.

These boys lives were changed forever for the worse. Officials at Penn State could have stopped it with a phone call. They CHOSE not to. And why? For football. For a game. And for the money that football earns.

Hit them where it hurts.

Penn State is absolutely responsible for the people they hire and for what they do in thier capacity as employees of Penn State. IMHO.

Shot across the bow..? Are you kidding me..? Kids were molested. Sink the stinking ship. Lifeboats are available for those that want out.

(07-25-2012 06:11 AM)Scotto Wrote:  Shot across the bow..? Are you kidding me..? Kids were molested. Sink the stinking ship. Lifeboats are available for those that want out.

Shot across the bow of the other programs around the country. Penn State deserves what they get.

Any man who is guilty of molesting boys, or raping women should not be sent to prison without first cutting their nuts off. I personally don't think prison should be an option. You have to feed, cloth, and provide medical care for the rest of their lives. That costs too much. Execute them. After you cut off their nuts.

Ouch.