Penn State = the R.C. Church?
Posted: Fri Jul 13, 2012 1:56 pm
With the publication of the long-awaited Freeh report, Penn State has more-or-less voluntarily exposed its embarrassing underside to a level of scrutiny that is almost unprecedented.
Long story short: The Institution was confronted with knowledge of activities that would have been extremely embarrassing to the football program (esp. Coach Paterno), and to the University as a whole. The worst of the information concerned the lad who McQueary saw being raped, but this was only one of many tales and rumors that had swirled around Sandusky over the years. It seems that their predominant concern was about whether the whole thing could be pushed under the Rug permanently. If not, then it would be even worse for Penn State.
Concluding that it could be effectively suppressed, they allowed it to die and figuratively crossed their fingers that the story would never come out.
There was never even the remotest concern about protecting - or even identifying - the kid who was raped in the shower, and they went for clarification to possibly the worst and least reliable source of information on the planet, Sandusky himself. They didn't even effectively tell him to STOP DOING what he was doing!
It is a common pattern of activity by institutions that value their reputation above all else. Ironically, Paterno himself sullied a reputation for integrity that he had successfully cultivated for more than 60 years. As intimated in the report, some of it was bullshit but still, by comparison to most other Div I schools, the Penn State football program has always been exemplary.
The real test of character is how you act when you think nobody's looking (or will find out). These guys flunked. Big time.
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As a Pitt graduate, my official position on the matter is that Paterno has always been a sanctimonious blowhard; too bad he's not alive to experience this well-deserved embarrassment.
Long story short: The Institution was confronted with knowledge of activities that would have been extremely embarrassing to the football program (esp. Coach Paterno), and to the University as a whole. The worst of the information concerned the lad who McQueary saw being raped, but this was only one of many tales and rumors that had swirled around Sandusky over the years. It seems that their predominant concern was about whether the whole thing could be pushed under the Rug permanently. If not, then it would be even worse for Penn State.
Concluding that it could be effectively suppressed, they allowed it to die and figuratively crossed their fingers that the story would never come out.
There was never even the remotest concern about protecting - or even identifying - the kid who was raped in the shower, and they went for clarification to possibly the worst and least reliable source of information on the planet, Sandusky himself. They didn't even effectively tell him to STOP DOING what he was doing!
It is a common pattern of activity by institutions that value their reputation above all else. Ironically, Paterno himself sullied a reputation for integrity that he had successfully cultivated for more than 60 years. As intimated in the report, some of it was bullshit but still, by comparison to most other Div I schools, the Penn State football program has always been exemplary.
The real test of character is how you act when you think nobody's looking (or will find out). These guys flunked. Big time.
________________________________
As a Pitt graduate, my official position on the matter is that Paterno has always been a sanctimonious blowhard; too bad he's not alive to experience this well-deserved embarrassment.