Sandusky Investigation Findings

[Larry Kart]

Can be there, because sickos exist and prey on children? Of course. I was objecting to the idea that its natural or normal.

Dan -- The problem for me here is to establish the category "sickos" or the like in such a way as to imply that the line between them (and/or their needs/desires/impulses) and the rest of humanity were at once crystal clear and as broad as the Grand Canyon. No, we don't behave that way, thanks be, but we are IMO not of another race/wholly different order of being; we just managed to grow up more or less in one piece and not in significantly f---ed-up fragments.

[Tim McG]

Can be there, because sickos exist and prey on children? Of course. I was objecting to the idea that its natural or normal.

Dan -- The problem for me here is to establish the category "sickos" or the like in such a way as to imply that the line between them (and/or their needs/desires/impulses) and the rest of humanity were at once crystal clear and as broad as the Grand Canyon. No, we don't behave that way, thanks be, but we are IMO not of another race/wholly different order of being; we just managed to grow up more or less in one piece and not in significantly f---ed-up fragments.

Careful, Larry.

You are running the risk of expecting people to believe everything isn't contained in nice, neat little packages and that there just might be a need to acknowledge that life isn't black and white; that there are many shades of gray. It is the battle I fight almost daily.

Ay, there's the rub

[jazzbo]

I think the environmental and organizational structure of athletic programs offers opportunities for homo-erotic activity both welcome and unwanted, and this is all the more reason for vigilance, diligent reporting and accountability of any impropriety of any degree.

[Mike Schwartz]

I've already heard from a few sports pundits who are asking that Penn State football not be punished; that after all the young men have no dog in this fight....weren't involved in anything pertaining to the case in question.

A precident making example, IMO is exactly what's needed, and why not start right there?!

Shut down the footbal program cold for 2 years.

Let the NCAA get involved and give them the dreaded "death sentence."

Let if be known to all by taking actions against the institution that allowed malfeasance of this type, that there will never be anything to gain, and more importantly so much to lose by inaction in such matters; that no covering up to protect image, lighter punishment, or any of the lame excuses for not doing the right thing will cost anyone going this route BIG time.

The Sandusky case may be the ugliest thing coming off a college campus sports program in our lifetimes. Point is on all this is to demolish the notion that mistreatment of young people across all peramiters in the cloaked 'good old boy' locker room environment be over, becuase it's not worth it; the price to pay will be too steep.

Edited July 13, 2012 by Mike Schwartz

[T.D.]

I've already heard from a few sports pundits who are asking that Penn State football not be punished; that after all the young men have no dog in this fight....weren't involved in anything pertaining to the case in question.

A precident making example, IMO is exactly what's needed, and why not start right there?!

Shut down the footbal program cold for 2 years.

Let the NCAA get involved and give them the dreaded "death sentence."

Let if be known to all by taking actions against the institution that allowed malfeasance of this type, that there will never be anything to gain, and more importantly so much to lose by inaction in such matters; that no covering up to protect image, lighter punishment, or any of the lame excuses for not doing the right thing will cost anyone going this route BIG time.

I agree in principle, but have read in several articles that the death penalty can only apply to a program that is already on probation for a major offense (you can google "Penn state death penalty" for additional coverage...).

More likely would be TV or postseason bowl bans.

It'll be interesting to see what happens...cynics like me expect that money will hold sway and penalties will be relatively minor.

[Added] The US Dept. of Education potentially could levy the financial equivalent of a "death penalty".

Edited July 13, 2012 by T.D.

[JETman]

One sportswriter here in NY went so far as to suggest a one year ban for EACH of the 14 years that Paterno kept quiet. Seems fair to me.

[Blue Train]

1. It's always other players years later when the NCAA punishes a team. The latest example is USC and Ohio St.

2. Having said that. The NCAA has 10,000 rules on things like texting and a free sandwich but not anything covering anything like this. They haven't done anything with regards to what happened with the way the University of Montana handled sexual assault claims against multiple football players....and that involved players.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/23/sports/ncaafootball/handling-of-sexual-assault-claims-brings-new-scrutiny-to-montana.html?pagewanted=all

Even if they did try, I can see Penn St. taking them to court.

On top of things, it's still an ongoing criminal investigation.

[JETman]

It's always other players years later when the NCAA punishes a team.

What does this mean? Why should players even be considered here? The NCAA could just allow them to transfer without penalty on a case by case basis.

[Tim McG]

It's always other players years later when the NCAA punishes a team.

What does this mean? Why should players even be considered here? The NCAA could just allow them to transfer without penalty on a case by case basis.

