Penn State Goings-On

[crazy canuck]

Two things: one is that I'm guessing the president was told a very sanitized story as well. Does the Board really need to be informed of questionable (but probably not outright obscene) behavior of a retired assistant football coach?

I think so for two reasons:

First, Footfall seems to be a main part of the prestige and reputation of that school.  an argument might be made the the President was simply excersing his judgment not to bother the Board with this.  But imo a better argument can be made that such a judgment was wrong.  That the President should have made more inquiries to ensure the University would likely not be harmed and that this really was a minor issue.  If the President had done even the most cursory of investigations he would have uncovered the 2002 story - which leads us right back to the observations PLJ first made.

Second, the alleged Perp was still using University facilities.  Again that would call for at least some kind of investigation by the University to satisfy itself that the allegations were without substance.  Which leads back to the first point.

Second, how likely do you think it is that the board knows a lot more? I'm not a lawyer, so I'd be interested what you think of my take on the press conference. "We only know what we heard in the media, and relied on the grand jury report." By claiming to put your all your reliance on the grand jury testimony, that is legally sworn testimony produced by a third party. They obviously have made decisions in a very rushed manner (10 PM press conference, and informing long time employees of terminations by phone). I doubt any other evidence they have is at such a substantiated level. Also, the reasons for termination were very vague (we need a change in leadership due to the challenges the university faces). It seemed designed to avoid any wrongful termination litigation.

I think it very unlikely the Board knows more.  If I was advising the Board I would be giving the same cautions PLJ already stated.  But the Board is in the best position to know what it didnt know.  They can compare that to what they should have been told.  At the very least they could reasonably conclude that there should have been some form of investigation and assuming they were never informed of such an investigation it would be open for them to reasonably conclude that the President had to go becuase he either failed to cause such an investigation to be carried out or it was carried out and the Board never heard about it.  In either case there is good reason for the Board to lose its confidence in the President and fire him.

If I am wrong and the Board did know more and didnt do anything itself then that place is in some serious trouble.

[Valmy]

Two things: one is that I'm guessing the president was told a very sanitized story as well. Does the Board really need to be informed of questionable (but probably not outright obscene) behavior of a retired assistant football coach?

Well according to the indictment (granted this was from Schultz I believe) there was a reason he was "retired" following the child molestation investigation in 1998.  A second incident in the exact same location?  Granted the President may have been kept in the dark the entire time (we will see what happens as more victims and information comes forward as the media swarms over this thing in the coming months and years) but even so I think an outsider is probably needed to lead the clean up effort.

[alfred russel]

I think it very unlikely the Board knows more.  If I was advising the Board I would be giving the same cautions PLJ already stated.  But the Board is in the best position to know what it didnt know.  They can compare that to what they should have been told.  At the very least they could reasonably conclude that there should have been some form of investigation and assuming they were never informed of such an investigation it would be open for them to reasonably conclude that the President had to go becuase he either failed to cause such an investigation to be carried out or it was carried out and the Board never heard about it.  In either case there is good reason for the Board to lose its confidence in the President and fire him.

If I am wrong and the Board did know more and didnt do anything itself then that place is in some serious trouble.

I'm not talking about what the board knew, I'm talking about what the board knows now. At the press conference they denied knowledge beyond what is known by the public. I think a lot depends on the 2002 investigation, for instance. I would assume the boad has more information regarding that than the general public.

[alfred russel]

Two things: one is that I'm guessing the president was told a very sanitized story as well. Does the Board really need to be informed of questionable (but probably not outright obscene) behavior of a retired assistant football coach?

Well according to the indictment (granted this was from Schultz I believe) there was a reason he was "retired" following the child molestation investigation in 1998.  A second incident in the exact same location?  Granted the President may have been kept in the dark the entire time (we will see what happens as more victims and information comes forward as the media swarms over this thing in the coming months and years) but even so I think an outsider is probably needed to lead the clean up effort.

