Penn State deserves death penalty for Sandusky cover-up
Joe Paterno and other Penn State officials enabled the actions of Jerry Sandusky. (AP photo)
(Updated: 12:45 p.m.)
If we make a big deal about a college football program playing dumb when a recruit takes free shoes or tattoos, or his family lives in a house rent free, how can we look the other way when evidence screams that one of the nation’s most powerful universities enabled a pedophile?
How can we sit through something so sick and vile as the testimony in the Jerry Sandusky trial and conclude that this was a one-source scandal worthy of only one individual or entity suffering consequences?
Penn State should not be allowed to play another football game. It put sport, image and fundraising above everything else. That is what every cheater in college athletics does, and because of that it deserves the NCAA’s “death penalty.”
Southern Methodist University, one of the nation’s top academic schools, saw its football program given the death penalty in 1987 because it put athletic success above what so obviously was considered morally acceptable. Isn’t it now clear that Penn State did the exact same thing?
In fact, what the powers Penn State did was worse. Their actions involved not materialistic goods but defenseless victims who will suffer for the rest of their lives.
According to a 267-page report by former FBI director Louis Freeh, the four most powerful men overseeing the university and the football program – president Graham Spanier (since fired), athletic director Tim Curley (on “administrative leave,” under indictment for perjury), vice president Gary Schultz (suddenly retired, also under indictment) and the late coach, Joe Paterno (fired in what would be two months before his death) — knew far more about Sandusky’s sick perversions and abuse than they let on. They knew it far longer than they let on.
And here’s the punctuation, your honor: They “concealed critical facts,” according to Freeh.
There’s a term for that: cover-up.
“Our most saddening and sobering finding is the total disregard for the safety and welfare of Sandusky’s child victims by the most senior leaders at Penn State,” Freeh stated.
We don’t need to know anything else.
When this story first broke, Paterno said, “This is not a football scandal and should not be treated as one.”
Many agreed. Many still do, including some misguided alumni and football All-Americans and probably surely those numbskull students who marched on campus, embraced Paterno’s statue on campus and protested his firing without any regard for the victims.
The problem is concluding that because Sandusky’s reprehensible acts did not lead to a competitive advantage, the football program shouldn’t pay. But the cover-up changes that. What the powers at Penn State did was beyond anything any college athletic program has ever done, beyond free clothes or free rent and academic fraud.
To hell with a free Camaro. We’re talking about sweeping allegations of a child sex offender under the rug in order to protect a school’s image, fundraising and recruiting. There is no more extreme example of a lack of institutional control.
Penn State deserves to be hit hard. That may seem unfair to the student-athletes, officials and fans who knew nothing of Sandusky’s acts or the cover-up. But that’s the case with all NCAA sanctions.
This investigation was commissioned by Penn State at a cost of $500,000 per month. So much for Freeh having some anti-Penn State agenda. The report numbers 267 pages, resulting from 430 interviews and 3.5 million emails and documents. Freeh’s staff included former prosecutors, FBI agents, police officers, attorneys and a Navy SEAL.
Freeh said he found “more red flags than you could count, over a long period of time.” He said the leaders at Penn State had a “callous and shocking disregard for child victims.”
He said an “inference could be drawn” that the school was trying to protect the football program, noting, “bad publicity affects a panorama of different events, including the brand of Penn State, the reputation of coaches [and] the ability to do fundraising.”
He said Paterno was not being singled out, but at one point declared: “The facts are the facts. He was an integral part of the act to conceal.”
Emails reveal Paterno was clearly following the school’s internal investigation into allegations of a 1998 assault of a young boy by Sandusky in the Penn State locker room showers, something Paterno publicly denied. The same school leaders “proposed a plan of action” after learning of a 2001 incident reported by an assistant coach, but then decided against informing authorities.
“The most powerful leaders at Penn State … repeatedly concealed critical facts,” Freeh concluded.
The “Tone at the Top” of the school, he said, dissuaded school janitors from coming forward after witnessing incidents: “The janitors were afraid of being fired for reporting a powerful football coach.”
Sandusky will spend the rest of his life in prison. He could’ve been stopped sooner. But Paterno and the powers at Penn State were too concerned about the ramifications, off and on the field. That makes it a football scandal, as well.
By Jeff Schultz
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810 comments Add your comment
bubba
July 12th, 2012
11:15 am
penn state will not receive the death penalty. Please understand what the NCAA can and cannot do. The people involved should go to jail. The school will lose financially from lawsuits.
SawThat1nce
July 12th, 2012
11:16 am
Shultz, you would make a fantastic lynch-mob leader. haha.
This is Paterno’s legacy, he will be remembered for this above all else.
