Joe Paterno/Penn State scandal, your thoughts?

[TxGoat]

For those that live under a rock....BBC News - Penn State's Joe Paterno under fire in abuse scandal


My thoughts are how can Joe Paterno live with himself? After reporting the coach in question and then seeing the same coach bringing boys around repeatedly after the reported incident, how do you NOT intervene? I think my approach would be the first time I heard is to report it to my superior. If I saw the actual allegation take place, I'd call 911 and tell them to send an ambulance because some old pervert was about to be beaten within an inch of his life. I think Joe Paterno needs to meet with EVERY victim and personally apologize, especially the ones AFTER the 1st victim.

 

[copestag]

My thoughts are how can Joe Paterno live with himself?

I think my approach would be the first time I heard is to report it to my superior. If I saw the actual allegation take place, I'd call 911....

Hmmm, so what youre saying is that Joe Paterno should have done something differently than you yourself just said you would do????

The first time he heard he reported it to his superior........ he never saw anything take place....... so by your standard he did exactly the correct thing.

Paterno was told by someone else....... he had no proof of what happened... he never witnessed anything....... he followed the correct procedure as Im sure it is outlined in the schools policy book....... he reported what he had been told to his superior......

as far as Paterno was probably concerned....... an investigation took place and never panned out to anything......... Paterno probably believed everything had been cleared up and all was fine..... he followed proper procedure and was out of the loop after that

 

[TxGoat]

Hmmm, so what youre saying is that Joe Paterno should have done something differently than you yourself just said you would do????

The first time he heard he reported it to his superior........ he never saw anything take place....... so by your standard he did exactly the correct thing.

Paterno was told by someone else....... he had no proof of what happened... he never witnessed anything....... he followed the correct procedure as Im sure it is outlined in the schools policy book....... he reported what he had been told to his superior......

as far as Paterno was probably concerned....... an investigation took place and never panned out to anything......... Paterno probably believed everything had been cleared up and all was fine..... he followed proper procedure and was out of the loop after that

The way I see it, Paterno probably turned a blind eye because he has to keep his eyes on the skeletons in HIS closet.

 

[TxGoat]

Stay classy Penn State student body.....

 

[Dark Jedi]

What is sad is everyone is talking more about the head coach than the low life who should be in the line of fire. To be informed and actually seeing the act done is two totally different things. He went to the school president and informed him. Its the president that dropped the ball. Its not up to the coach to follow up on hearsay. He has more important things to take care of than to worry about hearsay.

But go ahead and trash talk the Coach and let the low life fall under the radar.

 

[Dark Jedi]

Just because someone accuses you of something. Doesn't mean its true. I could go to your boss and say you sexually harass the female workers . Should he fire you because I said you did that even though its not true?

He went to his boss and told him what he heard. As far as I am concerned He did his job and told the proper people. Now if he witnessed the act happening and did nothing. then he deserved to be fired.

 

[copestag]

If were gonna burn paterno at the stake because after doing what he thought appropriate and reporting what he had been told....... he neglected to follow up on it....... which means he deserves to be fired....... so I have 1 question

if paterno should be fired for not following up on a situation that he was only aware of 2nd hand......... how come the guy who ACTUALLY witnessed the incident in question and the one who told paterno......... who ALSO did not follow up on the situation......... is taking paternos place as head coach this week

nobody seems up in arms about this guy...... the one who physically witnessed the crime and failed to contact the police....... the one who did exactly what paterno did...... reported it to his boss ....... and like paterno he did not follow up on the situation...... he also 'turned a blind eye'....... yet he gets promoted and paterno gets fired????