That is a fair decision that an outsider is needed. However, you can say that rather than just axing the guy, and also, the Board seems to have decapitated all of the leadership right now. I don't know about the Penn State board, but generally a board is going to be to a large extent retired folks, large donors, and people with other jobs. Not people capable of stepping into the day to day administration of the university, and that is needed today as well as going forward.

By axing him like this, you seriously impair his opportunities to get another job. It isn't a good way to treat a guy if you just want to bring in an outsider.

[crazy canuck]

I'm not talking about what the board knew, I'm talking about what the board knows now. At the press conference they denied knowledge beyond what is known by the public. I think a lot depends on the 2002 investigation, for instance. I would assume the boad has more information regarding that than the general public.

Why would you assume that? 

[Rasputin]

I think it very unlikely the Board knows more.  If I was advising the Board I would be giving the same cautions PLJ already stated.  But the Board is in the best position to know what it didnt know.  They can compare that to what they should have been told.  At the very least they could reasonably conclude that there should have been some form of investigation and assuming they were never informed of such an investigation it would be open for them to reasonably conclude that the President had to go becuase he either failed to cause such an investigation to be carried out or it was carried out and the Board never heard about it.  In either case there is good reason for the Board to lose its confidence in the President and fire him.

If I am wrong and the Board did know more and didnt do anything itself then that place is in some serious trouble.

I'm not talking about what the board knew, I'm talking about what the board knows now. At the press conference they denied knowledge beyond what is known by the public. I think a lot depends on the 2002 investigation, for instance. I would assume the boad has more information regarding that than the general public.

not if you accept the premise that management was attempting to conceal or minimize what was happening.

i suspect it is exactly s canuck suggests; the board came to te conclusion that spanner knew more and chose to keep it from them; at 8mm per annum (iirc), i suspect that the board thought this inexcusable

[Valmy]

I have to say I am amazed McQueary is remaining on the staff.  That just seems like a really bad idea.

[alfred russel]

I'm not talking about what the board knew, I'm talking about what the board knows now. At the press conference they denied knowledge beyond what is known by the public. I think a lot depends on the 2002 investigation, for instance. I would assume the boad has more information regarding that than the general public.

Why would you assume that?

Because the grand jury testimony alone leaves a lot of questions about who knew what, and when, at Penn State.

It is possible that the GA gave a very watered down account of what he saw to Paterno and others. It is possible that based on this the investigation found little wrongdoing, but just as CYA Sandusky was told not to bring chidren on campus, and this is all that was communicated to the president.

It at least sounds prudent to look into this rather than to just fire everyone in the middle of the night.

[Rasputin]

I have to say I am amazed McQueary is remaining on the staff.  That just seems like a really bad idea.

i suspect the gc is afraid of the retaliatory discharge suit

"ladies and gentlemen of he jury, my client told the uncomfortable and unvarnished truth to a grand jury of the commonwealth of pennsylvania. A group, much like yourselves, dedicated to finding the truth. What he said was uncomfortable to say, uncomfortable to hear, but a necessary step in the journey of his alma mater's rediscovering its own morality and value sytem. That story brought down two coaching legends, and the management of our beloved Pennsylvania State University who had engaged in a cover up the likes of which this country's not seen since watergate. Nonetheless it had to be done and had the truth not come out how many more victims would there have been? How did Penn State reward my client for his courage before the grand jury? They fired him..."

[crazy canuck]

I'm not talking about what the board knew, I'm talking about what the board knows now. At the press conference they denied knowledge beyond what is known by the public. I think a lot depends on the 2002 investigation, for instance. I would assume the boad has more information regarding that than the general public.

Why would you assume that?

Because the grand jury testimony alone leaves a lot of questions about who knew what, and when, at Penn State.

It is possible that the GA gave a very watered down account of what he saw to Paterno and others. It is possible that based on this the investigation found little wrongdoing, but just as CYA Sandusky was told not to bring chidren on campus, and this is all that was communicated to the president.

