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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O’Brien runner-up AP Coach of Year

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Although Brian Kelly finished first in the AP voting for Coach of the Year, Bill O’Brien is the real story.

But Kelly is due some credit here, as he is the first Notre Dame coach to have won the award since its inception in 1998. The Fighting Irish, mostly irrelevant since that time,  finished the season with a perfect record and will play in the SSMNC. Those things give Kelly some pretty strong credentials for this award.

Kelly wound up with 25 votes. O’Brien finished well ahead of all others in the voting with 14 votes. His closest competition was David Shaw of Stanford, with 4.

Notwithstanding the fact that the Notre Dame coaching job is always the hot seat for whoever occupies it, the pressure on O’Brien was beyond imagination. To have stepped into the shoes of one of the greatest college football coaches of all time and quickly received the full support of a demanding army of fans is an amazing accomplishment in itself, but to have managed to field a competitive team following a plethora of high-profile defections is icing on the cake. O’Brien is more than just an emotional favorite for us homeys. He is fully deserving of the votes he received.

Had Penn State been allowed the opportunity to play in the post-season, Kelly still would have won this award, so let’s not blame Emmert, not that I wouldn’t otherwise want to bash him in every article I write.

Laser Focus: Peetz will call it quits as BoT chairman

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The good news is that Karen Peetz, she of the famous “laser focus” quote, will not be seeking to renew her chairmanship of the Penn State Board of Trustees; the bad news is that she will become President of BNY Mellon, where this turkey stores some of his scratch.

For public consumption, Peetz is broadcasting the notion that her new, “significantly broader” responsibilities with Mellon will preclude her from spending the appropriate amount of time to chair the BoT. I guess her former responsibilities at Andrew’s bank involved discharging the less than onerous responsibilities of a 9-5 teller, right? Yeah, sure.

Peetz has said that she will happily remain on the BoT and she has offered to remain chair of both the Trustee Presidential Search Council and the Blue & White Vision Council. Plenty of opportunities for laser foci on the future in those roles, ain’t? ????? ???? ???????

So, who’s the next fool to take over this motley group? Peetzie is happy to note that Vice Chairman Keith Masser has indicated his intention to throw his hat into the ring. Masser is chairman and CEO of Sterman Masser Inc., a family owned potato farming company in the Pennsylvania Dutch region of the Hegin and Lykens valleys. They package and ship more than 130 million kilograms of potatoes each year — and that ain’t just mashed potatoes.

I guess the folks up on Ag Hill are rooting for Masser.

A lot of you are rooting for someone outside the “inner circle.” Ain’t going to happen. ???? ????????

See the Penn State press release.

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Mega-congratulations to the magnificent Penn State Women’s volleyball team, who made it to the final four in the NCAA tournament, but were sliced and diced by a hot (in every sense of the word), fifth-seeded Oregon team.

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“We can’t stand to the side and watch the values of intercollegiate athletics be blown up in that fashion. We want everyone to pay attention. This is indeed a cautionary tale, that the athletic tail can’t wag the academic dog.”  —Mark Emmert, NCAA Chief Tyrant and Self-Aggrandizer

So, listen, Mark. Apparently, you can’t throw your weight around enough to convince the B1G to bury Penn State as you and your friend Vicky Triponey want to do. Penn State has announced that 100 fall student athletes have received Academic All-Big Ten honors this semester, which eclipses the previous record of 81 (2007) and stands at the top of the Big Ten.

Since we concentrate on football here, we’ll note that the football team was tied for third in the conference with a program record 28 honorees, of whom one — John Urschel — had a perfect 4. ??? ???? 0 GPA.

Perhaps Emmert can use Peetz’ laser to do some surgery on his tightly constricted anal sphincter to let out some of that shit he’s full of.

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Since it lost its pet Pulitzer Prize winning reporter Sara Ganim to CNN last month, the Patriot-News has suffered from a lack of investigative creativity. Just when you thought college football bowl proliferation had peaked, their web arm, Penn-Live.com, ever behind the curve, is proposing the far-fetched idea of a new bowl game: in Hershey, Pennsylvania.

Yea, verily, the wonderful new thirty-sixth bowl game would be sponsored by the chocolate confectioners we all know and love, if Penn-Live.com blogger Rege Ryan’s pipe dream ever materialized.

Of the existing 35 bowl games,  how many are consequential? Three or four, maybe. Do we really need another made-for-TV debacle where the TV cameras assiduously avoid panning across the sparsely populated bleachers? Fuck no!

Ryan can take a ride on the Hershey Highway, but he is barking up the wrong tree. (There are innumerable possibilities for salacious mixing of metaphors, which I’ll avoid.)

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Thanks again to reader Joe for bringing these important stories to the fore, offsetting the eternal laziness of your turkey.

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Finally, as I might not be writing again before Christmas rolls by, I want to wish each of you a very Merry Christmas. I don’t really give a shit if you’re a Muslim, an atheist, or a Jew — Merry Christmas: take it or leave it!

 

 

Sandusky tab thus far: $23.5 million

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The Freeh Report, along with various and sundry other legal and administrative expenses in the wake of the Sandusky scandal have cost Penn State University a small fortune thus far—and the meter is still ticking.

Laura Nichols of StateCollege.com reports that the bill to date has been $23,547,634. That figure is already out of date by over two months due to reporting lag. However, it does not include any part of the $60 million fine imposed by Emmert the Weak and his NCAA cronies. The University has to pay the first $12 million installment by December 20. Neither does it include any compensation to “the vicccctimmmmmmms,” which is expected to be — well, more potential millions.

Some of the items included are, of course, the Freeh Report, as well as costs of university legal defense, externally initiated investigations, and legal defense for Schultz, Curley, and Spanier. Nichols’ article called the last category “Indemnified Persons’ Legal Defense*”, presumably something that came from the Penn State Progress web site, which offers a FAQ page relating to the costs. (Asterisks leading to nowhere are a pet peeve of my lady, Artificially Sweetened.)

So, I went to “Progress” and found where the asterisk went:

* The Bylaws of Penn State state that “except as prohibited by law, every trustee and officer of the University shall be entitled as of right to be indemnified by the University against expenses (including counsel fees) and any liability (including judgments, fines, penalties, excise taxes and amounts paid in settlement) paid or incurred by such person in connection with any actual or threatened claim, action, suit or proceeding, civil, criminal, administrative, investigative or other.” Article 5, Section 2.

Instead of whining to the retirement system for reinstatement of a pension he doesn’t deserve, Sandusky should be saving up his cigarettes for paying back the University for a portion of the cost of the crap he created. Fucking pervert!