Say it ain't so, Joe

[DnBronc]

Boers and Bernstein covered the Penn State story again today on their radio show:

 

http://chicago.cbslocal.com/audio/the-boers-bernstein-show/

[CS85]

9 hours ago, DnBronc said:

Boers and Bernstein covered the Penn State story again today on their radio show:

 

http://chicago.cbslocal.com/audio/the-boers-bernstein-show/

 

They cover it virtually every show. I'd be more supportive if it wasn't Dan's pedestal. 

[OnWis97]

Here's someone in PA that's come around.

http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/tailgaters/Its-time-to-accept-the-truth-about-Joe-Paterno.html

[pmoehrin]

10 hours ago, Cosmic said:

Rarely do I find myself rooting for an insurance company, but I hope this one wipes the floor with Penn State. If university employees hadn't been turning a blind eye again and again for 35 years, there would be a lot fewer victims for the insurance company to pay settlements to.

 

I think that's how most everyone outside of Happy Valley feels.

 

Bad enough the University helped cause the mess, now they're trying to get somebody else to foot the bill. Penn State has never fully accepted responsibility for what their role was in Sandusky's crimes and they never will. They only thing they seem to be fully committed to is trying to go back to life the way it was on November 3rd, 2011. That seems to have been the goal with every action the school has taken to this point and there's no reason to expect that will ever change.

 

It's a display of a callousness for common decency and tone deafness in the name of misguided ideals and beliefs that I don't think we've seen from a University on this scale since Bob Jones University fought for the right to ban interracial relationships on campus in the 1970's in the name of religious freedom.

 

Denial, scapegoating and victim blaming has been Penn State's answer to this for 40 years now and I expect nothing but the worst from Penn State going forward.

[DnBronc]

1 hour ago, pmoehrin said:

Denial, scapegoating and victim blaming has been Penn State's answer to this for 40 years now and I expect nothing but the worst from Penn State going forward.

 

On one of those Boers and Bernstein links on the link above, Dan interviewed Anthony Lubrano (part of the board of trustees at PSU). During that interview, Barry Rozner (Dan's sub co-host for the day) said that it seemed like Anthony was trying to deny the credibility of the victims in that interview. 

[CS85]

8 minutes ago, DnBronc said:

 

On one of those Boers and Bernstein links on the link above, Dan interviewed Anthony Lubrano (part of the board of trustees at PSU). During that interview, Barry Rozner (Dan's sub co-host for the day) said that it seemed like Anthony was trying to deny the credibility of the victims in that interview. 

 

I'm honestly surprised Lubrano took the interview considering Bernstein's stance.  There was no way to come out of that looking good.  It was almost immediately hostile.  Lubrano wasn't going to answer the question and Bernstein wasn't going to modify the line of questioning.  It's very sad that Lubrano is taking this stance.  I mean, there's nobody with any morals or a soul that would stand beside Paterno or Sandusky at this rate.  This isn't something where discrediting or destroying the character of a dead man is fashionable; the events are in some cases decades old and the scandal is now years past.  Stop defending a fallen idol, a dead pedophile enabler, and a crooked old man who won a few football games. 

[DnBronc]

31 minutes ago, CS85 said:

I'm honestly surprised Lubrano took the interview considering Bernstein's stance.  There was no way to come out of that looking good.

 

I was, too. It was kind of similar to the time when Dan interviewed Steve Alford in 2003 (when he was the Iowa MBK coach. I posted that interview on this thread about 5-10 pages back or so). 

 

In that case, though, Terry Boers was on with him, and they started out interviewing Steve about his team for awhile. However the subject of the rape (his player, Pierre Pierce, raped a girl, and Steve tried to discourage the girl from testifying) came up later on. Dan tried to talk with him about it (saying things like " How does the victim get over it".), but Alford kept dodging it, saying that we have to move past it. I was so pissed at Steve after listening to that. 

[pianoknight]

I posted a lengthier article on another site, but I'll copy part of it here.  

 

I fully understand there are thousands of Penn State fans who vehemently condemn everything about Paterno, Sandusky and the whole scandal.  But unfortunately, there are also thousands who would blindly exonerate Paterno of any and all liability.  

 

Please take the comments below at face value.  I'm not implying any specific fans feel one way or another, but it's become clear there are those within the Penn State community who would still turn a blind eye to JoePa's involvement in the name of saving the legacy.

 

--------------------------------------------------------

Here's the thing about JoePa. The Penn State diehards NEED him in order to claim their seat at the College Football Blue Bloods table. For just a moment - and purely for argument sake - let's set aside the scandal. It's heinous, wrong and JoePa knew. But here are some stats for you to consider.
 

