Paterno

[Triple_D]

Looks like his days are numbered. What a sad and shocking way for a legend to probably be going out, and very soon. In my opinion he deserves it for sweeping it under the rug and allowing Sandusky continued access to University facilities to engage in his sick pedophilia.

If there are any Joe Pa defenders out there I would urge you to read the 25 page Grand Jury indictment, you will change your mind and realize Joe Pa needs to go, he should have contacted Child Welfare and the police a decade ago.

[zepman]

I agree..whole-heartedly. The problem with coaches like Jo-Pa is that they have absolutely no clue of what's going on in "their" program on a day to day basis...no clue. Bobby Bowden, at FSU, was the same way. Whenever you see a head coach roaming the side-lines without a head-set on, it's a CLEAR indication that they have no clue as to what's going on.

Paterno and Bowden are/were "figure-heads"...recruiting tools. FSU had enough sense to fire Bowden a couple of years ago...PSU should have done the same.

I can't believe Sandusky was given access to the PSU facilities after two separate incidents involving kids...how can you possibly explain that??

Paterno knew of one incident for sure...he reported it. There were more that the University, and its officials, knew of and they did absolutely nothing to AT LEAST deny him of University access. Unexplainable.

Paterno and his whole staff are done...40+ years right down the drain. It's ugly now but I think it'll get even uglier in the next few weeks.

[PoorWordUsage]!!!

[Scott M]

Sad but true. I don't think there's a clean program out there any more.

[pushbutton]

Even heard one report how the original prosecutor in the case, who unexplainably never brought charges, has been unexplainably "missing" for going on 6 years. Can't ay it is related, but just adds fuel to the speculation fire that is about to blow up. Not going to be such a Happy Valley for awhile, and rightfully so.

[toughguy]

I wonder what they'll use for their next mascot? In reality that's all he is. Now that this scandal hit I'm guessing they'll have a more difficult time finding a quality coach to replace him. They should have canned him years ago. If it were any other coach in college they'd have him fired the minute this was made public. Seriously - imagine this was one of Coach Kills assistants. He has to go. If he knew anything about this and allowed it to continue I think he should face charges too. Absolutely disgusting.

[Steve Foss]

I'll wait for all the details come out before I run Paterno through the meat grinder. We don't know yet what really happened. The criminal complaint is a charging document, not necessarily the whole truth. I know the court of public opinion will not wait, and will find him guilty until proven innocent.

[mrklean]

Just read the grand jury indictment and that is just disturbing to say the least, the number of times he was caught, and people went to supervisors and nothing happened is just wrong. I will defend Joe to an extent, he did report it, but he didnt follow up or go even further. If you are the coach of one of the most prestigious football programs in the country and someone reports this to you about your old #2 my guess was he didnt want to run to the cops right away and get this in the public because it would become a fire storm like it is now and im sure he didnt want to be in the middle of it. So he did the minimum, reported it to his superior and figured its in there hands now they will take care of it. By no means am i defending Joe for not following up, i think in the back of his head he was worried about the backlash to the program and his job, which now it came out 10 years later and is even worse now and makes him look worse now. Just playing devils advocate a bit

[SkunkedAgain]

...or in this sue-happy world, Paterno did the right thing while also making sure that he doesn't get sued for trying to get someone fired. In Joe Paterno, you have a guy that has been all about helping kids improve their lives. I find it hard to believe like 98% of the US that Peterno just turned a blind eye to this. There is more to the story but most are just looking to throw someone to the wolves. Sad.

[Harmonica Bear]

Where did you read the grand jury indictment?

Never-mind, I found it.

Indictment

[Scott M]

http://assets.espn.go.com/photo/2011/1107/espn_e_Sandusky-Grand-Jury-Presentment.pdf

[mrklean]

...or in this sue-happy world, Paterno did the right thing while also making sure that he doesn't get sued for trying to get someone fired. In Joe Paterno, you have a guy that has been all about helping kids improve their lives. I find it hard to believe like 98% of the US that Peterno just turned a blind eye to this. There is more to the story but most are just looking to throw someone to the wolves. Sad.

If he would have turned a blind eye he would be in the [PoorWordUsage] with the AD and whoever else tried to pretty much cover it up, that's why right now Joe isn't being charged with anything just being ridiculed for doing the minimum to cover himself.

[SkunkedAgain]

I guess that since we ALL KNOW the facts (sarcasm) it seems like he did the minimum. Although without knowing what Paterno knew back in the day, and the potential pitfalls that he faced - such as over reaching his authority - it seems that we're all condemning the man with our 20-20 hindsight.

This was a terrible tragedy, but so is the public ending the career of an icon after we all have roughly 3-4 days worth of knowledge about this topic.

[EBass]

Just saw on MSN that Paterno will retire after this season.