What happens if that creates a financial hardship [via scholarships or distance traveled to school, etc.] or, more to the point, there is a degree major at Penn State they want? The crime was not perpetrated by them or for any athletic benefit to them.

TBH, punishing the students is not the solution to the administration's idiocy. Lawsuits and jail time, however, would be.

Edited July 13, 2012 by GoodSpeak

[rollhead]

As a Penn State grad, I am all for the "death penalty." Football is like crack in Happy Valley. It's all consuming. Give the students a change of pace, and they might open up a book once in a while.

[Mike Schwartz]

1. It's always other players years later when the NCAA punishes a team. The latest example is USC and Ohio St.

2. Having said that. The NCAA has 10,000 rules on things like texting and a free sandwich but not anything covering anything like this. They haven't done anything with regards to what happened with the way the University of Montana handled sexual assault claims against multiple football players....and that involved players.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/23/sports/ncaafootball/handling-of-sexual-assault-claims-brings-new-scrutiny-to-montana.html?pagewanted=all

Even if they did try, I can see Penn St. taking them to court.

On top of things, it's still an ongoing criminal investigation.

Faulty arguments I think on many fronts.

Sorry, the shoe falls on Penn State.

Many of the players would play elswewhere....those that don't I do not care.

The Montana case is precisely why actions be taken now while the iron's hot and attention is focused.

Future possible cases do not matter.

Sandusky, under his broad Penn State and surrounding community umbrella, is more than enough to get the ball rolling

Edited July 13, 2012 by Mike Schwartz

[Blue Train]

1. It's always other players years later when the NCAA punishes a team. The latest example is USC and Ohio St.

2. Having said that. The NCAA has 10,000 rules on things like texting and a free sandwich but not anything covering anything like this. They haven't done anything with regards to what happened with the way the University of Montana handled sexual assault claims against multiple football players....and that involved players.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/23/sports/ncaafootball/handling-of-sexual-assault-claims-brings-new-scrutiny-to-montana.html?pagewanted=all

Even if they did try, I can see Penn St. taking them to court.

On top of things, it's still an ongoing criminal investigation.

Faulty arguments I think on many fronts.

Sorry, the shoe falls on Penn State.

Many of the players would play elswewhere....those that don't I do not care.

The Montana case is precisely why actions be taken now while the iron's hot and attention is focused.

Future possible cases do not matter.

Sandusky, under his broad Penn State and surrounding community umbrella, is more than enough to get the ball rolling

Sorry I wasn't clear enough. I was responding to your comments about those who say it hurts current players. I was just saying how would it be any different than with USC or Ohio St.

The NCAA has bylaws and none of them cover anything like this. They even have rules about transfers if a team does get penalized. They just can't invent rules and expect it to stand in court is what I am saying.

They should have rules for things like this, but they're more interested in texting and sandwiches than the criminal actions of players, coaches, etc....

Edited July 13, 2012 by Blue Train

[alankin]

As a Penn State grad, I am all for the "death penalty." Football is like crack in Happy Valley. It's all consuming. Give the students a change of pace, and they might open up a book once in a while.

Penn State has classes?

[Blue Train]

As a Penn State grad, I am all for the "death penalty." Football is like crack in Happy Valley. It's all consuming. Give the students a change of pace, and they might open up a book once in a while.

Penn State has classes?

haha

[Neal Pomea]

I don't see why the university wouldn't make the players "free agents," free to go to other football programs on scholarships if possible, or else honor their scholarships and let them attend Penn State like non-athlete students. I don't know how well they'll do without the help they would have gotten through the football program, but that's another issue.

They cannot just go back to business as usual because of their commitments to the current players, imo.

[JETman]

It's always other players years later when the NCAA punishes a team.

What does this mean? Why should players even be considered here? The NCAA could just allow them to transfer without penalty on a case by case basis.

What happens if that creates a financial hardship [via scholarships or distance traveled to school, etc.] or, more to the point, there is a degree major at Penn State they want? The crime was not perpetrated by them or for any athletic benefit to them.

TBH, punishing the students is not the solution to the administration's idiocy. Lawsuits and jail time, however, would be.

With all due respect, I think you need to rethink this point of view.

[Pete C]

As a Penn State grad

Maybe they should stick to football after all.

[Jazzmoose]

As for Goodie, this is going to be tough for him, as Freeh's investigation brought out clear evidence of Paterno's deep involvement in an active cover-up of Sandusky's actions, and even worse, from the text of the emails, there was an agreement that Sandusky should be confronted and things should be handled properly, until the President spoke to his employee who happens also to be the legendary coach, and the legendary coach told him it should be handled quietly and without outside involvement.

Did you really think he'd even bat an eye?

