The Freeh Report and the Future of Penn State

[psuasskicker]

Even if they don't formally do anything to the football program, they're going to suffer for a long time anyway because no top recruits are going to want to play there.

You argued this before. Rivals disagrees. So does Scout. I already pointed that out to you. Come up with a better argument, because yours is completely inaccurate.

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[wickedsolo]

You argued this before. Rivals disagrees. So does Scout. I already pointed that out to you. Come up with a better argument, because yours is completely inaccurate.

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Just my opinion. Not really an argument.


But here, I'll go ahead and re-word it so you can better understand what I was trying to say.

[psuasskicker]

Other than Spence, those links you posted mostly didn't say anything that would indicate your point. The guy that decommitted we would have lost anyway because he wasn't a scholarship player and he got offered one elsewhere. The bleacherreport article is stupid...it's either very old or very inaccurate, because all the major scouting sites have PSU having signed a solid number of 4-star recruits, many of whom signed close to commit-day. The Rivals article says they lost a QB, which is far from the first time a big time QB recruit has been lost. With no statement that it's from this problem, that's a stretch to assume, especially since the guy committed to PSU initially AFTER the scandal broke. Spence we never had a shot at anyway, so I don't really care what he said.

The point is, you're claiming it's having a big negative impact on their football recruiting. But PSU has signed their strongest recruiting class in years, and second strongest I think in the last decade and a half. It's a claim that a lot of people are making, but it doesn't seem to be bearing out.

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[wickedsolo]

The point is, you're claiming it's having a big negative impact on their football recruiting. But PSU has signed their strongest recruiting class in years, and second strongest I think in the last decade and a half. It's a claim that a lot of people are making, but it doesn't seem to be bearing out.

For someone who doesn't like to have words put in their mouth, you sure as hell do a lot of that. I never said it is having a "big negative impact". I said that their program will likely suffer (which it already has to a certain degree) and it may be quite some time before they fully recover from this.

All I'm saying is that as this stuff continues to unfold it isn't exactly an unreasonable expectation or speculation that players will leave the program, ask for release from their scholarship, and guys coming out of high school (due to the uncertainty of the program) may opt to go to other places.

That is simple psychology 101. I'm not basing it on anything other than my own opinion and some of the things I've read.

In my opinion it is reasonable to think that Penn State's football recruitment is going to take a hit over the next couple of years. Especially if the NCAA or whoever issues sanctions, takes away scholarships, suspends the program, etc.

[RavensNTerps]

It is disgusting that Penn State will be able to profit from having a football program after this. Purely disgusting.

[psuasskicker]

For someone who doesn't like to have words put in their mouth, you sure as hell do a lot of that. I never said it is having a "big negative impact". I said that their program will likely suffer (which it already has to a certain degree) and it may be quite some time before they fully recover from this.

You're going to have to explain to me the difference between those two things.

It is disgusting that Penn State will be able to profit from having a football program after this. Purely disgusting.

No it's not. It would be disgusting if Paterno were still able to coach the football team. It would be disgusting if Curley, Schultz or Spanier were still holding high executive standing in the school such that they could draw advantages from having a football program that makes a profit.

It is riot-mentality thinking to say what you said, because you're not considering the positive impacts the football program provides to hundreds of thousands of people, nor the negative impacts that shutting the program down would have on hundreds of thousands of people, all of whom are innocent of any wrong-doing or impropriety in this situation.

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[srobert96]

You argued this before. Rivals disagrees. So does Scout. I already pointed that out to you. Come up with a better argument, because yours is completely inaccurate.

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It will be interesting to see if they can hold on to an excellent class. I think it may prove to be difficult. Other schools are going to go after their recruits hard.

[RavensNTerps]

You're going to have to explain to me the difference between those two things.



No it's not. It would be disgusting if Paterno were still able to coach the football team. It would be disgusting if Curley, Schultz or Spanier were still holding high executive standing in the school such that they could draw advantages from having a football program that makes a profit.

It is riot-mentality thinking to say what you said, because you're not considering the positive impacts the football program provides to hundreds of thousands of people, nor the negative impacts that shutting the program down would have on hundreds of thousands of people, all of whom are innocent of any wrong-doing or impropriety in this situation.