I would think the ultimate blame and responsibility for dropping the ball lies solely on the guy who physically witnessed the crime......... a guy btw who was a young athletic former football player and watching a very old out of shape man rape a child...... and did nothing at all to stop him....... this guy definitely deserves this promotion..... yet nobody is saying one word about him

this is all about saving face for the school......... they need to wash their hands of the situation as quickly as they can....... paterno is a famous face and when people want to see heads roll its always the most important guy who goes first

Im guessing we'll see a dramatic decrease in enrollment next year at Ped State

EDIT: Have to make a minor correction here...... they just released an update on the news..... the assistant who witnessed the crime wont be coaching this weekend..... hes going into hiding due to an extreme number of threats against his life by the Ped State demonstrators.

I do however stand by my original assertion..... it says alot that they fired paterno but were willing to allow this guy to take his place.

 

[Drhyde]

For those that live under a rock....BBC News - Penn State's Joe Paterno under fire in abuse scandal


My thoughts are how can Joe Paterno live with himself? After reporting the coach in question and then seeing the same coach bringing boys around repeatedly after the reported incident, how do you NOT intervene? I think my approach would be the first time I heard is to report it to my superior. If I saw the actual allegation take place, I'd call 911 and tell them to send an ambulance because some old pervert was about to be beaten within an inch of his life. I think Joe Paterno needs to meet with EVERY victim and personally apologize, especially the ones AFTER the 1st victim.

Well, from his quote before the firing of

 

[TxGoat]

Here's a scenario, you're the manager of say 10-15 people. One of your subordinates informs you that he saw another employee raping a small boy in the shower. You report it to HR. HR does its "investigation" and doesn't find any reason to go to the police. That same employee is seen on more than a few occasions walking around with other boys at the workplace. Considering the allegation levied on him by another employee why wouldn't you call into question what this accused employee is doing hanging around small boys?

Here's what I'd ask for anyone that thinks Joe Paterno's hands are clean of this, do you think Michael Jackson was a pedophile and should've been forced to stay away from kids? If you do then you just contradicted yourself. Joe Paterno HAD an ACTUAL WITNESS tell him what he saw. I don't recall an actual witness coming forth and saying that they saw Michael Jackson rape a kid anywhere. Joe should've just outright said to this POS coach, "based on the allegations levied against you, if I so much as see you look in a kid's direction while you're on my facilities, you're fired". Joe turned the other cheek.


As far as what I think of the POS coach that committed the crime, if I ran the facility where this POS was to be jailed, the first thing I'd do is see who the biggest, meanest, nastiest inmate was that had a child, and I'd let word get to him that this POS coach may have raped this guy's child. Then "Oh Coach Pedo, meet your new cell mate, I think he's going to put to task how you go about designing a defense against the tight end". Monsters like this don't deserve death. They deserve to have someone bigger, meaner, and nastier do to them what they've been doing to their victims.

 

[Dark Jedi]

Yeah you treat an employee like that and its false. The then you're up a certain creek without a paddle. You have so much anger like many over what this guy did that you are lashing out at anyone just to get it off your chest. The what's next going after paternos wife because I am sure he told her what was going on. Why didn't she go to the cops? Paterno did what he was suppose to do. He reported it and not his fault if the school dropped the ball. After all he didnt know if it was true or not. All he had to go by was one persons allegations and he was in no position to judge him guilty of it or not. I guess innocent till proven guilty dont mean squat to you. Its every American given right even to the criminals.

 

[A.Nonymous]

The thing is that if you make an accusation like this toward someone, you ruin their life. Period. Doesn't matter if the guy really did it or not. Just being accused ruins his life. If this is a close friend, you don't make that accusation lightly at all. If Joe Paterno had publicly accused this guy with no evidence other than one 3rd hand account he would've destroyed his friendship with the guy and ruined the guys career for life. Now, in this case we know, after the fact, that the guy is probably guilty so that's not a bad thing. At the time of the incident, Paterno didn't know that. McQueary is a different case. If he literally saw such a crime committed you can easily argue, I think, that he had a moral obligation to report the crime not only to his superiors (which he did), but also to the authorities (which he apparently did not).

