Penn State AD charged with perjury -- *UPDATE 2* Sandusky Arrested Again

Re: Penn State AD charged with perjury in Sandusky investigation

I knew Happy Valley was isolated, but I never realized how much. I still don't understand the timeline/delay between the first report of possible abuse and it all coming out now.
I really don't understand the surprise and/or lack of awareness of how this would play out once the indictment came out.
If there was any delay in order to allow Paterno to get the record it will be even further beyond the pale.
It's odd - Paterno has never struck me as a guy who threw his weight around - but it seems clear that there were more than a few people who were worried about this thing leaking earlier. People had to know when this came out it would be bad - I just don't understand why they thought keeping it on the down low would be a good thing for the university.
I can see people looking the other way if it was a current top-tier coach in a football-obsessed community being whispered about, but a former assistant?
Just weird.

 

Re: Penn State AD charged with perjury in Sandusky investigation

As far as the McQueary not acting immediately to break up what was happening, I'm slightly torn.

In a perfect world, he would have obviously interceded immediately and called the cops. But someone mentioned he was the QB at Penn State in the mid-90s. Was Sandusky on the coaching staff then? That creates a weird power dynamic where he probably sees Sandusky as a direct authority figure regardless of whether or not he's still employed, and that would almost certainly make it harder to believe what he was seeing and act on it right then.

Heck, all crime, even minor stuff, can cause that "did I really just see that?" brain shutdown if you're not prepared for it. In an example on the complete opposite end of the spectrum, I think I witnessed a couple guys walking off with a carton of cigarettes from a convenience store the other day. The clerk left the drawer with them in it open and came to ring people up, and two dudes walked by and grabbed one, then walked out the door. I saw it but it took me so long to register WTF had actually happened (probably 30-60 seconds of "did I really just see that?" after watching them walk out the door, trying to remember if they were in employee uniforms and might have had a reason to do it, etc.) that by the time I could have brought it up, they were long gone. I feel freaking awful about it, but I also didn't want to yell "thief!" if I wasn't absolutely sure of what I thought I saw.

So combine that with a person who you knew as a mentor/authority figure doing the crime and likely a less-than-clear angle on everything (I can't bring myself to read the GJ indictment, but I figure Sandusky didn't see him there if this continued for several years afterwards, which leads me to believe it wasn't like he was 3-4 feet away, likely at the door to a room or looking around a corner), and I sadly find myself empathizing with his inability to do anything in that moment or even that night. And to a teeny tiny bit of credit, he did bring it to Paterno in a relatively timely fashion, though my sympathy starts to wane when he apparently doesn't follow up on any legal action.

The rest of them, Paterno to the AD to the others in the department who apparently protected this guy for years, screw them all. But that one moment from McQueary, I can see how that might happen to any imperfect human, especially one seeing something so heinous from a guy he likely saw as well above him on the food chain.

 

Re: Penn State AD charged with perjury in Sandusky investigation

See, I agree with you Smash. What I don't understand is why you intercede just a little bit. Something obviously wasn't right and Penn State knew it otherwise they wouldn't have forwarded the information.
But. I also understand that as football players, you are used to be coached by older men, they are mentors/father figures.
Hell - I was thinking about a Boy Scout camp I went to and there was a sunrise swim in the camp's lake. Me and some others get there and then we see the head guy and the other counselors stripping down au natural for swim. Some of us kept our trunks on, others didn't and we did the swim. It wasn't a thing. But there wasn't the sensitivity to that kind of stuff there is today.
A younger person would be weirded out by seeing an older guy in a shower with a teenager, Paterno might assume he was showing the kid how to properly shower.
But again - I keep going back to the interceding just a little bit. Obviously they thought something was "off".
I think the story will become somewhat more clear once more info comes to light. The problem with a lot of crime stories when they break is the prosecution (usually the only source) isn't interested in laying out the "whys and wherefores," just the "who did what when."

 

Re: Penn State AD charged with perjury in Sandusky investigation

Yeah, my sympathy is more towards McQueary's apparent inaction at the moment he walked in in the scene. I get taking longer than one might expect to wrap your brain around something like that. Hell, I might have called my dad too to try and work out if what my eyes told me could possibly have been true.

But once he came to the conclusion that yes, he saw what he thought he saw, there should have been much more decisive action taken.

 

Re: Penn State AD charged with perjury in Sandusky investigation

I have lost all measure of respect for Joe Paterno. Used to think he did things the right way. Used to think he had a genuine care about his players and the students at the university, hell, even the community.

That is gone.

Joe cares about Joe. Oh, and his son Scott who is apparently chauferring him all over.

For Paterno to even think about coaching any further is a disgrace. He shouldn't have went to practice.

He should have resigned on his front lawn.

Instead, the Old Man on Old Main will try and go down like a hero, much to the delight of 1,000 mindless drones who think that Paterno is the Second Coming.

 

Re: Penn State AD charged with perjury in Sandusky investigation

I don't watch college football. I don't care about college football. I haven't heard JoePa speak in probably 10-15 years.

My god. The decline of that man's communication/whatever is wrenching.

Now, for my money? My opinion? My blind guess? McQueary told him EXACTLY what he saw, and Paterno slept on it, and then went to his bosses and said "oh, uhhhhh, this kid said he saw Jerry in the shower with uhhhhhh a boy or whatever you want to say and *trailing off* uhhhhh there was some sort of fondling uhhhhhh or something of a sexual nature."

Seeing that video there? There's NO WAY that man could communicate clearly even if he wanted to when something that difficult needs to be said.

 

Re: Penn State AD charged with perjury in Sandusky investigation

But as Kim Jones pointed out in that (excellent) interview with Francesa, the Paterno of then (1998, 2002) was far sturdier than the Paterno of now. We should not conflate them.

 

Re: Penn State AD charged with perjury in Sandusky investigation

McQueary deserves no sympathy. He saw that scumbag Sandusky sodomizing a little boy!!! He should have called 911. This is so beyond sick.

 

Re: Penn State AD charged with perjury in Sandusky investigation

Well-stated, chef. This becomes 46 years of mythology, facade, emptiness.

Its evil has rallied - or, emerged - to trounce its good.

It goes into the bulging trash bin of sprawling American myths alongside the 1998 baseball season, the 2000s New England Patriots, the exemplary free-market economy (which the world admired at its peril), the 1950s, Enron . . .

 

Re: Penn State AD charged with perjury in Sandusky investigation

I can only say this. I covered a Penn State-BC night game in either 2003 or 2004 and it was obvious then that Paterno was, well, let's say detached as a football coach. They lost, and he was not only not angry, I wondered if he was really awake.
I can readily believe that Paterno downplayed whatever he was told in his own mind because he didn't want to /couldn't deal with what it meant about Sandusky. Doesn't excuse him one bit. Does mean that Penn State has been criminally negligent in employing him as coach for some years now.

 

Re: Penn State AD charged with perjury in Sandusky investigation

Oh.....and the drones are not even being creative.

Chanting "Joe" to the White Stripes Seven Nation Army.......amateurish.

 

Re: Penn State AD charged with perjury in Sandusky investigation

WE ARE . . . PEDOPHILE ENABLERS!

No other chants permitted.

The seventh circle of hell awaits, assholes.