- C -

Sorry but that is the classic cult mentality. Had Sandusky acted alone, I'd agree with you completely that while disgusting, the program shouldn't be punished for the actions of one awful man. But the ENTIRE INSTITUTION from the molestor, to his boss, to the assistant AD, to the AD, to the president, to the board of trustees was involved in this. You can't just turn your back because 4 specific people are now gone. That's complete and utter horseshit. The problem was clearly at the institutional level. If you let the university to continue to profit after making the institutional-level decisions that they made to enable and cover up a known child molestor that's akin to if Enron was still operating because law enforcement felt bad for the secretaries and the analysts and the janitors that worked for them that had no knowledge of what their superiors were up to.

Does it suck that there are uninvolved parties who will have to endure the consequences of others? Absolutely. Should that be the primary consideration? Hell no. The entire institution, literally from top to bottom, was broken and corrupt. I don't see how you can just let this slide as "well those parties are gone so you can't punish who is there now!"

Bullshit. You are punishing the institution that failed probably hundreds of little children by literally turning a blind eye for years from a man they knew was a predator. That institution should not in any way, shape, or form be allowed to benefit financially from the exact program that broke the system in the first place. You can't go back in time and change things retrospectively. Had the institution not failed those victims, then we wouldn't be having this conversation now.

Years ago an institutional decision was made that the profits generated from the football program was more important than the short term consequences of simply turning in a known predator. You can't ignore that an allow them to continue to profit.

[wickedsolo]

I think that is one of the biggest reasons why there are so many who are of the "go get'em" mentality. Had they nipped this in the bud a decade ago when it was first brought to light then it would have been a major issue, but in the long run it would have made Penn State look a lot better.

This whole thing has really left a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths and has left, not only the athletic department, but the entire institution with a major black eye.

[NC Raven]

The problem was clearly at the institutional level. If you let the university to continue to profit after making the institutional-level decisions that they made to enable and cover up a known child molestor that's akin to if Enron was still operating because law enforcement felt bad for the secretaries and the analysts and the janitors that worked for them that had no knowledge of what their superiors were up to.

In each case, the individuals at the "institutional level" who knew about it and were responsible for it were investigated and prosecuted. In Enron, the company simply went bankrupt directly because of the actions of those criminals. Nobody "punished" Enron as a whole. It just didn't have the money to pay its debts because its accounting was totally fraudulent. Then the creditors and shareholders came in with lawsuits to recoup the money they'd had stolen from them, essentially.

The only real comparison here is that PSU does have to deal with the victims and their legal claims, which will be substantial. That is the full extent to which there can be collective punishment of the university.

[dreamjo]

What I see are two different, but related, issues where the NCAA may have an obligation to investigate and possibly discipline the PSU athletic program. For all the horror of the Sandusky revelations, it may actually be the latter issue that gives the NCAA it's way into this mess.

The statement released by the NCAA the day the Freeh Report came out suggests they already are looking at those same things.

the university has four key questions, concerning compliance with institutional control and ethics policies, to which it now needs to respond.

Those "four key questions", submitted to the university in November of 2011, sound a lot like your "to start an investigation" questions, Shas.

[Shas]

The statement released by the NCAA the day the Freeh Report came out suggests they already are looking at those same things.



Those "four key questions", submitted to the university in November of 2011, sound a lot like your "to start an investigation" questions, Shas.

Yep. The NCAA plays by the book. The fact that the quote you provided contains the phrase "ethics policies" suggests to me that this is their way in. If the NCAA's book has rules in place for proper ethical behavior of players and coaches, and expectations that each university itself has rules in place be for making sure that sort of behavior is adhered to or punished, then this is where the program could run afoul of the NCAA specifically.

They will ask, were our ethical standards violated? And, Did PSU have the rules in place to prevent this? And if so, were the rules ignored or purposely bent? It sounds a heck of a lot like the head football coach went out of his way to repeatedly bend rules to assure ethical misbehavior by Sandusky and by players was allowed to go unpunished, for fear that it would damage the team, albeit not in direct scoreboard or recruiting terms.

I'm now assuming, until I hear otherwise, that their "ethical policies" are going to relate to the sort of stuff Paterno covered up vis-a-vis Sandusky and his players. No one is even talking about the odd statements Paterno made back in 2006 where he defended his linebacker A. J. Nicholson after sexual assault charges were made against the player. So it's not even an isolated incident or two we're talking about. It's a cultural lack of institutional control over the coach's desire to cover-up misconduct within the ranks.