It at least sounds prudent to look into this rather than to just fire everyone in the middle of the night.

If there was an investigation and it found little wrongdoing then the investigation was done incompetantly since all they had to do was talk to the GA to find out the full details.  That is reason enough to lose trust in the President who should have taken this matter more seriously if your assumption is correct.  Also, if there was an investigation and the GA was interviewed but not believed then why was he kept on staff and given a plum job?  That makes no sense. 

[crazy canuck]

I have to say I am amazed McQueary is remaining on the staff.  That just seems like a really bad idea.

i suspect the gc is afraid of the retaliatory discharge suit

"ladies and gentlemen of he jury, my client told the uncomfortable and unvarnished truth to a grand jury of the commonwealth of pennsylvania. A group, much like yourselves, dedicated to finding the truth. What he said was uncomfortable to say, uncomfortable to hear, but a necessary step in the journey of his alma mater's rediscovering its own morality and value sytem. That story brought down two coaching legends, and the management of our beloved Pennsylvania State University who had engaged in a cover up the likes of which this country's not seen since watergate. Nonetheless it had to be done and had the truth not come out how many more victims would there have been? How did Penn State reward my client for his courage before the grand jury? They fired him..."

Hey, you should do this for a living.

[Admiral Yi]

i suspect the gc is afraid of the retaliatory discharge suit

I think Valmy was talking about him leaving voluntarily, not getting shitcanned.  He's probably the most unpopular person on campus right now.

[dps]

Honestly guys - could you not imagine this very same thing happen at any of a number of "big time" football schools?  The culture of winning>>>>>everything else is pretty widespread.

But this has nothing to do with winning trumping everything else.  By the time McQueary caught Sandusky fucking a kid, Sandusky had no longer been a coach there for a few years.  It's not like if someone at LSU caught Les Myles doing the same thing, and the school covered it up so that they could keep Myles there to win them football games--Penn State in 2002 had nothing to gain by not having McQueary go to the police and tell them what he saw;  it wouldn't have cost them a single victory.

A sister of one of the victims goes to Penn state. : 

Why does it make you sad that she chose to go to Penn State in spite of her brother being molested by Sandusky?  What business of it is yours about where she choses to go to college?

Incidentally, another story on that site quotes an attorney for some of the victims' families criticizing the board for the way Paterno was fired.

I would assume the boad has more information regarding that than the general public.

I wouldn't make that assumption.  I think that likely, at most the board was told in 2002 that there were some allegations of sexual misconduct with a minor against Sandusky, without any details.  And they probably didn't ask for any, because I think that a board member, if being told 3rd or 4th hand that a former coach there was subject to such allegations would be thinking, "Well, he doesn't work here anymore, so why are we even being told about this?".

You are talking about the 2002 incident, right?  Because if you're talking about the earlier investigation, then that's different--I would also assume that the board knew more about it than the general public.

I have to say I am amazed McQueary is remaining on the staff.  That just seems like a really bad idea.

To me, he's the #2 villain in this story, after Sandusky himself.  I don't see how you can justify firing Paterno, who as far as we know only had a second-hand report of the abuse and not fire the guy who actually witnessed it.

I can come up with a few scenarios as to why it would be justified for Paterno to simply pass what McQueary told him on to his superiors, but I can't come up with any justification for McQueary himself not going to the police.

[Malthus]

I can come up with a few scenarios as to why it would be justified for Paterno to simply pass what McQueary told him on to his superiors, but I can't come up with any justification for McQueary himself not going to the police.

Hey, the police can't give him a job ... 

But yeah, so far, everyone involved comes out this story stinking.

[dps]

I can come up with a few scenarios as to why it would be justified for Paterno to simply pass what McQueary told him on to his superiors, but I can't come up with any justification for McQueary himself not going to the police.

Hey, the police can't give him a job ... 

That could explain it, but not justify if.