 

[TxGoat]

Yeah you treat an employee like that and its false. The then you're up a certain creek without a paddle. You have so much anger like many over what this guy did that you are lashing out at anyone just to get it off your chest. The what's next going after paternos wife because I am sure he told her what was going on. Why didn't she go to the cops? Paterno did what he was suppose to do. He reported it and not his fault if the school dropped the ball. After all he didnt know if it was true or not. All he had to go by was one persons allegations and he was in no position to judge him guilty of it or not. I guess innocent till proven guilty dont mean squat to you. Its every American given right even to the criminals.

I see you did a good job of avoiding my question about Michael Jackson. I'm willing to bet that you think he's guilty of molesting children. So much for your "innocent until proven guilty".


My whole argument is that since he's in essence the Manager of the team, if one of his coaches is accused of something, I don't care if he's accused of selling high end stolen Android phones, if you see that coach walking around with several high end android phones then you have a frank discussion with him, "Look in light of what you're accused of, you're going to have to stop bringing your personal life into my stadium. If you can't do that then you will be released from duty." How hard is it to do that?

The thing is that if you make an accusation like this toward someone, you ruin their life. Period. Doesn't matter if the guy really did it or not. Just being accused ruins his life. If this is a close friend, you don't make that accusation lightly at all. If Joe Paterno had publicly accused this guy with no evidence other than one 3rd hand account he would've destroyed his friendship with the guy and ruined the guys career for life. Now, in this case we know, after the fact, that the guy is probably guilty so that's not a bad thing. At the time of the incident, Paterno didn't know that. McQueary is a different case. If he literally saw such a crime committed you can easily argue, I think, that he had a moral obligation to report the crime not only to his superiors (which he did), but also to the authorities (which he apparently did not).

I still think if you have a staff member that's accused of ANYTHING then as a manager of a company, football team, etc you have to make sure that your staff is not a liability to you or your organization. As I stated with my example above, lets use drug distribution which is a little more than theft of Android devices, but lets say he was accused of selling drugs on campus and after the accusation the coach would always be seen with his trunk popped in the parking lot with "undesirables" always near him, what obligation does the Coach have at that point?

Legally I don't think Joe Paterno is in any kind of trouble, morally he should really take a good look at what he did. Did he put winning football games ahead of all else, even the well being of small boys? He's going to have plenty of time to answer those questions.


As deeply as we're discussing these events and all those involved, I really do feel bad for the victims and their families and loved ones. As enraged as I am about this I bet they're absolutely torn apart.

 

[Dark Jedi]

How did I avoid your question about mj? I cannot judge the man because I don't know the whole story. he was found innocent of the charges but still people like you branded him a child molester, and ruined his life forever. He was a disturbed man that's for sure. so thanks for showing your witch hunting tactics.

 

[TxGoat]

How did I avoid your question about mj? I cannot judge the man because I don't know the whole story. he was found innocent of the charges but still people like you branded him a child molester, and ruined his life forever. He was a disturbed man that's for sure. so thanks for showing your witch hunting tactics.

When did I brand him a child molester? I'm saying that if you're being accused by someone of something then you need to remove yourself from that situation. It's just like at work, if you look like you're goofing around but are actually working then management is going to see that you're...goofing around. I'm not going to say that I think MJ is a child molester because I'll never know what happened. But if I was in MJ's inner circle, I'd probably tell him that he either 1 needs to make sure that he's never alone with a child, or 2 needs to stop associating with children all together. I figured that was just common sense. Joe Paterno apparently didn't care that his, at the time accused child molester coach was seen at the facility walking around with small boys. That doesn't raise questions or concerns?

 

[A.Nonymous]

My whole argument is that since he's in essence the Manager of the team, if one of his coaches is accused of something, I don't care if he's accused of selling high end stolen Android phones, if you see that coach walking around with several high end android phones then you have a frank discussion with him, "Look in light of what you're accused of, you're going to have to stop bringing your personal life into my stadium. If you can't do that then you will be released from duty." How hard is it to do that?

So if I call up your boss and accuse you of having child pornography on your home computer your boss should call you into his office and talk to you about it? If it's discovered that you do spend a lot of time online, it should just be assumed that it's to look at child porn?

