Say it ain't so, Joe

[Sykotyk]

Bringing this up again because I don't think it's received the due it deserves.

 

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/penn-state-fraternity-death-timothy-piazza-s-parents-say-son-n759426

 

http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/15/us/penn-state-fraternity-piazza-family-interview/index.html

 

Penn State may be trying to wash its hands of this and claim it is all the fault of the fraternity. But this frat was suspended from having alcohol 8 years ago and yet, somehow, they regularly hold 'The Gauntlet" for new pledges without any reprimand by the university. Their argument might as well have been for Sandusky: they're not the ones who did the crime, we have no responsibility.

 

This hazing could've happened anywhere .I agree. How the university handled it, and handled alcohol at this frat....is all on Penn State.

[OnWis97]

I don't know.  As much as I like to pile on Penn State, I am not convinced there's much of a connection between this and Sandusky.

 

I don't really look at the Athletic Department as a big culprit here (and that was very key in the football mess).  Admittedly, I don't really know much about the relationship between the frats and the schools, but it seems to me that even if the school was lax in leading up to this, there's not really a connection to the other story.

[Sykotyk]

40 minutes ago, OnWis97 said:

I don't know.  As much as I like to pile on Penn State, I am not convinced there's much of a connection between this and Sandusky.

 

I don't really look at the Athletic Department as a big culprit here (and that was very key in the football mess).  Admittedly, I don't really know much about the relationship between the frats and the schools, but it seems to me that even if the school was lax in leading up to this, there's not really a connection to the other story.

The connection is the university's response to how they handle things that happen on their campus. There is no 'the buck stops here' mindset. It's "Oh, well, that's not us, so we can't do anything about it." It's how a fraternity that was suspended 8 years ago from having alcohol has been using "The Gauntlet" for initiating new pledges with impunity. That's the problem. What good is punishment if it's not actually enforced.

[Sport]

Fraternity negligence happens at every university. That problem isn't specific to Penn State. 

 

I was in a fraternity at Not Penn State University and looking back I think a lot about how it's a miracle nobody died from alcohol or how our crumbling house didn't kill everyone in a fire. The university's role in the usage of alcohol inside the house is likely that they didn't know about 'The Gauntlet'. They probably have rules against such a thing, but they can't be everywhere. We had drinking and hazing policies, hotlines where people could report things if they saw a violation being committed, we had house inspections routinely to check to see our residence was safe and up to code and we were following the rules, but college kids are always going to try to get away with things and college kids are the dumbest people in the world. Maybe the only course of action is "No More Greek Life", but then kids are going to find other places and organizations to do stupid things. 

 

We had a similarly stupid drinking event (though it wasn't a pledge hazing thing) and I'm hopeful now the current active members have stopped doing it, but I can't be sure. They're probably still doing it. I remember another fraternity on campus lost a kid in the river on a canoeing trip and he was only rescued because a farmer happened to be driving by on a dirt road and spotted a drunk kid. Is that on the university? 

[CS85]

Yeah, while it's fun that this happened at Penn State and they deserve every bad thing that ever happens to them, you can't fault Penn State for this one.  This is yet another issue with mostly-white-people's archaic traditions being infused with a college drug & alcohol culture that has organically evolved to conflict with our simultaneous desires to be both young functioning alcoholics and morally outraged at ourselves.

[OnWis97]

7 minutes ago, McCarthy said:

Fraternity negligence happens at every university. That problem isn't specific to Penn State. 

 

I was in a fraternity at Not Penn State University and looking back I think a lot about how it's a miracle nobody died from alcohol or how our crumbling house didn't kill everyone in a fire. The university's role in the usage of alcohol inside the house is likely that they didn't know about 'The Gauntlet'. They probably have rules against such a thing, but they can't be everywhere. We had drinking and hazing policies, hotlines where people could report things if they saw a violation being committed, we had house inspections routinely to check to see our residence was safe and up to code and we were following the rules, but college kids are always going to try to get away with things and college kids are the dumbest people in the world. Maybe the only course of action is "No More Greek Life", but then kids are going to find other places and organizations to do stupid things. 