What I am seeing when I look at this story is a FOOTBALL COACH who broke rules the protect FOOTBALL PLAYERS and to protect an assistant FOOTBALL COACH -- and leaders at the highest level of the school allowed it to continue like that for years because the FOOTBALL TEAM was more important than anything else.

But this isn't really about FOOTBALL, I hear?

Again, for those arguing that this is a non-football issue because it wasn't about cheating to win games or gain recruits -- that is fine to hold that opinion about what the NCAA should be concerned with -- but the truth, we'll learn, is that the NCAA's interests are much larger.

Even if the NCAA chooses not to pursue it, my opinion is that the football team need does need to suffer. It is about punishment. PSU does need to become the poster child for universities that allow a football-first, football-above-everything else culture to persist.

Read Reilly's piece. 25 years ago he was dismissive of the idea that the football program needed to be reigned in, not sainted. He figured that only sports-hating geeks complained about football. Looks like Reilly finds gets it, 25 years later.

For those still arguing it is not about football, I can't help but recall one of the last comments Paterno made about the scandal before he died, in a letter to CNN, when he wrote:

"This is not a football scandal and should not be treated as one. It is not an academic scandal and does not in any way tarnish the hard-earned and well-deserved academic reputation of Penn State."

In one sense, Paterno is right: What Sandusky did was solely a personal scandal, and he was appropriately dealt with by the criminal justice system.

Problem is, in making his argument to CNN, Paterno never admitted, or perhaps never understood, that the scandal included himself.

What Paterno and the leadership at PSU did in handling Sandusky (and players in other situations) was completely a football scandal. Perhaps the greatest college-athletics scandal of all time.

Therefore, the correct response in this scandal is not to simply let the boys' families sue in civil court and pronounce justice served.

[psuasskicker]

Sorry but that is the classic cult mentality. Had Sandusky acted alone, I'd agree with you completely that while disgusting, the program shouldn't be punished for the actions of one awful man. But the ENTIRE INSTITUTION from the molestor, to his boss, to the assistant AD, to the AD, to the president, to the board of trustees was involved in this. You can't just turn your back because 4 specific people are now gone. That's complete and utter horseshit. The problem was clearly at the institutional level. If you let the university to continue to profit after making the institutional-level decisions that they made to enable and cover up a known child molestor that's akin to if Enron was still operating because law enforcement felt bad for the secretaries and the analysts and the janitors that worked for them that had no knowledge of what their superiors were up to.

Okay, so I'm gonna take a deep breath, and calmly tell you that you have no idea what you're talking about.

First, Enron is still operating today. It's no longer "Enron" that's operating. But it's not that the executives of that company were found to have committed accounting fraud, then suddenly the entire company simply vanished off the map. The company was broken up and sold or spun off in pieces, and those pieces still operate today either on their own or as part of a bigger corporation. And while innocent people certainly got hurt and lost their jobs in that mess, a good number of them didn't. No one burned that company to the ground. Nor should they have.

And thus, suggesting that an entire program, company, whatever be burned to the ground to pay for the actions of a few simply doesn't make sense. This brings me to my second point, which is you very boldly state the "ENTIRE INSTITUTION" is guilty. Then you go on in the same sentence to talk through the five people that had a direct hand in it, and the 48 board members who lacked adequate controls to know about it. Sorry, those 53 people are nowhere close to the "entire institution." They are the major players in it, yes. However, as I noted in a previous post, the "entire institution" is made up of approximately 125,000 people (not including alumni and ex-faculty/staff, which would be another half million people), not fifty three.

When a program, institution or corporation is found to have a major aspect of corruption in its highest rankings, the answer is simply not "burn it to the ground." Such a solution is never the optimal one (assuming that the entirety of the group is not guilty, which I've never heard of for any program/institution/company with over 50 people in it). The solution is always:
- Immediately remove all direct perpetrators of crimes and/or mishandlings of power. The university has largely done this, although the fact that Spanier remains on staff is mystifying and disgusting to me.
- Bring in outside council to perform an investigation into what went wrong and make recommendations on what controls to implement. The board has done this via the Freeh report. The Freeh report was not simply a report designed to show who had what culpability in the Sandusky case. The vast majority of it focused on lack of controls at the highest levels of the institution and recommended a new set of controls that should be implemented to ensure this doesn't happen again. i.e. The university has done this.
- Begin implementing these controls, potentially going farther than recommended to ensure another incident doesn't happen again. The board has already implemented several of the recommended controls. They're a long was from completing this, but they're clearly taking it seriously.