 

[Dark Jedi]

If he didn't care then he would have never reported it to the president of the school. I which he did so he must of cared. I am sure he confronted this guy and asked him what was going on and I am sure this guy assured him nothing like this was going on. So he has two different stories and what is he suppose to do. So by reporting it to the president of the school he had the power to start an investigation on the guy and get law enforcement involved. He was in no position to start a probe or to suspend the guy on hearsay.

It's funny how a head coach is getting all the press time than the guy who supposedly did the molestation. Because that sells more papers and makes people watch news programs. People like you falls for the propaganda and go yeah why didn't he report it. I now let's say Paterno was the molester. It would start and stop with him. no one would care if his assistant coaches knew or not as again he is the most well known and famous person around.

 

[A.Nonymous]

The weird thing is that Paterno has been fired while the guy who actually witnessed the alleged crime and did not report it to the police is still employed by the school.

 

[Dark Jedi]

The weird thing is that Paterno has been fired while the guy who actually witnessed the alleged crime and did not report it to the police is still employed by the school.

That's because he is a nobody and no one would care if he was fired or not. They have to make Paterno the escape goat to show the school won't take actions like this laying down and to show this they fire their icon of their football team.

He'll I bet if you took a pole on the streets and asked who Jerry Sandusky is and most couldn't tell you. Same time ask who Paterno is and most could tell you that is the coach who is caught up in that pen state scandal

 

[Bnice]

They are all guilty of not doing anything to stop it. This was not a one time incident. How could Mike Mcqueary, saw with his own two eyes a innocent child being rape and walk away. That is very disturbing. Mike was 28 years old when he saw this and ran to his dad to tell him. Joe Paterno and Penn State had the power to due something about it when it was first brought to their attention, but instead they choose to protect his friend and Penn State. Penn State is guilty as well.

 

[A.Nonymous]

They are all guilty of not doing anything to stop it. This was not a one time incident. How could Mike Mcqueary, saw with his own two eyes a innocent child being rape and walk away. That is very disturbing. Mike was 28 years old when he saw this and ran to his dad to tell him. Joe Paterno and Penn State had the power to due something about it when it was first brought to their attention, but instead they choose to protect his friend and Penn State. Penn State is guilty as well.

McQueary should've gone to the cops. That's a legit argument. Paterno had 3rd hand information of an extremely serious crime. He reported it to his superiors who either a) didn't investigate at all, b) investigated and found nothing or c) investigated, found something and covered it up. In either of those scenarios, Paterno could've honestly assumed that they found nothing.

 

[TxGoat]

So if I call up your boss and accuse you of having child pornography on your home computer your boss should call you into his office and talk to you about it? If it's discovered that you do spend a lot of time online, it should just be assumed that it's to look at child porn?

I don't think the assistant coach walked into this Pedo's home and saw him raping a child. Your example is if some stranger called Joe Paterno and reported the coach. That's not what happened here, a MEMBER of that organization told Joe Paterno. There's a big difference there. If you were a co-worker and reported that I was looking at child porn on a company computer then yes the manager should talk to me, ask IT to pull records and conduct an investigation.

If he didn't care then he would have never reported it to the president of the school. I which he did so he must of cared. I am sure he confronted this guy and asked him what was going on and I am sure this guy assured him nothing like this was going on. So he has two different stories and what is he suppose to do. So by reporting it to the president of the school he had the power to start an investigation on the guy and get law enforcement involved. He was in no position to start a probe or to suspend the guy on hearsay.

It's funny how a head coach is getting all the press time than the guy who supposedly did the molestation. Because that sells more papers and makes people watch news programs. People like you falls for the propaganda and go yeah why didn't he report it. I now let's say Paterno was the molester. It would start and stop with him. no one would care if his assistant coaches knew or not as again he is the most well known and famous person around.

