The Lions' Pride

There are SEVERAL things incorrect/inaccurate with the above. Which doesn't surprise me. The media hasn't bothered to "be factual" with their reporting of this from Day 1, so it's no surprise that people from other places/schools are misinformed.

Joe did not "hand pick" Spanier. Spanier hated Joe. And Joe didn't like Spanier. At all.

And even if what is being insinuated is true, and Joe really was in favor of not going "public" with this information, that doesn't change either of the following:

1) He DID "report", fulfilling his legal obligations and following standard protocol for PA state educators (this is a fact, BTW, which flies in direct opposition to the concept that Joe was "masterminding a coverup"... if Joe was trying to cover this up, why would he ever encourage/arrange for McQuery to sit down with other high-ranking University officials and expound on what he saw?).

2) "Those people" (the athletic director, the school president, etc) do not/did not work for Joe. Joe worked for them. If your hypothetical is correct, Joe coulda blustered and bluffed, puffed his chest out, threatened, screamed bloody murder, etc, but there's nothing he could have done to PREVENT THEM from moving forward with an investigation if they'dwanted to. THEY were "the authority", and THEY chose not to act.

And you arrive at those conclusions even AFTER "buying in" to this notion that Joe was in favor of a massive University-wide coverup (which has not yet been proven... in fact, evidence to-date suggests to the contrary, with him immediately reporting the incident and then acting as a "cooperative witness" (prosecution's words, not mine)). The NCAA has no jurisdiction here. Guilty parties will be/have been prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, and if you believe in God will eventually have to answer to him as well. This isn't an NCAA issue. NOTHING, not a slap on the wrist, not the loss of 1 scholarship, not a 1 year bowl band, and CERTAINLY not a "death penalty", is going to come out of this. Penn State Haters (of which you may not be) are likely disappointed to hear that, but that's the end-result of all this.

No and No. The NCAA governs college athletics. They are not the police. They are not the moral police. They are there to ensure the playing field is level and no cheating is going. Widespread ROID use...sure as there is an advantage. I guess you can try to make the jump to underage driking or drug charges, but I'm not sure how the Natoinal Collegiate Athletic Association now equates to the moral police. If the NCAA is going to start down that road, they better figure out how to be consistent once in a decade or that will never work. Chisley committed a murder a few years back, should they have gotten involved? It's a gray line more than it is black and white, but the reason the NCAA is there is to keep things in check on the field. If there mission has changed to moral police, they need to get about 10 times the staff they currently have and get to work.

No not to me. There are others that might try to make that leap. But since Joe didn't e-mail I don't know that you can tie him to that conversation unless you have something such as
Ex. "After Joe and I thoroughly discussed the 'person' and both this most recent situation and the situation in 1998."
shows up in some other soon to be leaked e-mails.

The sane person that is trying to wrap his/her head around this whole thing in a semi-logical and non-emotional manner has to account for the very real possibility that Joe Paterno the legend was pulling the strings behind what appears to be a most heinous cover-up. But sadly from my vantage point there will always be enough questions that the media can spin into reasonable fact that Paterno was involved much more than he let on while Joe Posnanski's book will leave enough for the hard core Joe Paterno worshipers to say he was innocent and his legacy is in fact untarnished.

I've got a question for PSU fans: why do we even bother responding to trolls?

Where in those emails did it say anything about what Joe and Schultz discussed?

"After giving it much thought and speaking with Joe, I am unconfortable with the path we choose"

No where di it say what Joe said.

Maybe Joe said "Hey look I got a football team to run and we are in the middle of recruiting. I don't know all the legal and proper ways of handling this, you guy take care of it".

Maybe Schultz asked Joe again if McQueary told him he actually saw rape and joe replied "No he told me he didn't actually see rape." thus Schultz had been thinking about it and Joe's comment didn't give him anymore incentive to going to the proper authorities.

Maybe Joe said "I don't care what McQueary saw and didn't see, I want this guy arrested and off of our campus" but Schultz thought that action was too harsh and thus became uncomfortable with it.

there are a million things that could have been said between Joe and Schultz. But the Penn State haters are only focusing on the ONE negative thing that Joe could have said and not being open minded to the 1000's of other things Joe could have said.

I think I actually lost a few IQ points just from reading this post....

"PSU should be more concerned about the DOE in relation to Sandusky's case. The football program's largest potential danger is if hints of alternate types of violations (within the past 4 years) are revealed in the Freeh report, and the NCAA decides to more aggressively pursue those hints."

As the consensus on this board agrees, the NCAA should have little to say about the Sandusky case. The football program was not involved, nor was the athletic program. People within the institution of PSU seem to have been, but the control of the NCAA should be over sports related activities, not civil crimes not involving the sports program and undo advantage as a result. Let the real justice system handle those civil crimes.

tdiddy's statement is my big concern - now that everyone is digging into the university, what might be revealed in other reports? Many have speculated the Freeh report was sanctioned by the BOT to condemn Joe and make themselves look better. That the questions being asked by the Freeh investigators is often not about the Sandusky case, but about Joe and his control of situations involving football players. If there is any proof that he was not just concerned and looking out for their best interest, but overstepped his bounds and placed pressure on people to make an exception for one of his players - even just once - that is where the NCAA will have material to potentially act. I think his body of work over many years shows that he would quickly throw a top player off the team for violations, so I really think it will be stretching the truth to make this case against Joe. But at least a few in academia seem to have something against Joe - if just one of them perceived Joe's actions as inappropriate, they might make a statement as such. Though if something is 10-15 years old, will that fall under current NCAA violations? With the NCAA you never know what they will do, but this is the area I fear could get their attention.

Not sure you know the extent of LOIC at all. Major violations? How? LOIC is more geared to programs that get an ADVANTAGE on the field. PSU didn't.

As for punishment, this is a criminal deal, not an NCAA deal. I'm pretty sure PSU has encountered hefty sanctions already which are the harshest ever seen. Public perception has killed the reputation of the school ... current grads probably have been short changed on jobs because they attended PSU, but certainly didn't have anything to do with this ... people all the sudden think PSU isn't a good school as far as the value of education (it certainly has nothing to do with Sandusky - the value of the PSU education hasn't changed) and the school will continue to get railed by the media and public for decades with bad press. Add in the fact, you have parents of stud recruits or joe off the street who certainly won't let their child attend PSU and that doesn't include the money for civil suits down the road. If you don't think that is a harsh penalty to pay, you are an idiot.

And at no point did McQueary not being crystal clear what he saw that the university stepped back and say lets get both sides of the story before we act come into play? Now i am not defending Curley Schultz or Spanier in ANY WAY. They dropped the ball. But Sanduskey had a hell of a lot of otherpeople fooled including law enforcement. Where or how the NCAA has an issue with a crime committed on a campus is beyond me. What has occured here is a tragedy. But the media extracting a pound of flesh on Joe like this is sinful. Stop already. World would be a better place if there were more PEOPLE like Joe Paterno. Was he perfect? No he wasnt. But to even fathom he would stop law enforcement is beyond silly.

Not after you consider they already knew about the 1998 investigation. Also, they didn't rush to conclusions, they did NOTHING.