JoePa Shocking........

[Wilhelm]

Originally Posted by Buckterrier

When Joepa took over coaching in 1966 the Penn State football stadium held 30,000+. Beaver Stadium holds 107,000+. It's called cold hard cash. No professor has ever brought that to ANY college, EVER. Penn State was an agricultural university until Joe showed up. Joe's graduation rate for his players was 87%. Those professors should thank him for their jobs.
People should really stop posting garbage without knowledge.

Who cares what the football stadium holds? And most football players who graduate only do so by the fact that most are in some major that requires almost no work. And at many Universities there is considerable pressure on Profs to give football players "passing grades" for eligibility. If Penn State endowment money had been spent on hiring top notch Professors instead of a Football coach, maybe Penn State would rank with Cal Tech or MIT. You say Professors should thank Joe Paterno for their jobs ???? I say again, priorities are out of whack at many Universities.

[Buckterrier]

Originally Posted by RWebb

Yes, our priorities are definitely out of whack when a football coach makes 10 or 20 times what a good professor makes. A university has two roles -- it creates knowledge and it disseminates knowledge. Things are out of whack when the football tail wags the dog. I don't know how to fix it either.

Penn State is still an agricultural university. Those professors had jobs before he showed up.
Please stop posting garbage without knowledge.

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BTW - he has retained a criminal atty - may not mean anything at this stage.

Originally Posted by Wilhelm

Who cares what the football stadium holds? And most football players who graduate only do so by the fact that most are in some major that requires almost no work. And at many Universities there is considerable pressure on Profs to give football players "passing grades" for eligibility. If Penn State endowment money had been spent on hiring top notch Professors instead of a Football coach, maybe Penn State would rank with Cal Tech or MIT. You say Professors should thank Joe Paterno for their jobs ???? I say again, priorities are out of whack at many Universities.

Gawd you people are clueless.

[Rick Lee]

I dare say I have to agree with Wilhelm here. I don't even know why these football teams are associated with colleges. The players are not really students. I went to Pitt, so I'm well familiar with how it works at big football schools. The players are almost celebrities, you never see them in class, just at the bars once in a while and always at the field house. They get their own gyms and all kinds of perks no other student could imagine. I have no problem with it, but it should be called the minor league instead of college football. It has nothing to do with the college other than merchandising. Well, we did get season tix for around $20 a season, so that wasn't so bad.

[szyzygy]

College is a joke, period. 4 years of partying on mommy and daddy's dime.

Huge debt for the student. Huge problem for the rest of us (SallieMae funds all this, so we as taxpayers are on the hook for all the defaults from Little Johnny's basket weaving major when he can't get a job with that and stops paying back his loan)

Athletics are a joke, too. I've had people explain to me before why they are good for a university, but I don't buy it.

[Macroni]

wow..... such density.... this is a tragedy of Shakespearian magnitude.....

It is fraught with human fatality as well as overwhelming irony yet we can only discuss the he said, she said elements.....

Think of the characters.... the king, his deranged designate, the coward and his
scheming father...... the deal to keep it quiet.... the prime minster, bureaucratic minions and the Parliament all enjoying the shadow of an aging but beloved warrior paragon.... all complete with the death of an investigating persecutor....


Well at least the thread has yet to be reduced down to the traditional comments concerning a well set-up 944 or the worthiness of a mustang......

[cmccuist]

100,000 people aren't going to pay $50 - $100 each to watch a professor teach!

They're paying that money to watch football. And Joe put a good product on the field.

His punishment is now the same as Woody Hayes got at Ohio State after he punched that kid. For the rest of his life, Joe will be the great football coach who did next to nothing while children were being raped at his facility.

[widgeon13]

Well, if Sandusky was pimping these kids to major contributors as the news is now saying, this could cut pretty deep.

[VaSteve]

Isn't this a state school? Does the state of PA have some responsibility in not investigating this properly at the time?

[Rick Lee]

Originally Posted by VaSteve

Isn't this a state school? Does the state of PA have some responsibility in not investigating this properly at the time?

Yes and yes. They'd better get their checkbook out too.

[sammyg2]

Good professor? When you find one, let me know. I'd like to meet him.
BTW I define "good" as someone who actually has a grasp of what goes no in the real world and doesn't completely believe all the BS crap he's read from what other BS professors have regurgitated. Someone who teaches reality vs. academic fantasy.


BTW, there was a criminal investigation started a long time ago concerning the homo perv and his little boys. This investigation has been open for over a decade!

Paterno would have surely been interviewed in the 90's, so there is no conceivable way he would not have known the sicko was accused of screwing little boys back then.