Joe Paterno is getting the press because it was his staff that did nothing. It's like that baby in China that was run over, yeah they already caught the guy that ran over him, but now everyone's attention is on WHY all the bystanders just walked around and didn't offer aid to the baby? Yes the actual people that ran the baby over are careless idiots that need to be thrown in jail, but that's an easy assessment. Now we're trying to understand the WHY. Why did Joe Paterno turn a blind eye? I know that type of critical thinking is difficult for some, but give me a break.

 

[Bnice]

McQueary should've gone to the cops. That's a legit argument. Paterno had 3rd hand information of an extremely serious crime. He reported it to his superiors who either a) didn't investigate at all, b) investigated and found nothing or c) investigated, found something and covered it up. In either of those scenarios, Paterno could've honestly assumed that they found nothing.

Look I understand the folks have love for Paterno, but in my eyes he knew what was going on. He himself said he wish he had done more. Anyone reading this story will see Jerry Sandusky has been doing this for sometime. Even after he step down from Penn State and they told him not to bring boys on the campus, he was still doing it.A long history in Penn State child abuse case | Reuters

 

[Dark Jedi]

I don't think the assistant coach walked into this Pedo's home and saw him raping a child. Your example is if some stranger called Joe Paterno and reported the coach. That's not what happened here, a MEMBER of that organization told Joe Paterno. There's a big difference there. If you were a co-worker and reported that I was looking at child porn on a company computer then yes the manager should talk to me, ask IT to pull records and conduct an investigation.






Joe Paterno is getting the press because it was his staff that did nothing. It's like that baby in China that was run over, yeah they already caught the guy that ran over him, but now everyone's attention is on WHY all the bystanders just walked around and didn't offer aid to the baby? Yes the actual people that ran the baby over are careless idiots that need to be thrown in jail, but that's an easy assessment. Now we're trying to understand the WHY. Why did Joe Paterno turn a blind eye? I know that type of critical thinking is difficult for some, but give me a break.

If he turned a blind eye he would of never reported what he did of the allegation that was brought to his attention. You need to stop playing Monday morning quarterback. I can see now with you nothing he could of done would have ever been enough. he could of fired him long ago and you would be like wasn't soon enough as what about the kids that was already harmed. If the man would of went to the cops and accused this guy of this crime and it came back false. The guy accused would sue Paterno and the school and Paterno would lose his job. If he would of fired the guy for no legitimate reason. The guy would sue him and the school again. So you expect him to take acontion on hearsay from one pers

A guy comes to him about seeing another coach raping a boy in the office. Having no proof if it happened or not he goes to the school president and reports it. It's out of his hands now. I we don't know what the president told Paterno afterwards. If no more or ople came to Paterno what was he suppose to do?

 

[A.Nonymous]

I don't think the assistant coach walked into this Pedo's home and saw him raping a child. Your example is if some stranger called Joe Paterno and reported the coach. That's not what happened here, a MEMBER of that organization told Joe Paterno. There's a big difference there. If you were a co-worker and reported that I was looking at child porn on a company computer then yes the manager should talk to me, ask IT to pull records and conduct an investigation.

And if IT finds nothing at all, then your boss should follow up with cops just in case you were looking at child porn on your home computer too? And now you have an incident in your personnel record of you being investigated for having child porn on your computer. So if you apply for a promotion within the company, that is on your HR record. Enjoy never being promoted for the rest of your time with the company.

 

[TxGoat]

And if IT finds nothing at all, then your boss should follow up with cops just in case you were looking at child porn on your home computer too? And now you have an incident in your personnel record of you being investigated for having child porn on your computer. So if you apply for a promotion within the company, that is on your HR record. Enjoy never being promoted for the rest of your time with the company.

Make all the excuses you want for him, but the simple fact is he had a pedophile on his coaching staff and he was already alerted that someone saw him raping a boy. Legally he did what he should've, morally I don't think so and that's my only thoughts on his actions.

Ask yourself this, if you're a parent and one of your children were one of the victims, do you think Joe Paterno did enough?