[Tim McG]

It's always other players years later when the NCAA punishes a team.

What does this mean? Why should players even be considered here? The NCAA could just allow them to transfer without penalty on a case by case basis.

What happens if that creates a financial hardship [via scholarships or distance traveled to school, etc.] or, more to the point, there is a degree major at Penn State they want? The crime was not perpetrated by them or for any athletic benefit to them.

TBH, punishing the students is not the solution to the administration's idiocy. Lawsuits and jail time, however, would be.

With all due respect, I think you need to rethink this point of view.

Likewise, JetMan.

I would ask: How so?

Many of my students wouldn't be able to attend college without the help of an athletic scholarship. Punishing them would be an epic mistake. All that does is make the list of victims even longer.

Look at it this way: If you had a problem with your neighbor, would you take it out on his kids? Neither would I and neither would most reasonable people. The same logic applies here: Sandusky [and those who allowed him to continue his abuse] are the problem, so why take it out on the student athletes?

Edited July 13, 2012 by GoodSpeak

[sonnymax]

I'm not at all sure what you're getting at Larry, but I don't see how there can be any naturally occuring homoerotic component to interactions between adult authority/father figures and adolescent boys. Or not one that can be labelled as inevitable in any way.

Well, we can disagree about how much/in what ways/how often, etc., but not any? It's almost as though you've proved my implicit point, that we human beings have an understandably powerful need not to see what is/has been/can be there.

I'm trying not to overreact to Larry's seeming comparison of homosexuality and pedophilia. I hope I'm wrong in my interpretation of his post, because this position is an erroneous and harmful misconception that continues to be espoused by many people within certain religious and political communities. If we follow this illogic, then what is sexual assault by an adult male on a female child, heterosexuality? Sandusky is a sexual predator, a serial rapist, and quite possibly a sociopath as well. The fact that his victims were male (at least the ones we know of so far) does not make him a homosexual. Even hinting at such a connection is dangerous, as it promotes ignorance, intolerance, and often violence.

[Mike Schwartz]

As someone pointed out, let them knock down the current football culture to the bone; give them a time-out to restructure from the ground_up.

The good players will be absorbed into other programs and play elsewhere.

With the fortune they've made on the backs of the student athletes, everyone else gets whatever they signed up for so far as school needs are concerned.

Period.

[Larry Kart]

I'm not at all sure what you're getting at Larry, but I don't see how there can be any naturally occuring homoerotic component to interactions between adult authority/father figures and adolescent boys. Or not one that can be labelled as inevitable in any way.

Well, we can disagree about how much/in what ways/how often, etc., but not any? It's almost as though you've proved my implicit point, that we human beings have an understandably powerful need not to see what is/has been/can be there.

I'm trying not to overreact to Larry's seeming comparison of homosexuality and pedophilia. I hope I'm wrong in my interpretation of his post, because this position is an erroneous and harmful misconception that continues to be espoused by many people within certain religious and political communities. If we follow this illogic, then what is sexual assault by an adult male on a female child, heterosexuality? Sandusky is a sexual predator, a serial rapist, and quite possibly a sociopath as well. The fact that his victims were male (at least the ones we know of so far) does not make him a homosexual. Even hinting at such a connection is dangerous, as it promotes ignorance, intolerance, and often violence.

SonnyMax -- Sorry, but I don't see the illogic, not entirely. Yes, pedophiles clearly belong to/in a special category, but are you saying that pedophiles who are adult males and who chose as their prey adolescent boys (that seemed to be Sandusky's pattern) are utterly unmoved/unshaped by anomalies (for want of a better term) in their own childhood and adolescent sexual development, anomalies that were not unconnected with erotic feelings toward their own sex? Yes, those feelings were no doubt powerfully blended with issues (again for want of a better term) of power, but still.... As for your "If we follow this illogic, then what is sexual assault by an adult male on a female child, heterosexuality?" I would ask, "Is this behavior utterly without some shaping experiences behind it that have something to do with graves flaw in the pedophile's own sexual development, in this case something that has to do with his feeling about his own sexual identity vis-a-vis that of girls. Is the behavior, then, an example of heterosexuality per se? No. Does it bear some relation to feelings/fantasies about heterosexual behavior? I would say, yes. Or are you saying that pedophiles are only or essentially shaped by having been themselves of victims of sexual abuse, and that, if so, even the gender of those who abused them has no bearing on what they then go on to do? Tell me why I'm wrong, but I think that if the both the gender and the age of a pedophile's victims remains consistent, then a male-on-male pedophile is saying something about his fantasies about his own male self in relation to maleness, and a male-on-female pedophile is saying something about his fantasies about his own male self in relation to femaleness.

