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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Sudden Impact — The Beat Goes On

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Far past the time when we should have been addressing issues on the practice field and maintaining a laser focus on the season ahead, the Sandusky Showergate scandal continues to dominate our coverage here at the Turkey. Some would say, “Enough, already!” hoping to move on, but the Turkey is stubborn in that respect (and many others). This whole sordid mess is just too intriguing to drop. Each day there are new revelations that make us scratch our heads in wonderment over when the little data islands will coalesce to make a coherent counter-story that will frighten even the most paranoid conspiracy theorists among us.

“At no time did we ever have a discussion about, ‘If they (Penn State officials) don’t do this, we’re going to do that.’ That is a conversation that never occurred.” —Ed Ray, President, NCAA Executive Committee

Here, for instance,  Rich Scarcella of the Reading Eagle blogs that the NCAA did not threaten Penn State with the “death penalty.” Just another sportswriter’s unfounded conjecture? No. Scarcella is backed by the written word of Oregon State president Ed Ray, president of the NCAA’s executive committee, who has told at least two publications that no such threat was ever made. Ray is the man who stood alongside Mark Emmert at the notorious July 23 press conference where Penn State’s sanctions and the consent decree were announced. Compelling reading, and it opens the door to asking yet more questions. Who’s lying? Big thanks to reader Joe for coming up with this find.

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Another “coincidence” unearthed by a reader, BigAl, is that the infamous Vicky Triponey now works for Dr. R. Barbara Gitenstein, president of the College of New Jersey. “So what?” you say, “She’s safely out of the way there.” Not so fast, Buckaroo. Aside from her aforementioned position at TCNJ, Gitenstein is chairperson of the Middle States Commission on Higher Education. That’s right, boys and girls, the accreditation body that just warned Penn State that the university is “in jeopardy”. Another case of Triponey seeking revenge for her unresolved love/hate/fear relationship with Joe Paterno during her brief tenure at Penn State? It seems more than coincidental that Triponey has relationships with both Mark Emmert, who hired her at University of Connecticut, and now, Gitenstein, who hired her at TCNJ. Is Vicky stalking Penn State?

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Former Penn State president Graham Spanier, who remains a faculty member on leave, has stated that he and his lawyers might hold a press conference to tell us all what is wrong with the Freeh report. However, Spanier is still not clear of the potential charges that he participated in Showergate cover-up activities at Penn State, and that he had knowledge of crimes that should have been reported to authorities outside the university.

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Meanwhile, as mentioned in the previous link, today was the day for the preliminary evidentiary hearing  pertaining to the perjury and failure to report trial for Gary Schultz and Tim Curley, likely to be staged this fall or winter. Both Curly and Shemp have some high-priced, well proven legal talent arguing for them, while Moe has thus far escaped prosecution, as this supercilious Turkey mentioned above. But seriously though, folks, neither Curley nor Schultz showed up in person for the hearing and no rulings were made by the bench thus far.

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Another take on the “culture of corruption” imposed on universities makes for some thought-provoking reading, as Lawrence Serewicz, an American living in the UK opines on the pickle not only Penn State but also many other large universities find themselves facing. His blog is Politics, Statesmanship, Philosophy, and he has written a book on the Vietnam war. This post is entitled “Penn State and the Crisis of the American University.”

 

That wraps up this issue of Sudden Impact. I have little doubt that some other story concerning the aftermath of Showergate will break five minutes after I pull the trigger to publish this, but that is life in the Penn State fast lane these days!

(The Nittany Turkey has ties to both Penn State and UCF, two universities recently sanctioned by the NCAA. Do I have a dark cloud following me around, or what? And no, I have no ties whatsoever to UNC!)

Sudden Impact: Crime and Punishment (Updated)

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While this morning’s NCAA pronouncement implementing punishment and imposing additional bureaucracy upon Penn State athletics hit the mark for many Penn State haters, who use the Sandusky scandal to declare everything up to and including targeted nuclear weapons as fair game (sanctimoniously stating that even nukes won’t restore normal lives for the victims), many of us believe that the punishment was vindictive and draconian. And it still won’t restore normal lives for the victims.