• Penn State has 856 wins all time, with a winning record of 0.685
• Without JoePa, they have 447 wins with a winning record of 0.610

• Penn State has two national titles and seven perfect seasons.
• Without JoePa, they have zero national titles and two perfect seasons.

• Penn State has one Heisman winner.
• Without JoePa, they have zero Heisman winners.
• Without JoePa, they also lose five Maxwell winners, two Walter Camps, a Sammy Baugh, four Bednariks, one Campbell, one Biletnikoff, two Butkus, one Rimington, two Lombardi, two Davey O'Brien, one Outland, and one Doak Walker. In fact, outside of JoePa, they only have TWO Maxwell awards (1959, 1964) left sitting in the trophy case. Incidentally, JoePa was still an assistant coach at PSU during those years.

• Penn State has 22 players and coaches in the College Football Hall of Fame and 6 NFL Hall of Famers.
• Without JoePa, they have 5 players and coaches in the College Football Hall of Fame 1 NFL Hall of Famer.

• Penn State has appeared in 45 Bowl Games, winning 28
• Without JoePa, they have appeared in 9 Bowl Games, winning 4

What do you call a team with a slightly-above 0.500 record, no national titles, no Heismans, a few minor award winners and a 4-5 bowl record? Kansas? The Jayhawks have five hall of famers. They have a 6-6 bowl record (slightly better than Paterno-less PSU) and a 0.480 win record (worse than Paterno-less PSU). 

--------------------------------------------------------

 

The point here is not to debate whether or not JoePa's acheivements should be removed from history or to assign blame in the abuse scandal.  But I found it helpful to realize that for many of the Paterno Evangelists, to deny Joe is to also deny Penn State's rich history of football excellence.  As it stands, Penn State is a Top Ten program in almost every category - wins, bowls, trophies - but that legacy is also built on the shoulders of a man who willfully covered up horrendous travesties in the name of pursuing gridiron glory.  

 

I'm not excusing those who would see Paterno's legacy remain intact, but I am saying that I understand why many are in denial.  It doesn't make it right.  But imagine if a similar story broke at, say Ohio State (God forbid), and suddenly we realized that every major accomplishment the Buckeyes had ever made was done under the banner of scandal.  What if their true place in the college football annals was among the ranks of Akron or Toledo?  Or if suddenly, the Crimson Tide was stripped down to the level of UAB or South Alabama?

 

Many PSU fans want to eat their cake and have it, too.  They want Sandusky punished and were fine with clearing the house of enablers.  But they're also looking for any small, slim chance to hang onto that legacy.  It's like lottery winners who go bankrupt.  They're okay with the vacation home being foreclosed and Ferrari getting repossessed, but if they could just hang onto that smallish mansion in Beverly Hills, things might be alright. 

[CS85]

5 minutes ago, pianoknight said:

 

The point here is not to debate whether or not JoePa's acheivements should be removed from history or to assign blame in the abuse scandal.  But I found it helpful to realize that for many of the Paterno Evangelists, to deny Joe is to also deny Penn State's rich history of football excellence.

 

They already restored Paterno's wins and left his name on the library.  That should be enough for anyone this deep in horrific scandal.  

 

And as far as the weirdos in Happy Valley or nationwide who think that football is more important than children's innocence, maybe they should really stop and look in the mirror.  Understanding is good medicine for a spirited debate over a tough issue, but there's really not anything to debate here, and that's what's so frustrating.  

[LMU]

Remind me again how something this despicable was the hill to die on and go to message board timeout over.

 

The denial here goes beyond any comprehension. We're talking "Mussolini made the trains run on time, damnit!" denial.

[pianoknight]

36 minutes ago, CS85 said:

 

They already restored Paterno's wins and left his name on the library.  That should be enough for anyone this deep in horrific scandal.  

 

And as far as the weirdos in Happy Valley or nationwide who think that football is more important than children's innocence, maybe they should really stop and look in the mirror.  Understanding is good medicine for a spirited debate over a tough issue, but there's really not anything to debate here, and that's what's so frustrating.  

 

Oh absolutely.  My personal view is that had the NCAA known the full extent of Paterno's involvement, they likely would have/should have given PSU the death penalty.  There's absolutely nothing positive to glean from the situation.  Period.

 

I just find it fascinating to question the sheer level of incompetence (ignorance?  arrogance?) that some JoeBots will go to in trying to defend Penn State's legacy.  The level of denial is absolutely UNREAL to me.  

 

 

[CS85]

22 minutes ago, pianoknight said:

 

Oh absolutely.  My personal view is that had the NCAA known the full extent of Paterno's involvement, they likely would have/should have given PSU the death penalty.  There's absolutely nothing positive to glean from the situation.  Period.