The men involved with the coverup, should be charged as accompliaces.
But, to shut down the entire football program, is reactionary.
You did a good job, with a minimum amount of effort(once again), jumping on a front burner story, to generated the maximum amount of hits on your blog, as possible.
Kick 'em in the Teeth
July 12th, 2012
11:16 am
Why does there seem to be no accountability in major programs. Hit em where it hurts and don’t let them play the games. Doesn’t have to be forever, but programs like that need to be prevented from getting all that money from playing games. It’s the money that leads to all the corruption. Sadly, if they know it will hit em in the pocket-book, maybe they will stop it from happening in the first place.
KINGDAWG
July 12th, 2012
11:17 am
Two of the so called “leadership” were athletic depatment employees(Curley-AD and Paterno) so those of you who claimed they were innocent I feel sorry for you. A simple question that goes to your own moral core…would you still condone the actions of Penn State if that was YOUR child being abused. If you do then God help you.
rational person
July 12th, 2012
11:17 am
@brw a lack of institutional control is defined as a systemic disregard for enforcing NCAA POLICIES, not committing crimes. People keep throwing that term around as if it is some generic thing the NCAA can just decree has occurred but it is actually a defined term.
Former Georgian
July 12th, 2012
11:19 am
The four people involved in the coverup should be sent to a regular prison, not a white-collar one and then they will likely experience what the victims experienced. Paterno’s name should be removed from all record books as if he never existed. And to punish all the Penn State football fans who agree with the way the university handled this, Penn State should be banned from playing football. And I would feel the same way if this had happened at Georgia.
yep
July 12th, 2012
11:21 am
I say let law enforcement handle the punishment. the NCAA will just screw it up.
The Obgyn
July 12th, 2012
11:22 am
Death Penalty. Minimum 20 years like SMU. Allow all players from Penn State to transfer out without having to sit out. Or stay with full scholarships in tact IF they don’t want to transfer.
Father of 5
July 12th, 2012
11:22 am
Agreed. Paterno says this didn’t involve the football program?!? How can you punish today’s players for the actions of past university leaders? BECAUSE THE PSU FOOTBALL PROGRAM ENABLED CHILD RAPE. Over and over again. The head of the FBI, paid by PSU, concluded that PSU knew about this in 1998, when they politely asked Sandusky to leave quietly, rather than put him in jail then. The sick “problem” became much clearer in 2001, so they covered it up even more.
At a minimum, a big, loud message needs to be sent. Football is not bigger than the lives of those boys that have been taken — by the leaders of the football program and that sick university. Shut down the football program and remove all Paterno’s wins since 1998 — when King Paterno and his minions first asked Sandusky to hide his perversion.
PMC
July 12th, 2012
11:24 am
The death penalty is a 2 year penalty.
BRW
July 12th, 2012
11:24 am
@rp, If you don’t believe the NCAA, and the Big-10 have some wiggle room with those definitions, and the fact this cover up was done solely to gain/keep an advantage in attracting/keeping athletes at the school, then you are being over-rational.
rational person
July 12th, 2012
11:25 am
Still waiting for a single person to tell me what NCAA policies were violated. I suspect I will be waiting a long time.
rivercard
July 12th, 2012
11:29 am
Rational- what you are saying is 100% factually correct, but the emotional h’hang before a trial crowd” has to get this out of their system. You might as well be banging your head against a wall right now.
In keeping with their theme I think the local police should be reprimanded and possibly jailed for not prosecuting him in 98. Makes about as much sense.
rational person
July 12th, 2012
11:29 am
@brw I think your convenient stretching of the “covering up facts to get a competitive advantage” is suspect at best. Additionally, I am not aware of an NCAA regulation barring seeking a competitive advantage, and indeed, all schools seek to get this. This was a crime. It has been prosecuted, and in some cases, is still being prosecuted. It has nothing to do with the NCAA.
rivercard
July 12th, 2012
11:29 am
Rational- what you are saying is 100% factually correct, but the emotional h’hang before a trial crowd” has to get this out of their system. You might as well be banging your head against a wall right now.
In keeping with their theme I think the local police should be reprimanded and possibly jailed for not prosecuting him in 98. Makes about as much sense.
Margaret
July 12th, 2012
11:30 am
Whatever sentence Sandusky gets so should PENN State football, year for year.
Herschel Talker
July 12th, 2012
11:32 am
Schultzie:
Welcome back! We missed you!
KILL THEM ALL!!! GIVE THE FOOTBALL PROGRAM THE DEATH PENALTY AND GIVE ALL THESE ANIMALS THE DEATH PENALTY FOR THE COVER UP!!!
