Quick Reaction to the NCAA's Sanctions against PSU

First off, PSU fans, and college football fans, that are angry with the NCAA are misdirecting their anger.  PSU's current AD and President both agreed to the sanctions before they were released.  Emmert didn't act as a bloodlusting dictator in this case...he was calculated in his assessment and communicated with PSU officials through the process of coming to a final punishment.

PSU fans- be angry at Sandusky, Paterno, Spanier, Curley and the others that stayed mum (and worse) and grinned as Paterno received commendation over the last 15 years.

This is not the death penalty, but one of Dan Patrick's staff is calling it the "Walking Dead Penalty"...and I like the terminology. In spite of declarations of loyalty by current PSU players, I'd think that many might re-think the way they handle the next few years of their life and where they spend them.  Most of these guys who I've heard speak/tweet thought of themselves as truly elite athletes.  Not having any opportunity to compete for championships changes a lot.

The ramifications on PSU's recruiting will be massive. Think for a moment about Purdue's Mollenkopf facility- bowl banners, photos of Tiller, Burtnett, Young and Mollenkopf are throughout the entrance of the facility...and their attachment to big rivalry wins, bowl wins and national recognition define the program.  If Purdue had to remove all of the remnants of Tiller, Burtnett, Young and part of Mollenkopf's best seasons, what would Purdue's program hang its proverbial hat upon?  No history...no legacy...just a void.

PSU will be dealing with exactly that scenario.  45-plus years of definitive wins really can't/won't be talked about to recruits and their families.

We'll see what the B1G does in :15 minutes.

Addendum: The B1G fines PSU an estimated $13million over four years- their share of bowl revenue in addition to the $60million the NCAA has already leveed. Not surprisingly, PSU will not be able to play in the football conference championship over the next four years.

Along with aOSU's punishment, that means the Leaders Division is a four team race in '12, and a five-team race in the ensuing three seasons.

According to the Chairman of B1G Presidents, Sally Mason, the conference never discussed removing PSU from the conference.

According to Delany, PSU players will be able to transfer within the conference and still receive scholarship.

NCAA Sanctions PSU

The NCAA has ruled on the Sandusky cover-up by Paterno...I'm sure I'll miss something, but here's what I've gleaned:

-The terms were agreed to by PSU...so there will be no counter lawsuits
-4 year bowl ban
-$60 million fine that will be given to victims of children victimized by sex crimes as well as associations that strive to prevent such crimes (to be paid over 5 years)
-10 scholarships lost for four seasons
-All PSU football players will be able to leave immediately without punishment or loss of eligibility

B1G will release additional sanctions and penalties at 11:00am...According to numerous sources, multiple presidents in the conference are for PSU's removal from the conference.  The conference bi-laws state that 8 sitting presidents in the conference must demand the removal of a member for it to occur.

Paterno's Blemish to Remain at PSU

The Joe Paterno statue was removed from outside of Beaver Stadium early Sunday morning...but prior to it being removed, PSU students and fans came by to pay even more respects to the Demigod that is Joe Paterno's myth. I know that many PSU fans have come to grips with the size and abhorrent nature of this scandal...and the fact that their leader betrayed them, and most-importantly, innocent children by covering up a scandal for at least 15 years- those people seem saddened, disgusted, rightfully angry and shell-shocked.  But many PSU fans, students and alums still don't get it.

Before we go any further, I want everyone to keep an eye out for the signs a god figure is being created by man:  The impression of infallibility, the belief that no one ever has, nor ever will do their job close to as well as them, the thought that a person is bigger than the institution for which they work...and any erection of permanent statues and structures in a living person's honor are all good ways to spot fans that have become truly fanatical and finally have resigned themselves to simply worshipping at the altar of a false god.

If the stories of the myth of Paterno are true, at one point, he was humble enough to worship a God higher than himself. But sometime, while being genuflected to over a five decade span, he began to believe that very few that came before him, if any, were as important as he.  His actions, statements and even silence tell the tail to a great extent, but allowing people to raise a statue in his likeness while his lungs still drew breath was probably the greatest sign of his hubris.

But it's pretty obvious how this monster was created. Do a quick search for the statue, and you'll find what I found- photos of posters and notes along with articles still defending a man and a legend that's indefensible.

That's why the NCAA's impending actions are of the utmost importance.  Tomorrow, both the NCAA, and possibly the B1G, will announce how they plan to punish this structure that created an outlaw assistant coach, a head coach without a moral or ethical compass or any respect for the law or human decency and high-ranking officials that believed the family was more important than anything else.  That family needs to be destroyed.  Sadly, through firings, guilty verdicts, resignations and more and more proof of atrocious, repetitive actions and behavior, JoePa still remains a gleaming legend in the minds of tens of thousands...if not more.