 

I just find it fascinating to question the sheer level of incompetence (ignorance?  arrogance?) that some JoeBots will go to in trying to defend Penn State's legacy.  The level of denial is absolutely UNREAL to me.  

 

 

 

That is a scene that was featured in the Happy Valley documentary, which had the opportunity to do much more than it ended up doing - that will be in the hands of a future documentarian - but I guess we shouldn't be shocked that people get so passionate about sports, but at some point these people end up deciding their selfish entertainment interests came before their passion for their fellow human beings.

 

Which in and of itself shouldn't be too shocking, I guess.

[rams80]

Speaking of the NCAA, the magnitude of the outraged yelping from the Paterno camp over the vacating of the wins indicates to me that this was the one time when that particular (normally) stupid sanction was actually appropriate.

 

So of course, this is the one time where they take that sanction back.  

[BBTV]

Vacating wins is stupid under any circumstance.  Even if they found out that that Paterno actually murdered some of Sandusky's victims to keep them silent, the games still happened, the other team didn't win, rings aren't being awarded to the losers in the championship game, etc.  Yeah those wins all occurred during a period of time when Paterno allowed kids to be raped because football, but they still happened.  I feel that way about anytime that's happened to any team ever for any reason.  It's not even a punishment.  

 

[BBTV]

http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/pattisonave/Smallwood-On-Paterno-his-legacy-and-the-latest-allegations.html

 

greg schiano probably knew. 

[pianoknight]

21 hours ago, BringBackTheVet said:

Vacating wins is stupid under any circumstance.  Even if they found out that that Paterno actually murdered some of Sandusky's victims to keep them silent, the games still happened, the other team didn't win, rings aren't being awarded to the losers in the championship game, etc.  Yeah those wins all occurred during a period of time when Paterno allowed kids to be raped because football, but they still happened.  I feel that way about anytime that's happened to any team ever for any reason.  It's not even a punishment.  

 

 

Yeah, it's like the governing body (NCAA, NFL, whatever) feels obligated to jump on the punishment bandwagon a bit.  The punishment doesn't fit the crime, but it's not like they have many other options, either.  That opens a whole can of worms about the government and criminal courts vs what basically amounts to a private court of opinion by some sports panel or whatever.

[CS85]

...but they already restored the wins.  

 

I think they did it like a year later or something.  They redacted a handful of the punishments initially doled out, restoring scholarships, etc.  

[Gothamite]

Which was cowardly at the time, and now in retrospect was abhorrent. 

[OnWis97]

16 minutes ago, Gothamite said:

Which was cowardly at the time, and now in retrospect was abhorrent. 

It really was terrible.  It would have been better if they'd just not punished them. Instead they essentially apologized and opened the door for the cult to feel vindicated.

 

I tend to agree that vacating wins is stupid.  Did the NCAA go door-to-door to collect bowl rings from players?  I don't think they should have done that in the first place...especially because they gave them back, leading the hockey team to don the most tone-deaf uniform tribute in sports history and the rest of the faithful to interpret it as the NCAA saying "we were wrong; Joe's cool."

 

In hindsight (and really, at that time, too), the NCAA's handling of this smacked of being totally ill-prepared.  How hard can we hit them?  Is this in our purview?  Can we really hit their wallets very hard in this day and age of big TV contracts and expensive stadiums?  

 

Thankfully, the NCAA had no experience with something this awful.  Ultimately, they went the same route as the Chargers did with their uniforms; trying to please everyone and ultimately pleasing nobody.  So what they came up with was a punishment that would have been a real tough message if they'd been buying cars and houses for parents.  But given what did happen, it was a wishy-washy message.  Wishy-washy because it was bigger than most punishments and it sent the message that "this was as bad as a booster-playing-players AND an academic scandal combined" when really it was so, so much worse.  They wanted to please the outraged (i.e., most of us) by hitting them hard, and the money/PSU folks by letting them survive.  Remember when a lot of people said this is worse  than the death penalty?  Preposterous.  Honestly, rather than what they did, I'd almost rather they had just said "not our purview."

 

Of course, if the world was a good place, it would be their purview to say "you let winning and reputation get in the way of human decency and your culture can only be cleansed with some time away from college football."  But it's probably not.

[Gothamite]

That really would have been the only appropriate punishment.

 

I understand the impetus behind vacating wins - "You broke the rules because you only cared about winning?  Since old wins are just bragging rights anyway, that means you don't get to brag about x number of those."  That's why the Paterno family freaked out - they can''t hold Joe up as some sort of moral paragon anymore, so the only relevance their family name still has is tied to wins.  I don't find the punishment all that compelling, but I understand it.

 

But this situation called for something much, much stronger.  If engaging in a systematic and decades-long conspiracy to enable child rape isn't worthy of punishment, nothing is.