HT
SSIgator
July 12th, 2012
11:35 am
The picture of the two above may suggest that Sandusky had a mentor.
jw
July 12th, 2012
11:36 am
Honestly, the NCAA should invoke the death penalty. That way it causes the university to prove it doesn’t deserve the punishment. Instead of throwing 4 or 5 guilty individuals under the bus and pretending the university was in the dark about everything, the entire university deals with the repercussions of what happens when you turn a blind eye to stuff you know is going on.
Joe Pa and the boys were powerful, but the university as a whole should have stepped up – even custodians told of stuff happening – every board of trustees and every campus board of directors on that campus should have to live with the consequences of this mess. They knew it was going on.
Make Penn State prove they did everything possible to prevent this crime from happening – they can’t – so bust them where it hurts the most – university integrity and athletics.
rivercard
July 12th, 2012
11:36 am
If it is true that Paterno persuaded the PSU officials not to report the 2001 incident to officials outside of the PSU system then he is indeed guilty of perpetuating this horrific situation and his legacy should be scrubbed. The officials should obviously be fired and if there are charges that can be pursued I hope they will be.
Red
July 12th, 2012
11:37 am
Money over the safety of kids. Penn State should be punished.
St Simons - we're on Island time
July 12th, 2012
11:37 am
If they don’t get the death penalty for at least 5 years, then the
NCAA will have less than what its got now, zero credibility.
Can one have less than zero credibility?
rational person
July 12th, 2012
11:38 am
@jw how can the NCAA invoke the death penalty if no NCAA rules have been broken? Just because they are MAD?
Pedo State
July 12th, 2012
11:38 am
Name is stuck to the school for a while. Not sure football program deserves all the blame, but certainly the death penalty wouldn’t seem excessive.
Carolina DAWG
July 12th, 2012
11:38 am
Well written and we in the Palmetto State AGREE!!!! This coverup was well planned and executed for over 14 years!!!! These men are TRASH for not stopping this child abuse when they knew about it early on. Put this guy in a HOLE and feed him once a week until he Dies!!!
The Real JC
July 12th, 2012
11:38 am
Penn State has been playing football since 1887. Jerry Sandusky was born in 1944. He started coaching at Penn State in 1969. First sexual assault accusation happened in 1994. That’s over 100 years of Penn State Football before any reported molestation, or at least as far as we know now.
We’ve had bad Presidents and horrible congresses – why not just give those institutions the death penalty? Like Eric said above, why not give the Catholic Church the death penalty for covering up serial molestations by their priests?
Yes, everyone who was working at Penn State for the last 20 years should likely be fired and possibly jailed. But what about those working and playing for Penn State for the 100 years prior? It’s like killing a fly – a really big, disgusting one, to be sure – with a shotgun.
Penn State has an opportunity to become a model of transparency in the NCAA, given the chance. Giving them the death penalty is punishing the masses for the mistakes of a few.
rational person
July 12th, 2012
11:39 am
@St Simons, how would punishing a school for NOT breaking NCAA rules give them more credibility?
StingerSplash
July 12th, 2012
11:40 am
If this doesn’t meet the litmus test of “lack of institutional control,” then does any malfeasance or transgression on behalf or by an academic institution ever do so?
Tear Down the Statue
July 12th, 2012
11:41 am
this is/was a criminal matter; and now that Sandusky has been convicted and the report has been presented; any sanctions will come from the courts (Sandusky’s sentencing, the dispostion of the State of Pennsylvania’s cases agains Curley and Spainer; and of course, the many civil suits to be brought against Sandusky, PSU, and the Paterno estate). In many regards; Paterno (whom I loathed and pity as a coward and shameless, arrogant man) was correct; this case has nothing to do with PSU football. It has EVERYTHING to do with Joe Paterno, The Penn State University A.D. President, et al. why punish the entire university for the actions of a few?
LJ
July 12th, 2012
11:41 am
It a completely new oganization now, the monster has been put away, JoePa is dead, new coach, new start. This needs to be put to rest! The death penalty would only hurt more kids, the players… who havent done anything wrong
Old Scratch
July 12th, 2012
11:41 am
The state of Pennsylvania should decide not to throw any dime into Rape State. The conference should throw them out and the NCAA should state that instiutions that behave in this manner do not meet the expectations required of its members and will not be allowed to complete. This whole cover up was to save face for the university and to a large extent the money factory called the football program. Letting athlectics slide untouched is a joke.