The NCAA, nor a conference has ever had to hand down a punishment for something like this...Thank God something like this has never happened before. We're in unchartered, murky, foul, wretched waters.  And if the message is sent loudly and clearly enough, hopefully, we'll never have to witness anything like this again.

But those that continue to worship at the altar of Papa Joe clearly are too dense to understand anything but a nuclear winter.  A football season in which Beaver Stadium sits cold and silent might finally send the message in a manner that they understand.

The Dismantling of a Legend Rightfully Continues

For about a decade, I can remember Joe Paterno telling the world that if he wasn't coaching football, he'd would literally die.  In fact, he credited the game and his players for keeping him young-acting and alive.  In hindsight, there seems to be a ton of truth to that.

We know a lot about the guy that we didn't years ago.  We know that he struggled privately with various illnesses...most noteworthy, the cancer that took his life shortly after he was fired.  But, the most dangerous illness Paterno probably suffered from was a mental illness that made him believe in a reality that simply didn't exist.

In Joe Paterno's world, football, loyalty, reputation, public perception and graduation rates were more important than laws or even lives.  No one will ever say that it was a bad thing that so many of Paterno's players graduated from college.  In fact, many of his players were given opportunities at lives they would have never had if it wasn't for Paterno's football program. But, there were many parts of his program that were in shambles before most of the world ever knew what The Second Mile even was...or knew of the disgusting underbelly of its founder.

As Paterno aged, he did what a lot of older people do- he began to slow down and care less about the details that once defined him.  In this process, he stopped looking for lawlessness and poor behavior; and worse, he stopped caring about this behavior's repercussions.  It's been pretty well-documented that in the 00s and after, PSU football players were arrested at a much-higher rate than they had been in the previous decades under Paterno's watch.  In spite of that, the head coach didn't see the interest in the change of the program as anything more than a "witch hunt". A few years of rough water and sub-par records later, Paterno's Lions emerged once again as a powerhouse.  And Paterno's national reputation remained mostly-unblemished.

On the field, Paterno was fiery...even when hobbled by injuries or illness. His players reflected that fire with a hard-nosed brand of football that reflected the lunchpail perspective that the simply-dressed coach often exuded.  But, like some other legendary coaches before him that held on a bit too long, discipline and principles were sometimes replaced with outright anger, a bully's mentality and little proof that consequences existed for the actions.  But, in press conferences, Paterno's awe-schucks answers were lauded by the media and Nittany Lion fans alike.

The man could do no wrong...even when he did wrong. If he assailed an official as he ran toward the tunnel, not only would he not get penalized in the second half, ABC would cheer on the effort as spunky and gritty. If he dodged questions in press conferences, we'd hear about how he was a master at handling issues with political savvy and wisdom that young people just don't have.  I'm pretty sure that he didn't think that the final serious issue that he'd ever have to deal with on this earth, was the cover-up surrounding one of his ex-assistants sexual deviancy and mis-conduct.

I'm also sure that he believed, no, knew, that he was above the law.

His grandfatherly public persona was hardly ever broken.  Even after he was fired, his boyish smile and pithy comments to the student body made it seem like the entire Sandusky case was an overblown mis-understanding.  But in spite what some PSU alums and fans try to tell us, there was no misunderstanding here.  JoePa knew exactly what was happening...and intentionally directed people to look the other way and cover-up some of the most-monstrous behavior imaginable.

Outside of cannibalism, is there anything that our society is more disgusted by than adults that make children their sexual prey?  I can only speak for myself and the people I know well...but I don't think anything is lower than this.  It has the power to completely ruin lives- it robs the victim of not only their childhood, but also an adult life of much of the perspective and joy we take for granted.

YET, Paterno, part of Penn State's administration, and much of its athletic department thought it was better to protect one of their own than bring to the light this horrible darkness. This is the worst case of lack of institutional control that the NCAA will ever investigate.  They probably will not give the football program what they deserve later this year...but that in itself is a different conversation and enough material for a month of posts.

Delusional.

PSU fans continue to defend the deceased leader of their football program, but nothing I've read, and no one I've talked to, can convince me that Paterno is any different than a gangster that saw the family as more important than law, decency or those who aren't part of his inner circle.  He abused his bigtime power in a small town to perpetuate a conspiracy that left lives shattered and all but encouraged lawlessness to continue. As recently as last fall, Sandusky was welcomed into Penn State's facilities by Paterno and Co. as a guest of the coach. Now try to relate for a moment. Could you, would you, welcome a child predator into your home time and again if he wasn't repentent? I'd hope not.  Could you, would you,give him the apparatus to continue his abhorrent behavior? Probably not. Could you, would you, instruct others to lie on his behalf in order to protect him? Absolutely not.