I have selected two essays that engender the latter viewpoint, both published in Sports Illustrated’s SI.com. Fortunately, there are still some writers out there with the balls to contradict the common wisdom.

July 24 Update: added link to a great essay by Spencer Hall of SBNation.

The first, by Stewart Mandel, is entitled “NCAA’s Mark Emmert overstepped bounds in hammering Penn State.” Mandel feels that NCAA President Mark Emmert, enabled by the logic of the Penn State hater mentioned above, felt that he could justify going far beyond the pale to invent creative, crippling penalties for the Nittany Lions. Mandel sees this as high visibility hypocrisy, and his article is definitely worth a read.

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The other, by Michael Rosenberg, is “NCAA sanctions against Penn State reinforce overemphasis on winning.” Rosenberg thinks that by prescribing these sanctions “Emmert is not fighting against the hypocrisy of college sports. He is acknowledging it, legitimizing it, and — in a way — even embracing it.” Read it for more strongly worded pearls of Rosenberg wisdom.

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Spencer Hall of SBNation words his piece even more strongly. Here is a taste of “Penn State Scandal: NCAA Beats Up Corpse, Then Demands Your Applause.“

It makes sense for the NCAA to protect its product. It also makes sense of the coldest kind for Mark Emmert, head of the organization, to take a defenseless Penn State, prop it up on stage, and then take a few delighted whacks at its staggering corpse with the heaviest hammer imaginable. The key is not killing the victim, the Penn State football program. It will now be toured through every stage of the redemption cycle, and eventually brought forth as a model citizen at the appropriate date by a fully empowered oversight authority — one that can now, with the consent of its backers, make bigger, more immediate show trials of its thoroughly fixed bouts.

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Meanwhile, the Big Ten should have been flagged for piling on, for it was announced today that Penn State will not be allowed to share in the bowl revenues of other Big Ten teams for the duration of the NCAA postseason prohibitions.

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The very hot Kristi Dosh of ESPN says that the true costs of today’s NCAA sanctions, both monetary and abstract, are unknown.

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The Penn State Football Lettermen’s takes an angry stand.

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The Paterno family offers its response to the NCAA sanctions.

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Meanwhile, Former Penn State President Graham Spanier sent a letter to the board of trustees seeking to exonerate himself.

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Statements by Rodney Erickson, David Joyner, and Bill O’Brien.

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Consent decree between the NCAA and Penn State (PDF – 1.31 MB).

That’s a wrap for another issue of Sudden Impact. It’s been a long day today, but the longest, darkest days are yet to come.

The Penn State Way?

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Sorry, ESPN haters,  but I’ve got to react to Don Van Natta’s OTL piece about the Penn State Board of Trustees’ oversight of University President Graham Spanier and Head Football Coach Joe Paterno.

“The Penn State Way is an approach to decision-making, a resistance to seeking outside perspectives, and an excessive focus on athletics that can, if not recognized, negatively impact the university’s reputation as a progressive institution.” —Freeh Report

In November 2004, the same month as Spanier and Tim Curley sat at Paterno’s kitchen table asking him to retire, seven members of the BOT proposed to strengthen the board’s oversight power over Spanier and other campus leaders, including Paterno.

Paterno had defiantly demurred when he was asked to retire, telling his ostensible bosses that things were fine the way they were. His so-called bosses slunk back to Old Main with their respective tails between their legs. Joe let them know who was boss, all right.

Spanier and then board chair Cynthia Baldwin applied the same approach to the proposal by seven trustees. They read it, considered it briefly, and demurred without a vote of the full board. Quashed. Moving right along…

Van Natta reported the following:

Joel Myers, a longtime trustee, said the Freeh investigators told him that if the good-governance proposal had been adopted by the board back in 2004, “This (crisis) could have been avoided.”