 

We had a similarly stupid drinking event (though it wasn't a pledge hazing thing) and I'm hopeful now the current active members have stopped doing it, but I can't be sure. They're probably still doing it. I remember another fraternity on campus lost a kid in the river on a canoeing trip and he was only rescued because a farmer happened to be driving by on a dirt road and spotted a drunk kid. Is that on the university? 

That's a great school.

[Sport]

20 minutes ago, OnWis97 said:

That's a great school.

Go Notany Lions!

[Lights Out]

On 5/5/2017 at 5:44 PM, LMU said:

 

The fact that even after this, we all know nothing is going to happen to Penn State because of the conference they play in is a disgrace. College sports is broken from the top down, yet the only example of it that anyone ever wants to talk about is paying the players. There are other issues besides that, but the NCAA would prefer that the conversation remains focused only on paying players and not on the unequal treatment of FBS schools and the unequal enforcement of the NCAA's rules.

[dfwabel]

1 hour ago, Lights Out said:

The fact that even after this, we all know nothing is going to happen to Penn State because of the conference they play in is a disgrace. College sports is broken from the top down, yet the only example of it that anyone ever wants to talk about is paying the players. There are other issues besides that, but the NCAA would prefer that the conversation remains focused only on paying players and not on the unequal treatment of FBS schools and the unequal enforcement of the NCAA's rules.

There are three alumni seats on the Board, and the alumni voted for Paterno. 

 

One of his opponents dropped out after saying he was, "running out of sympathy" for victims of Jerry Sandusky  Alumni trustees were the ones most upset with how the Freeh Report discussed Joe Paterno. 

 

Middle States reaffirmed their accreditation in 2015, they paid a record $2.4M fine for Cleary Act violations in 2016 and more importantly avoided being frozen out from participating in federal student financial aid programs. 

[MJWalker45]

38 minutes ago, Lights Out said:

The fact that even after this, we all know nothing is going to happen to Penn State because of the conference they play in is a disgrace. College sports is broken from the top down, yet the only example of it that anyone ever wants to talk about is paying the players. There are other issues besides that, but the NCAA would prefer that the conversation remains focused only on paying players and not on the unequal treatment of FBS schools and the unequal enforcement of the NCAA's rules.

If the NCAA is unwilling to throw the book at Penn State, why would the conference? If the conference were to start dictating who can sit on a board of trustees I think they'd be in hot water quicker than Penn State was. Ohio State was punished for players selling things that belonged to them, and I think that's crap. Penn State deserves harsher punishment, but once the dogs were called off that's it,no more penalties could be imposed by the league or the NCAA. Now if another case pops up, by all means throw the book at them again. 

[OnWis97]

1 minute ago, MJWalker45 said:

If the NCAA is unwilling to throw the book at Penn State, why would the conference? If the conference were to start dictating who can sit on a board of trustees I think they'd be in hot water quicker than Penn State was. Ohio State was punished for players selling things that belonged to them, and I think that's crap. Penn State deserves harsher punishment, but once the dogs were called off that's it,no more penalties could be imposed by the league or the NCAA. Now if another case pops up, by all means throw the book at them again. 

You misread that...he's implying that the NCAA is being lenient on PSU because they play in a big-time conference.

 

I'm not so sure about that.  I think it's more about their inability to ever figure out what they should or can do.  They did everything wrong.  Lighter than appropriate punishment that they took away in what essentially amount to an apology.  I don't know whether the NCAA could have made a real punishment stick, but it's tragic that, for whatever reason, it could not happen and there really is no deterrent for other schools to cover up sexual assaults.  

 

But would they have hit, say San Diego State or Louisiana Tech with a much harsher penalty?  I am not so sure.

[MJWalker45]

1 minute ago, OnWis97 said:

You misread that...he's implying that the NCAA is being lenient on PSU because they play in a big-time conference.

