The Nittany Turkey

Primarily about Penn State football, this is a tale told by idiots, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

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Home 2012 Archives for July 2012

Archives for July 2012

Sudden Impact: Hot Dogs and Hot Seats

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Happy Independence Day to all of you fine folks out there from the Turkey! This special holiday issue of Sudden Impact continues to center on the Sandusky scandal, Showergate, the Revenge of the Tickle Monster—whichever characterization you prefer.

We lead off with an excellent, well written, and articulate analysis of Tim Curley’s options in the days in weeks ahead. Should he take the fall or finger JoePa as the source of evil, the Benito Mussolini of the Penn State football program? Bobby Big Wheel, Legal and Political Contributor for SB*Nation, shines in “Tim Curley’s Choice: Sell Out Joe Paterno and Penn State Football?”

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Then, we have a dud. Frank Deford has turned up at NPR, and he says just about nothing. His long winded build-up eventually disappoints with an abrupt shifting of gears and an incomplete conclusion. See: “Joe Paterno’s Legacy: Protect Players at All Costs” in Deford’s “Sweetness and Light” column.

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Another shot at Paterno comes from Melinda Henneberger of the Washington Post. In her blog (entitled “She The People”), “What Paterno admitted he knew: Sandusky couldn’t have done it without him“, she once again points the finger at Joe for enabling Sandusky and his myriad transgressions of human decency constraints.

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More tarnish on Joe Paterno’s sainted reputation at the behest of Dan Wetzel in “Joe Paterno’s role in covering up Jerry Sandusky’s child molestations grows as evidence is leaked.”

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Those should be enough for you to tear into. Go out and have some hot dogs and drink some beer! Happy Birthday, USA!

 

 

Leaks Bother Corbett

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Not long after the Paterno family condemned whoever is leaking emails from the Sandusky affair investigations to the media, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett made a similar statement at a news conference in Harrisburg.

“I’m upset to see something’s come out piecemeal like that. I’m not sure where it came from. But I never think it’s a good move if information is leaked out,” said Corbett.

Corbett, as you might recall, was Pennsylvania’s attorney general at the start of the investigation.

The Paterno family has asked for all the emails to be released, not just the few that were reported by CNN. Presumably, there could be information in the remaining emails that would exonerate the late head coach. Then again, there might not. No one knows but the three remaining players, Spanier, Curley, and Schultz.

Corbett declined to get involved in that issue, stating that the Freeh report was due before the start of the new academic year. “Let’s find out what happens there,” he said.

Spanier also wanted all of the emails released to him by the university, and he has filed suit to obtain them.

Some relevant links:

State police head stands by criticism of Paterno, Penn State

Gov. Tom Corbett criticizes leaks coming out of Penn State’s investigation into Jerry Sandusky scandal

Chronicle: Officials Met with Counsel in 2001

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The Chronicle of Higher Education published a Sandusky related story on Sunday which heretofore escaped this Turkey’s attention. I can understand why not much has been made of it, because its details are sketchy. The article, written by Brad Wolverton, begins with the following paragraph:

Top Pennsylvania State University officials held a three-hour meeting to discuss Jerry Sandusky in 2001 over concerns about the former coach’s behavior with a boy in the football showers. A law-firm billing record from that conversation describes a “report of suspected child abuse,” according to a person with knowledge of an independent investigation into the matter.

Next to that paragraph were pictures of Curley and Schultz.

Wolverton wrote nothing else about who attended the meeting or which law firm was involved. Perhaps the pictures suggested that Schultz and Curley were involved, but Wolverton never gets around to saying so. Thus, the first paragraph, quoted above, was the only new information for most of us.

The remainder of the article merely provides background information that is well known, including the leaked emails, the non-reporting of the incident, and even an unrelated story about Joe Paterno taking charge of a disciplinary issue in the past, much to the chagrin of then VP of Student Affairs, Vicky Triponey.

In that 2007 incident, six members of the football team invaded an apartment and beat up people inside. Paterno and Triponey differed in their ideas about how discipline should be meted out. Joe, as usual, did it his way, even having a text message sent out to all the players warning them not to respond to Student Affairs’ inquiry about the incident or they would risk being thrown off the team. Ms. Triponey resigned that year, citing “philosophical differences.”

This story is well known, and nothing about Joe Paterno grabbing power where the team was involved would turn many heads. The Chronicle included it to corroborate whatever point it was trying to make, of which I’m still not certain.

If the point is that Joe had total control of the football program, trumping even university administrators, then big surprise! If the point is that Spanier and his top-level administrators consulted counsel about the Sandusky situation, then we can only draw the conclusion that high level Penn State operatives were worried about what would happen in the event that they skirted the law to try to handle the matter internally.

In the latter case, this Turkey would have loved to have been a fly on the wall. I do hope that further details of that meeting emerge, although it might well be that only billing records are still available. (If I ran the law firm involved, I would make damn sure that all the damning evidence was shredded and burned, lest it all blow up in the face of the firm and its lawyers, as the advice to circumvent the law would be a serious ethics violation.)

I hope that all of these loose ends will be tied up in the Freeh report.