And I never claimed I wanted to "turn my back" on anything in this matter just because Sandusky's in prison, Paterno's dead, Schultz and Curley are indicted and Spanier is no longer president. What I said was, the correct answer here is not to simply brashly state that the program should be killed, and that stating that it's disgusting that the university can continue to run a profitable program after what happened is mob mentality and not in any way a well reasoned response to the situation.

Are changes needed? Unquestionably so.

Should the program be punished? Probably. I think it should, but I can see arguments on all sides having validity, from no punishment to death penalty and every option in between.

Is the best response to burn the program down without giving it serious study and thought both as to what went wrong as well as to the ramifications of taking such actions? No, not even close.

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[psuasskicker]

In one sense, Paterno is right: What Sandusky did was solely a personal scandal, and he was appropriately dealt with by the criminal justice system.

Problem is, in making his argument to CNN, Paterno never admitted, or perhaps never understood, that the scandal included himself.

I hear this argument a lot from fellow Penn State friends of mine, that it really wasn't a football scandal. It makes me hang my head.

The biggest question I ask people is, "If McQueary walked in on a highly respected biology teacher in that shower, not a highly respected ex-coach, would we have heard about this in 2001, or in 2011?" IMO, clearly the answer is "2001." i.e. Paterno, Schultz, Curley and Spanier all would have agreed to alert the proper authorities, and while ugly for the university, it would have treated the situation correctly and not have shown any sort of institutional lack of controls.

That by definition makes it a football problem. The reason they didn't alert authorities was to protect the football program. The only other argument is if you claim that they wouldn't have reported anyone (like the bio prof). But flat out, I don't believe that.

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[RavensNTerps]

Okay, so I'm gonna take a deep breath, and calmly tell you that you have no idea what you're talking about.

First, Enron is still operating today. It's no longer "Enron" that's operating. But it's not that the executives of that company were found to have committed accounting fraud, then suddenly the entire company simply vanished off the map. The company was broken up and sold or spun off in pieces, and those pieces still operate today either on their own or as part of a bigger corporation. And while innocent people certainly got hurt and lost their jobs in that mess, a good number of them didn't. No one burned that company to the ground. Nor should they have.

And thus, suggesting that an entire program, company, whatever be burned to the ground to pay for the actions of a few simply doesn't make sense. This brings me to my second point, which is you very boldly state the "ENTIRE INSTITUTION" is guilty. Then you go on in the same sentence to talk through the five people that had a direct hand in it, and the 48 board members who lacked adequate controls to know about it. Sorry, those 53 people are nowhere close to the "entire institution." They are the major players in it, yes. However, as I noted in a previous post, the "entire institution" is made up of approximately 125,000 people (not including alumni and ex-faculty/staff, which would be another half million people), not fifty three.

When a program, institution or corporation is found to have a major aspect of corruption in its highest rankings, the answer is simply not "burn it to the ground." Such a solution is never the optimal one (assuming that the entirety of the group is not guilty, which I've never heard of for any program/institution/company with over 50 people in it). The solution is always:
- Immediately remove all direct perpetrators of crimes and/or mishandlings of power. The university has largely done this, although the fact that Spanier remains on staff is mystifying and disgusting to me.
- Bring in outside council to perform an investigation into what went wrong and make recommendations on what controls to implement. The board has done this via the Freeh report. The Freeh report was not simply a report designed to show who had what culpability in the Sandusky case. The vast majority of it focused on lack of controls at the highest levels of the institution and recommended a new set of controls that should be implemented to ensure this doesn't happen again. i.e. The university has done this.
- Begin implementing these controls, potentially going farther than recommended to ensure another incident doesn't happen again. The board has already implemented several of the recommended controls. They're a long was from completing this, but they're clearly taking it seriously.

And I never claimed I wanted to "turn my back" on anything in this matter just because Sandusky's in prison, Paterno's dead, Schultz and Curley are indicted and Spanier is no longer president. What I said was, the correct answer here is not to simply brashly state that the program should be killed, and that stating that it's disgusting that the university can continue to run a profitable program after what happened is mob mentality and not in any way a well reasoned response to the situation.

Are changes needed? Unquestionably so.

Should the program be punished? Probably. I think it should, but I can see arguments on all sides having validity, from no punishment to death penalty and every option in between.

Is the best response to burn the program down without giving it serious study and thought both as to what went wrong as well as to the ramifications of taking such actions? No, not even close.