 

I'm not so sure about that.  I think it's more about their inability to ever figure out what they should or can do.  They did everything wrong.  Lighter than appropriate punishment that they took away in what essentially amount to an apology.  I don't know whether the NCAA could have made a real punishment stick, but it's tragic that, for whatever reason, it could not happen and there really is no deterrent for other schools to cover up sexual assaults.  

 

But would they have hit, say San Diego State or Louisiana Tech with a much harsher penalty?  I am not so sure.

I think we'll find out once the Baylor situation is resolved. The biggest issue for the NCAA is that they can't make people talk. That's what has slowed the UNC and Notre Dame investigations. Once the facts are all out there, the NCAA will come in and make its decision. 

[OnWis97]

Baylor's a great example of the lost opportunity with Penn State.  Given what happened with Penn State, can we expect anything bad to happen to Baylor?

 

If the world was a better place someone  would have shut PSU football down for a while (including the University itself).

[MJWalker45]

8 minutes ago, OnWis97 said:

Baylor's a great example of the lost opportunity with Penn State.  Given what happened with Penn State, can we expect anything bad to happen to Baylor?

 

If the world was a better place someone  would have shut PSU football down for a while (including the University itself).

With Baylor, the football team was still only 10% of the reported sexual assaults, which is even more damning. That school should have been completely shut down and any trustees that tried to get Briles his job back shipped to Siberia. 

[Sykotyk]

4 hours ago, MJWalker45 said:

With Baylor, the football team was still only 10% of the reported sexual assaults, which is even more damning. That school should have been completely shut down and any trustees that tried to get Briles his job back shipped to Siberia. 

But, that's the problem with basically taking the death penalty off the table. What ever will be serious enough to warrant it again? People felt SMU was punished too harshly. I think the problem is that once they used it, they weren't more apt to use it again. Imagine Miami getting slapped with it. USC. At what point would these universities realize they don't have free reign and just have to feign public indignation at their plight every so often while counting their money behind the scenes?

 

Maybe Penn State never comes close to happening if the fear of getting caught were actually a real 'fear' rather than just their precious image?

 

[Gothamite]

I think fear of the death penalty is about the only thing that could have overcome Paterno's desire to protect and enable Sandusky.  

 

Either Paterno himself would have decided to do the right thing or an administrator might have taken the choice out of his hands.

 

But without the possibility of losing their beloved football program - something which they demonstrated was more important than protecting kids from a rapist - why shouldn't they have stonewalled and covered up the crimes?

[dfwabel]

Spanier and two other Penn State executives are going to serve some jail time.

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/sports/wp/2017/06/02/former-penn-state-president-graham-spanier-sentenced-to-jail-for-child-endangerment-in-jerry-sandusky-abuse-case/?utm_term=.ff9e087a4c03

[goalieboy82]

my thoughts on the whole Penn State thing:

 

[CS85]

6 minutes ago, dfwabel said:

Spanier and two other Penn State executives are going to serve some jail time.

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/sports/wp/2017/06/02/former-penn-state-president-graham-spanier-sentenced-to-jail-for-child-endangerment-in-jerry-sandusky-abuse-case/?utm_term=.ff9e087a4c03

 

They'll each do 1-3 months in some white collar prison eating some sort of generic caviar before spending the rest of their terms under house arrest in houses the size of several houses combined.  

Small price to pay for choosing an institution over the innocence of so many sexually abused children.

[Viola73]

13 minutes ago, dfwabel said:

Spanier and two other Penn State executives are going to serve some jail time.

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/sports/wp/2017/06/02/former-penn-state-president-graham-spanier-sentenced-to-jail-for-child-endangerment-in-jerry-sandusky-abuse-case/?utm_term=.ff9e087a4c03

Good! Those three DESERVED jail time. They didn't receive a great deal of time, considering what they put the whole state through, but it is jail time. The consolation that they won't be able to hold administrative positions again is some relief.