So it should have come as no surprise when the later allegations came up, and since he was aware of a police investigation it was his legal duty to notify police of new evidence.
Failing to do that could be considered accessory, aiding and abetting, or interfering with a police investigation.

No, this was not simply a temporary lack of good judgement for Paterno, this was intentional, willful, calculated participation in a criminal cover-up and evidence that ALL the parties involved cared more about the $50 million a year they get from their football program than they cared about the lives of those young victims.
Paterno should consider himself lucky to be walking around free right now. He and his cronies really belong in jail.

ANYONE who would come out in support of paterno on this is either completely ignorant of the details or just as fuched up in the head as that sicko predator who was seducing those little boys.

[DaveE]

I don't understand why Sandusky wasn't publicly tossed out on his ass back in '98. If any of these guys really cared about children or the University that's the action they would have taken. Why do people repeatedly try to cover things up?

[Rick Lee]

I wonder if Sandusky will survive until trial. And why the hell is he out on a low bond?

[VaSteve]

Originally Posted by DaveE

I don't understand why Sandusky wasn't publicly tossed out on his ass back in '98. If any of these guys really cared about children or the University that's the action they would have taken. Why do people repeatedly try to cover things up?

What makes even less sense is that when he was "retired", he was still given free reign of the university. He should have been "retired" to a desert island or something. WTF?

[deanp]

I don't understand how through all of this McQueary still has a job. I don't understand how he didn't beat the bejeezus out of Sandusky and call 911. He called his father, and then they called Paterno? WTF??? How does he live with himself? Talk about a group of people that did nothing more than protect their own interests and do the 'minimum' required by law by reporting the incidents to their superiors.

Where were the parents in this? The grand jury report shows all kinds of gifts given to the victims.. athletic gear, video games, trips to sporting events, etc etc etc. That didn't raise suspicion? Really?

The whole thing just sickens me.

[jwasbury]

Wait...are we saying that college football is just a big business and its really not about the kids?

It was always about the Benjamins.

It comes down simply to the same ugly word we hear and see everyday on the news: greed.

I'm afraid the individuals involved have no moral compass, or a broken one at best. The same thing that allows a guy like Bernie Madoff to scam people out of billions of dollars allows a revered football coach to turn the other cheek to child molestation.

[Macroni]

Originally Posted by sammyg2

No, this was not simply a temporary lack of good judgment for Paterno, this was intentional, willful, calculated participation in a criminal cover-up and evidence that ALL the parties involved cared more about the $50 million a year they get from their football program than they cared about the lives of those young victims.
Paterno should consider himself lucky to be walking around free right now. He and his cronies really belong in jail. .

JoePa has hired a criminal attorney to represent him. Just like Cardinal Bevilacqua has in Philadelphia. It is amazing how much more play this is getting than the church scandal did. Puts our values in perspective.

[asphaltgambler]

All the imorality on the planet always 'funnels' down into two camps - money and sex. In this case it's both

[JCF]

I hope this is not too far off topic - or incoherent - or pitiful ( light the flamethrowers, I don't care)

I am so discouraged - It just seems like there is nowhere left to find the balance to all the negative things I see and hear about and read about....
It just looks like to me the dark side has won.
What has happened to all the good people ????
I know they are out there somewhere but they seem to no longer have the power or will to affect what appears to be a wholesale abdication of simple moral responsibility and justice...
I understand no one is all good ( least of all myself) or even that, outside the true psychopaths, the bad folk are not all bad....but I just don't see any balance anymore.
It just seems that every shiny red apple is rotten inside these days...and that suspect or clearly rotten apples are so often held up as shining examples of perfection....
Maybe it has always been this way ?
I am not saying I am right, only that I feel like the the line is crumbling and I am discouraged and I don't want to give up the fight but when I look for some sign that there is something left to fight for or someone to look up to for hope and encouragement all I see around me are bad examples.
I am not religious - though I was raised Catholic - but I have seen and read too much about the Catholic Church and it's abuses and hypocrisy to not cross that one out - At the same time I can see the beauty and truth in the writings...but really - now it just seems like a license to sin - "so I committed adultery sat. night - I'll just say a prayer on sunday"....
All the other religions also seem to me to have that same gulf between the beauty of the doctrine and the messy world of Humanity...
Art ( which was my great pursuit at one time ) also seems to me irrelevant in these times...

I won't add any insight into this specific thread though I think it is relevant to it. I'm fresh out answers.
I guess it shows how desperate I am that I am posting this here on PP Off Topic....

ha

Pardon the interruption.

[widgeon13]

I blame the media. None report (or almost no one) report the feel good stories. I agree with you, the news today is just depressing and disgusting.

[mossguy]

Agreed! Good things are happening and there are good people out there. We just don't get to hear about it.