The 2004 proposals are eerily prescient considering how the trustees, according to the Freeh report, were left in the dark by Spanier, Baldwin and trustee Steve Garban as the Sandusky criminal investigation escalated in 2011. If the proposals had passed, the trustees say the measures might have made a difference in the way the board had responded to the Sandusky matter.

Two trustees said Freeh’s investigators had asked them and other trustees about the 2004 good-governance proposal and appeared determined to find out why it had not been adopted. One trustee also said Freeh’s investigators told them they had obtained emails between Spanier and Baldwin and others discussing the merits of the trustees’ proposal. The trustee also said Freeh’s investigators said that the emails showed “Spanier and Baldwin put a stop” to the good-governance proposal. “They didn’t want the added scrutiny,” the trustee said.

“It was a big, missed opportunity,” said Al Clemens, another longtime trustee. “Back in 2004, we just knew there wasn’t enough accountability, and it seemed like a reasonable step to try to protect the university. It seemed like the right thing to do.”

After this proposal was rejected, at least four boys were abused by Sandusky. The failure to act could hurt the university as civil law suits are tried. ????? ???? ????? ?????? The university’s leadership, including the chair of the board of trustees, essentially said that they were running the show and would do it their way.

The Penn State Way.

Alums and current students have long revered The Penn State Way. The Penn State Way means tradition, loyalty, and success with honor. However these revelations present a seamier view of The Penn State Way as approached by its internal leadership. For them, The Penn State Way equals Our Way. Moreover, Our Way means that we keep it to ourselves as much as possible.

The culture of secrecy rears its ugly head once again. Even the board of trustees doesn’t know what the hell is going on there, and no one cares, except for a few disgruntled trustees.

Van Natta’s story brings that to light through interviews with current and former trustees. Al Clemens provided significant insights into the operation of the Board and its interaction with Baldwin and Spanier.

The Penn State Way is mentioned in the Freeh Report, to wit:

The Freeh report found that Spanier and Baldwin dealt with the escalating Sandusky crisis throughout 2011 with no outside advice from lawyers with experience dealing with grand jury investigations. Spanier and Baldwin also failed to seek the full advice of the board on how to handle the crisis. ???? ????? ??? ????

This failure was noted by the Freeh Group, which referred to the administrators’ “over-emphasis on ‘The Penn State Way.’ ” As defined by Freeh, “The Penn State Way” is “an approach to decision-making, a resistance to seeking outside perspectives, and an excessive focus on athletics that can, if not recognized, negatively impact the university’s reputation as a progressive institution.”

The last time the Board had amended its general policies was January 19, 1996. Van Natta writes that much has changed since then, including the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation of 2002, that affects the way the Board and top administrators must operate. Yet The Penn State Way is to ignore the law while doing it Our Way, so those in whom the power was invested, namely Spanier and Baldwin, never saw the need to change anything.

Proposals for changes in operating policies and practices never made it to the full, 32-member board for a vote. That’s The Penn State Way.

Once again, it is obvious that the story is one of power and corruption. The oligarchy that ran Penn State had no need for outside counsel. No need to share the pie. The Troika of Spanier, Baldwin, and Paterno did it Our Way. (Cue Laverne & Shirley theme.)

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Good men are almost always bad men. ???365

Lord Acton wrote that before the great era of political correctness, which this Turkey hopes is on the wane. Now, we have the great pleasure of rewriting the second sentence to include women. Hey, they wanted it; they got it. Now, they can be just as criminally culpable as men.

Cynthia Baldwin says nothing anymore that isn’t filtered through counsel.

The same corrupt culture thumbed its nose at the Clery Act, which as of today still hasn’t been implemented as required at Penn State.

Defiance, arrogance, and secrecy. A festering, corrupt corporate culture. Bad men and women. The Penn State Way?

Read Van Natta’s full story.