Penn State scorn versus Michigan State scorn

190. But nobody else knew nuthin.

 

This is what I don't get about this whole case. He was a behind-the-scenes team DOCTOR -- not a coach, not a judge, not anybody who couldn't have been stopped, replaced, changed, charged, etc. without it making much difference to anybody, or their careers. It isn't like with Penn State, Paterno, or even Weinstein, where, certainly, there may have been power dynamics with relation to the victims' big dreams that could have come into play.

How, really, did this guy get away with this, within a USA Olympic organization, with young, but-not-THAT-young people involved, with nobody saying anything, for so long?

 

Timing also matters. The Penn State scandal broke in the middle of college football season. Penn State was facing these momentous decisions, on the fly, with a game facing them in just a few short days and with Paterno still coaching. You don't have those kind of engines driving the Nassar story. Not that kind of, "What happens next?"

 

I agree with this. It's what I actually thought as I put up my previous post -- that this case seems more akin to the Catholic Church cases than Penn State, with the cloistered-ness of it.

It's the only explanation that makes any sense. Otherwise, where were the parents, the coaches, anyone who would have known right from wrong, in all of this?

 

I see what you're saying, and think you're right as far as it goes. But that it went this far, with a doctor that no one would know or care about otherwise, is almost unbelievable. It's sheer, almost unforgivable cloistered-ness. The more I think about this, that Karolyi connection is the key and also what could push this case up to the Penn State/Paterno level as far as coverage/reaction and traction. I'd say the Karolyis in gymnastics are at least on the level of Paterno in football, and with the same sort of regard involved, too.

 

In retrospect, it seems obvious that the Karolyis brought some of the worst of the old Soviet-bloc training practices along with their coaching skills. They produced winning gymnasts, but the verbal abuse and browbeating that accompanied it were pretty bad on their own. When you add Nasser into the mix it becomes a poisonous stew of abuse.

At least four institutional entities knew of these reports regarding Nasser, and none of them communicated with the others to say "We've got these reports, has anything similar happened with you?". There was an intentional averting of the eyes here, and heads need to roll over it.

 

200.

 

I'm not a big death-penalty guy, but I certainly hope the state of Michigan isn't wasting a penny on a suicide watch for this sumbitch.