[Harmonica Bear]

Finishsed reading that indictment. Wow. That F-er Sandusky should be shot. The rest of them will have to wrestle with the life-long guilt of doing nothing while innocent kids were violated. The whole thing is just sad.

[goblueM]

I guess that since we ALL KNOW the facts (sarcasm) it seems like he did the minimum. Although without knowing what Paterno knew back in the day, and the potential pitfalls that he faced - such as over reaching his authority - it seems that we're all condemning the man with our 20-20 hindsight.

This was a terrible tragedy, but so is the public ending the career of an icon after we all have roughly 3-4 days worth of knowledge about this topic.

I agree - it is a tragedy, and it IS a sad end to Joe-Pa's career.

I don't know the facts, but it sure seems like he did the bare minimum he was required to - there's a lot that should have been done at PSU, and could have been done. Was the JoePa required to more than he did? No. Should he have pushed more? Maybe so.

[B. Amish]

how about reporting it to the flippin cops? this thing is absolutely disgusting. so many people knew, several eye witnesses. and no one said anything to the cops?

[mrklean]

Im surprised the grad assistant that reported it to Joe didn't go to the cops, everyone is getting after Joe cause he didn't push more after he reported it but the eyewitness didn't either that's what boggles me

[goblueM]

for sure. there's plenty of blame to go around. I know for darn sure if I reported (or had something like that reported to me) that I would be curious if there wasn't any official action taken, other than banning him from campus.

It isn't something like reporting someone for taking a laptop or smoking some weed. This is serious business and its unconscionable that nobody bothered to look into why more actions were not taken given the eyewitness account

[Triple_D]

I'm not surprised that the Grad Assistant didn't report it to the cops, I might question reporting it in fear of my job. Sandusky was Paterno's right hand man at one point, and even after retiring he was still a part of the program, using the team facilities daily for God's sake. A janitor witnessed an act on another child and did not report it either, don't you think there was some Paterno God complex that played a part in all this? If you don't you are in denial.

Here's all you need to know. The Grad Assistant was eventually promoted to the WR coach and is still currently on the coaching staff, could that be in exchange for "keeping it quiet" and not reporting it further?

Sandusky was investigated after a report and was banned from using a local high school gym that he used to take kids to by the school district. At least they had the sense to not allow him access to their facilites anymore, why did Penn State continue to allow it?

The school administrators changed the language that they had been told about from anally raping a boy to saying that they had been told Sandusky was "horsing around" with some young boy. Those descriptions are not changed to that extent without some kind of coverup.

Paterno knew, no doubt in my mind. This was one of his best friend's at one time, and someone he turned a blind eye to while several more victims over the years were subjected to child abuse, in the football team coaches locker room and showers, Paterno's own domain, plus he used his past coaching influence to bring boys to games and practices, Paterno must have seen him with young boys at some point after he was already aware of the complaints, and did nothing to try and protect those boys! Hope you can sleep at night Joe.

[Antero]

Nice touch that he wants us to pray for the kids......you can't make this stuff up!

[mrklean]

I'm not surprised that the Grad Assistant didn't report it to the cops, I might question reporting it in fear of my job. Sandusky was Paterno's right hand man at one point, and even after retiring he was still a part of the program, using the team facilities daily for God's sake. A janitor witnessed an act on another child and did not report it either, don't you think there was some Paterno God complex that played a part in all this? If you don't you are in denial.

Here's all you need to know. The Grad Assistant was eventually promoted to the WR coach and is still currently on the coaching staff, could that be in exchange for "keeping it quiet" and not reporting it further?

Sandusky was investigated after a report and was banned from using a local high school gym that he used to take kids to by the school district. At least they had the sense to not allow him access to their facilites anymore, why did Penn State continue to allow it?

The school administrators changed the language that they had been told about from anally raping a boy to saying that they had been told Sandusky was "horsing around" with some young boy. Those descriptions are not changed to that extent without some kind of coverup.

Paterno knew, no doubt in my mind. This was one of his best friend's at one time, and someone he turned a blind eye to while several more victims over the years were subjected to child abuse, in the football team coaches locker room and showers, Paterno's own domain, plus he used his past coaching influence to bring boys to games and practices, Paterno must have seen him with young boys at some point after he was already aware of the complaints, and did nothing to try and protect those boys! Hope you can sleep at night Joe.

Are you serious? You think if Joe knew he had been molesting boys he would just turn a cheek since they are buddies? If so why did he report to the AD and staff about what the grad assist saw?

[Antero]

At PSU JoePa was the boss, not the AD.

[mrklean]

So you think the coach outranks the AD?

[MNice]

Wouldn't bother me if he dropped dead today..

[Antero]

So you think the coach outranks the AD?

Yup, and by the way the report today is the pres will either step down or be canned by the end of the day not the end of the season. So it seems he ranks higher than the pres also.