- C -

There are simply some PSU fans like yourself that will never rationally see the forest from the trees, unfortunately, which is reason enough to disband the football program for at least one season.

[psuasskicker]

One other point folks... Please stop claiming that I'm advocating that since Paterno, Schultz, Curley and Spanier have been fired from their respective positions that I'm advocating nothing else happen to the school. If you actually read what I'm writing, you know that's not even close to accurate.

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[HoustonRaven]

OFirst, Enron is still operating today. It's no longer "Enron" that's operating. But it's not that the executives of that company were found to have committed accounting fraud, then suddenly the entire company simply vanished off the map. The company was broken up and sold or spun off in pieces, and those pieces still operate today either on their own or as part of a bigger corporation. And while innocent people certainly got hurt and lost their jobs in that mess, a good number of them didn't. No one burned that company to the ground. Nor should they have

That's not accurate.

Enron become a liquidation company, selling off it's parts to other companies to settle the bankruptcy claim. Enron no longer exists and is most certainly was "burned to the ground", thanks to the volume of pay outs.

I think you're parsing words when it comes to the claim "the entire institution is guilty". Nobody thinks the Bio-101 professor is guilty and should suffer directly. But when there are STILL people getting paid (sans Paterno, for obvious reasons) even though PSU is claiming the bad seeds have been removed, it's hard to argue anything other than the university, as an institution, is still doing the dirty deed of covering, ducking and jiving their way out of something of their own creation.

So yes, the entire institution was guilty. They are STILL guilty for the utter botching of the post report handling of the issue.

[Shas]

I hear this argument a lot from fellow Penn State friends of mine, that it really wasn't a football scandal. It makes me hang my head.

The biggest question I ask people is, "If McQueary walked in on a highly respected biology teacher in that shower, not a highly respected ex-coach, would we have heard about this in 2001, or in 2011?" IMO, clearly the answer is "2001." i.e. Paterno, Schultz, Curley and Spanier all would have agreed to alert the proper authorities, and while ugly for the university, it would have treated the situation correctly and not have shown any sort of institutional lack of controls.

That by definition makes it a football problem. The reason they didn't alert authorities was to protect the football program. The only other argument is if you claim that they wouldn't have reported anyone (like the bio prof). But flat out, I don't believe that.

- C -

Yes. Sad for sure.

The real life lesson for all of us should come from asking, what if? What if Paterno et al had simply acted appropriately? For starters, how many boys lives would have been saved? I suppose that question should be for starters and for enders. No reason to even consider beyond that tragic question.

But think about what really would have happened to the football team if Sandusky had been stopped at the first whiff of all this? Would the team have really been damaged when it was revealed their coordinator was a pedophile? I think not? Was the Carolina Panthers organization destroyed when it came to light what Rae Carruth did -- to pick a random comparison?

Why, Joe, why? Why defend the indefensible when you really had nothing to gain?

When will we learn that it's always that cover-up, not the original misdeed, that does the most damage? (R.I.P. Richard Nixon).

You tried to teach your kids at the earliest ages that they shouldn't lie. You teach them to admit their mistakes and above all else be honest.

It's sad that we have to talk about a man in his eighties who never learned this lesson.

[psuasskicker]

There are simply some PSU fans like yourself that will never rationally see the forest from the trees, unfortunately, which is reason enough to disband the football program for at least one season.

It's ironic to me that you claim I'm the one not thinking rationally about this. You still aren't actually addressing the issues at hand. Seriously, you expect us to take your argument seriously, yet you provide nothing in the way of rational argument when stating your thoughts on how this should be handled. Answer the questions I asked in a previous post...

1) How do you know that death penalty for a season will have the appropriate response (i.e. to force the institute to realize football isn't what's important here, safety of children is what's important) and ensure everyone will come to such realization?

2) How do you know that ONLY the death penalty for a season will ensure the appropriate response, as opposed to some other level of punishment?

Until you have actually come up with good answers to these questions, you cannot possibly make a claim that the death penalty is the correct response to this situation, particularly without balancing against the impact imposing such a penalty would have on other innocents tied to the program which you want to punish.

And I'm not asking for actual answers to those questions, btw. You (or anyone) can try if you want, but those questions are far deeper than any of us here can possibly hope to answer.

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[ballhawk]

The "oppropriate response" in either case would be to make an example out of PSU in the hopes that no other school would let something like this happen.

Unfortunately i dont think you can avoid the collateral damage to students and staff of PSU.