The more that's investigated, the more awful this case becomes.  The more digging that occurs, the more we all get to see just how dark things really were.  And while Paterno and his PSU lemmings were never guilty of the repetitive act itself, they were all guilty...and all should pay in some way.  It seems only just that the PSU football empire that Paterno built should be dismantled by the scandal that he covered up for a decade.

Knocking down statues and chipping away at the legacy should be the just the beginning of the destruction of a mythical legend that simply doesn't match the true story. But sadly, by dying, Paterno got off way too easy...and he'll never see the consequences of the fraud that he enabled and perpetuated.

Handsome Hour: 11/9/11

The boys talk Purdue basketball, Purdue football, recruiting and what's happening at Happy Valley.

Get involved...get handsome...Now!

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The PSU Post I Didn't Want To Write

With all that is going on around us, I really didn't want to write about the Penn State debacle. So many people have written so many things so much more eloquently and powerfully than I could ever hope to. It's also not a sports story and that's what we write about here. So I'm even less qualified to have an opinion you should care about. However, one of the gratuities we allow ourselves here is that it's indeed our site and once in a while, we'll go off the reservation and use it for cathartic reasons. This is one of those times.

I've literally lost sleep over this and more than a few times found myself staring out a window, feeling pain and anguish for the victims of Jerry Sandusky's abuses. Like everyone with any sort of moral compass, I've felt anger most of all, but sadness to the point of almost crying (and I'm not a crier) has also enveloped me at times. Maybe it's being a father. Maybe it's that I had someone very close to me sexually abused. But I don't think those two facts make me any more angry necessarily, because the abuse -- especially to such a sickening level -- of children, especially young, impressionable, at-risk children, who Sandusky preyed on within his foundation...is just so hard to even fathom, that it becomes the great uniting force among us.

We were among the many who relentlessly went after Ohio State apologists when the house came down on Jim Tressel's head and Terrelle Pryor bounced for the NFL. But doesn't that seem ridiculously small potatoes now? I mean, how utterly insignificant is that now? It's sports-related and it's important from the perspective of raising our kids and students to be morally conscious people...but let's be honest. Cheating the NCAA rules is one thing -- the debacle at Penn State had nothing to do with athletic/academic/NCAA improprieties. It had to do with morality of the most basic kind. I may differ from the guys at OSU blogs on bending the rules, but I'm willing to bet that nearly 100% of them would line with me and us in solidarity when it comes to abusing children.

There is no gray area. There is no acceptable explanation for anyone knowing anything about what happened and was happening for years within the Penn State midst and not taking significant action. Not calling bosses, not calling daddy, not running away from the scene.  

You can very easily read the grand jury report here. However, no matter how desensitized you might think you are to abhorrent behavior, nauseating facts and the like, this will be hard to read. I could not read it all in one sitting and I consider myself a pretty hardened person.

If you don't want to read it (though I recommend you do so that you are as informed as anyone else and more so than those defending anyone associated with it) and you trust me instead, I appreciate that and here's what you need to know. Mike McQueary was a graduate assistant in 2002 and was 28 years old. He walked into the Penn State football locker room one evening and saw former coach Jerry Sandusky having anal intercourse with a ten year old boy. He saw it. He immediately ran away and called his dad, who told him they needed to tell Coach Paterno. McQueary then did just that, albeit the next day, and Paterno referred it up the chain of command. The athletic director, Tim Curley, and SVP for Finance and Business Gary Schultz then told McQueary a few weeks later (a few weeks after McQueary saw a boy being raped in a Penn State shower) that Sandusky's "keys to the locker room had been taken away" and that the incident had been reported to The Second Mile, Sandusky's foundation that the district attorney now thinks was actually founded more or less to feed Sandusky's predatory needs. And that was that.

So there you have it -- and that's just the 2002 incident that McQueary witnessed. Which is bad enough, but it is to say nothing of earlier accusations/incidents where Sandusky was seen showering naked with similarly-aged boys in 1998, for example. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 victims are now alleged, as of last night. Knowing this animal was on the loose for literally decades mean we will surely never know the complete depths of his depravity and how many lives he destroyed.

McQueary's reaction is just one of many puzzling/disturbing pieces to this puzzle. His grand jury testimony almost leads me to believe he feels he fulfilled his obligation in this situation, which is also the defense the Paterno apologists are currently using. He did what was required and he is not at risk for legal action. However, I don't necessarily even agree. People keep making the distinction in opinion pieces that while Joe and McQueary did what was legally required, they didn't do what was morally required. But let's back up -- aren't we all somewhat obligated to call the authorities if we witness a crime? If I saw a woman being raped in my office and only told my boss and didn't call the police..... wouldn't I be potentially liable in some way? I'm not a lawyer so I'm sure there's a loophole here, but shit, these are some awful things to be loopholing our way through. And to get down to actual facts, the DA has not cleared Joe completely out of the woods yet. I believe what was said was that Paterno is not a target of the investigation "at this time." It's far from over.