St Simons - we're on Island time
July 12th, 2012
11:42 am
and those of you defending Penn St against the DP
your ‘position’ on child sexual abuse has been documented in a natl
newspaper. congratulations
gt4ever
July 12th, 2012
11:42 am
They should get the Death penalty, but those noodle necks will not even come close to doing the right thing!
rational person
July 12th, 2012
11:42 am
@stinger As explained earlier a lack of institutional control is the systemic disregard for violating NCAA policies. No NCAA policies were violated here, so it very literally does not meet the litmus test of “lack of institutional control.”
Tommy
July 12th, 2012
11:43 am
They should give the death penalty to the entire athlectic department.
rational person
July 12th, 2012
11:43 am
@st. simons I am not defending the terrible actions of all involved, I am pointing out that this has nothing to do with the NCAA
NW ATL 4 LIFE
July 12th, 2012
11:44 am
@ SSIgator
I have been thinking the same thing…it wouldn’t surprise me if Paterno was playing around in the shower too….bunch of sick f***s
Red Queen
July 12th, 2012
11:45 am
I agree 100% with the death penalty – for at least one year – but I doubt if the NCAA will take any action at all. They’ll issue some kind of announcement that it’s a matter for the legal system to handle, then wash their hands of it.
jw
July 12th, 2012
11:46 am
rational person – institutional integrity plays large in this too. Don’t remember the SMU deal being totally about athletes – it included all the behind the scenes crap that was going on. Success of the program over following the rules – seems PSU is dead on with that one – bet when it’s all said and done, all that blabber about not being in NCAA trouble during the 100 years of the Paterno regime will probably be proven to be fabricated, too!
If you are willing to sacrifice the innocence of children for the sake of your football program, proving your players followed all NCAA rules for eligibility is a piece of cake. I hope the NCAA checks that out, too!
rivercard
July 12th, 2012
11:47 am
St. Simons- You lack of comprehension/reasoning is on national display. Stating opinion that DP for criminal offense doesn’t fit under NCAA purview is in no way establishing a “position” on child sexual abuse.
Your ignorance is duly noted.
St Simons - we're on Island time
July 12th, 2012
11:47 am
if there were any justice in the world, you would have to identify yourself
smarmy anonymous blogger.
what part of ‘lack of institutional control’ don’t you understand.
again, congratulations
rational person
July 12th, 2012
11:47 am
@jw, you are correct. The NCAA found that the administrators and coaches had a complete disregard for following NCAA policies. I am sure you can see the difference.
blazerdawg
July 12th, 2012
11:48 am
The PSC scandal is the definition example of “lack of institutional control”.
All of the Big 10 supporters and midwest media need to be denied their argument that the death penalty will cause more harm and hurt innocent individuals as a result of a football program termination. PSU should have considered the harm to the innocent victims and the children that would not have been victims if they had acted correctly when the initial crimes were revealed.
And they look down their nose at the SEC/old SWC schools for small recruting allegations (and realities) related to kids that would have chosen the same school anyway.
Death penalty to PSU.
St Simons - we're on Island time
July 12th, 2012
11:48 am
rivercard, your position on child molestation is duly noted in a natl
paper, congratulations, i’m sure you deserve it.
Tear Down the Statue
July 12th, 2012
11:49 am
St. Simons…, speaking for myself; I am not “defending” PSU or Paterno, but at the end of the day; the “Death Penalty” would just lead to more litigation. Perhaps the current PSU leadership/administration should do the right thing and suspend the football program; but again, between recruiting/letters of intent/current scholarships; as well as the many contracts (ESPN/Big Ten, Nike, etc.); to punish the entire PSU athletic department seems excesive and somewhat kneejerk in my opinion.
P B Orr
July 12th, 2012
11:50 am
Let’s face it, “college” football is a joke, as much as we all love football. My own interest has been declining steadily since the mid 90s and has nothing to do with the fortunes of my team. The endless columns of moronic, venal, and possibly criminal “skoller affleets” who pass through every team’s locker room had already made it a laughing stock, and now this? I’m done.
rational person
July 12th, 2012
11:51 am
@st simons- I think the better question is what part of it do you not understand. As noted, a lack of institutional control only refers to a systemic disregard of NCAA policies, not criminal behavior. I understand you are not very bright, but please try to grasp this critical distinction.
rivercard
July 12th, 2012
11:51 am
LAck of institutional control as concerning NCAA rules/policies.
You throw stones first and then want to act insulted and call for identities.
Island time must include a lot of drunken commenting.
St Simons - we're on Island time
July 12th, 2012
11:51 am
i will point out rivercards tolerance of child molestation on every blog
from here on out, for-evah
Shug
July 12th, 2012
11:51 am
But if PSU is given the death penalty it may be left out of the beloved playoff that so many people whined for. What about “settling it on the field?”