[seeline]

Larry - a fair number of Sandusky's victims were under age 12 (8, 10, etc.) at the time he began molesting them.

You might want to check the grand jury report and reports of testimony at the trial for more details - try http://www.pennlive.com for starters, for actual documents and accurate reporting. (Reporter Sarah Ganim won an Pulitzer for her work on this issue, which began in 2009.)

This *is* about pedophilia and the way a peodphile used the football program to lure and groom victims. It's also about a willing cover-up. And about the use of a charity for troubled kids (established by Sandusky - The Second Mile) to troll for potential victims.

As a local, I think that:

1. the Paterno shrine should be torn down

2. Penn State should be removed from the Big 10 - in fact, I think the football program should be tabled by the NCAA for at least 5 years

3. post-suspension, that the football schedule and goals should return to what they were prior to the big push to make PSU a football powerhouse

4. that Graham Spanier (ex-pres. of PSU) should go to jail for his collusion and cover-up - and certainly, that he should be fired from the PSU faculty (he still has a job, just not as pres. How ironic that Mike McQueary is currently unemployed!)

5. that the PSU board of trustees needs to be honest about *their* involvement in a coverup (as I believe some members of the board, both present and former, *were* involved)

To repeat: this is not about "homoeroticism" and consensual sex between adults. it *is* about an adult man preying on children and being given a free pass by his superiors in both the athletic department and the upper echelons of PSU's administration. Trying to make it over into a "gay" issue is not only misleading; it misses the point *and* unfairly characterizes gay men as pedophiles in the process.

*

As for PSU - it has a lot to recommend itself as far as education and research facilities. But the buck has to stop somewhere... I think it's time to go back to putting an emphasis on education rather than sports.

Edited July 14, 2012 by seeline

[JETman]

It's always other players years later when the NCAA punishes a team.

What does this mean? Why should players even be considered here? The NCAA could just allow them to transfer without penalty on a case by case basis.

What happens if that creates a financial hardship [via scholarships or distance traveled to school, etc.] or, more to the point, there is a degree major at Penn State they want? The crime was not perpetrated by them or for any athletic benefit to them.

TBH, punishing the students is not the solution to the administration's idiocy. Lawsuits and jail time, however, would be.

With all due respect, I think you need to rethink this point of view.

Likewise, JetMan.

I would ask: How so?

Many of my students wouldn't be able to attend college without the help of an athletic scholarship. Punishing them would be an epic mistake. All that does is make the list of victims even longer.

Look at it this way: If you had a problem with your neighbor, would you take it out on his kids? Neither would I and neither would most reasonable people. The same logic applies here: Sandusky [and those who allowed him to continue his abuse] are the problem, so why take it out on the student athletes?

In short, the self-entitlement of the few is more damaging to society than the ignorance of the many.

The longer answer:

1. Are students with God-given athletic talents more deserving of a free ride than students without?

2. Do Division I schools hand out an amount in academic scholarships which at least totals the amount handed out in athletic scholarships? (THESE are supposed to be learning institutions after all!!!)

3. How do I feel when a guy like Plaxico Burress happens to accidentally shoot off his gun in a club I happen to frequent on the night I am there, and the bullet hits me? OR How do I feel when a guy like David Diehl happens to get pasted while watching a soccer game at his favorite Croatian Club and "accidentally" hits my car head on while I'm driving my children to wherever?

Get FUCKING real! These idiots are getting free scholarships (ie., a salary) to attend universities and learning nothing about how to behave when unleashed upon society! Is THAT not the bigger problem? Yes, Sandusky is a "damaged" human being. But, I can guarantee you that he's also contributed to the damage displayed by many of his football proteges.

Think things through before you say some of the things you're saying.

Edited July 14, 2012 by JETman

[Larry Kart]

Seeline -- OK, Sandusky preyed on boys of that age. Does that invalidate the rest of what I said on my post? In particular: "...that if the both the gender and the age of a pedophile's victims remains consistent, then a male-on-male pedophile is saying something about his fantasies about his own male self in relation to maleness, and a male-on-female pedophile is saying something about his fantasies about his own male self in relation to femaleness." To this, I would add (should have said the first time) "...something about his own young male self in relation to" etc.

I'm not say BTW that it doesn't invalidate what I said. I'm asking a honest question. Also, I didn't say anywhere that this isn't about pedophilia; rather, it's that I think (perhaps mistakenly) that pedophilia arises from grave distortions in the process of human development and thus is not utterly unrelated to the normal processes of human development, that these are not acts of alien-to-the-human-condition evil but acts of all-too-human evil.