Anyway, McQueary saw what he saw and then he ran away from the scene. He ran away from the mother-effing scene. I don't care about these people saying, "Well, none of us know how we would react." Bullshit. You would intervene. If you're a decent human being with morals of any kind, you intervene. This isn't a married man having sex with his secretary. This isn't money changing hands between a college coach and a prized recruit. If those were the situation, then the steps McQueary took would have been perfectly acceptable. Tell the people you need to tell to cover your own ass and then if they cover it up, so be it. That's life in the big leagues.

But not this. NOT the rape of a child. There is no other acceptable response, in my opinion, than to intervene and, ideally, nearly beat Sandusky to death. I do not say that sort of thing lightly, either. And I am not joking. There are times when someone's crimes are such that I think they should have to be humiliated in court, to hear from their victims, to do hard time in prison. But in the case of an animal who has sexually abused children, I think the penalty of physical beating is the best first step. I know, I sound bloodthirsty and Sandusky has not yet been convicted of anything. Well, as with all opinion pieces, understand that this whole things comes with an, "if he did indeed do it." But hey, there are witnesses. And dozens of victims already lining up. This happened.

Going back to McQueary, there are those who said he perhaps feared for his job. Okay, I get that if, again, we're talking about him witnessing a pay-for-play scheme where JoePa was handing Terrelle Pryor the keys to a Suburban. I get that. But not this. If you lose your job over reporting child abuse, well, so be it. I'm sorry, but you have a higher obligation here and as a human being you have an obligation to protect children. I don't care if you do or do not have children, and I don't care if you even like children. But let me ask the rational ones among you... if you saw a child about to be hit by a car, wouldn't you likely risk your life to save that child? Even if they were a stranger? I think most, if not all, of us would. Children need protection from all of us. Especially people in power who have the ability to make a difference.

Which brings us to Joe Paterno himself. There is this apologists argument that he did everything he should have done and that is patently false. I'm sorry to burst your bubble if you love Joe, but he was catastrophically wrong on this one. I'm not implying Paterno advocated child abuse -- but to suggest telling his superiors was enough is asinine. Joe Paterno is and was the legend in Happy Valley. He is the boss there. He was untouchable. There are actually braindead apologists suggesting that the Penn State administration has been "muzzling" him and hey, maybe he wanted to speak out all along.

Give me a fricking break. If Joe Paterno wanted to talk to the media or to anybody, he could call ESPN and tell them he wanted to speak to any reporter he wanted and they would be on his doorstep in a matter of hours. And nobody could do a damn thing about it. This myth that PSU holds his job over his head is just that -- a myth. Joe has been holding Penn State hostage for years in refusing to exit gracefully and instead hanging on well past the time he should have retired.

We have joked in the past about Joe being a figurehead and "coaching" from the press box without a headset, etc. I had asked openly and to Ben Jones of BSD of what we're waiting for with Joe. Just a few weeks ago on our podcast, I asked Ben if PSU was waiting for him to die on the sidelines because that would be a really traumatic, awful memory of the end of Joe Paterno. I could not have imagined how the end of his time at Penn State will now be remembered.

And that's another issue here. This is the awful answer to the question we've raised before about the risks of a figurehead coach. This is what happens when the CEO is a detached old man who is disconnected from reality. I don't care how much you hate them or how dirty you think they might be with regard to NCAA rules... can you imagine Nick Saban allowing child abuse? Les Miles? Danny Hope? Rich Rodriguez? John Calipari? I actually can't. I think these guys and many others in their profession have questionable morals when it comes to NCAA rules. But not when it comes to the welfare of ten year old children. Or maybe I just can't allow myself to believe this could be covered up elsewhere.

That's yet another sad truth here, though. There are thousands of victims of child abuse that are never heard from. And in some cases, there are those who cannot speak out for even more tragic reasons. To the right of the page, you'll find some links today to foundations and schools that help children who deal with issues ranging from child abuse to developmental disabilities to a lack of proper guidance. If you have even $5 to donate, please consider doing it. Or if you can volunteer (not just at these, but at any shelter, foundation or youth group, etc.), please consider doing that, too. I know so many of you are good and decent people. And if I wasn't around to show my son guidance, I would sincerely want good people showing him the way.

In closing, please do your best to re-focus your emotions from rage at those responsible to empathy for those who have suffered. Admittedly, I'm still working on that myself, but I'm trying.

Thanks for letting me meander this morning.