The Nittany Turkey

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

Search This Site

Enter keyword(s) below to search for relevant articles.

Home Archives for NCAA

Lou Prato decries Freeh report

Posted on Written by

Writing in the September 21, 2012 issue of Blue White Illustrated, Penn State historian Lou Prato is the latest knowledgeable figure to condemn the much maligned Freeh report, its premature acceptance by the University, and its being used as a basis for draconian punishment by the NCAA and the Big Ten Conference, as well as an “accreditation warning” by the Southern Commission on Higher Education. The essay is entitled “Jumping to conclusions” and it appears on pages 56-58.

“ …the report stated that a ‘senior Penn State official referred to Curley as Paterno’s errand boy.’  That derogatory remark was out of line and should not have been included in a report from an experienced, high-profile professional like Freeh…” —Lou Prato

I recommend that anyone appalled by the media spurred rush to judgment against Penn State beg, borrow, or steal a copy of BWI. Reading it in the wake of all the other critiques solidified my feeling that the Freeh report is a piece of shoddy, biased garbage, a waste of $6.5 million. It is almost as if the BoT stated its mission to Freeh thus: “Here’s what we want, a hatchet job on Paterno, Spanier, Curley, and Shultz — now make it look good and make it your idea.”

Prato doesn’t quite reach that conspiratorial conclusion, but he does tear the report apart quite convincingly. Although he personally takes issue with a plethora of issues, he dwells on three areas. In his words:

” … there are three areas that caught my immediate attention because they epitomize for me the deceptive nature of the document: 1) the reliance on information about discipline from the Office of Student Affairs without any rebuttal; 2) the interpretation of the crucial 1998 child abuse investigation that never reached the criminal court; and 3) an uncalled for cheap shot aimed at the working relationship of Curley and Paterno.”

I think we all have concerns about those subjects and we’re pretty familiar with the rebuttals against the report’s conclusions in those areas. However, Prato adds some information about the Office of Student Affairs (OSA) connection that is new to me, albeit a subject of my conjectures.

Regarding the notorious Vicky Triponey and her involvement in the 2007 off-campus fracas involving several members of the football team, Prato writes:

The footnote credits the head of the OSA at the time – Vicky Triponey, who is not mentioned by name – as telling the committee she “perceived pressure from the Athletics Department, and particularly the football program, to treat players in ways that would maintain their ability to play sports,” and that Spanier later reduced the sanctions OSA imposed on the players. Since the scandal broke, Triponey has been saying this and more to a susceptible media unwilling to seek out a countering view. Thus far, no one has publicly rebutted her. One who might – Curley – cannot talk about it now for legal reasons. If Spanier told the committee anything about the disciplinary situation in 2007 during his interviews, it isn’t mentioned. And, of course, Paterno isn’t alive to tell his side of the story.

There is no indication the investigators talked to anyone who might have a different opinion or looked into Triponey’s credibility – which is suspect.  Almost from the day she was hired, she battled constantly with the university’s student leaders, not just the athletic department and Paterno. Those student leaders were so angry about her dictatorial style they set up a Web page that still exists: The Vicky Triponey Timeline of Terror.

Furthermore, even before her arrival, the Judicial Affairs branch of the OSA was considered by a large segment of students and local attorneys to be a “kangaroo court.” In fact, what really precipitated Triponey’s sudden departure – she only recently admitted publicly that she was fired – was an extensive review of Judicial Affairs in 2007 by a campus-wide academic committee that Spanier had commissioned. When Triponey strenuously objected to the committee recommendations that Spanier adopted, she was given the opportunity to resign or be terminated.

Anyone can read that committee report at safeguardoldstate.org. Obviously, Freeh and his committee didn’t.

If you are a new reader of the Turkey, you need to know a couple of things about Vicky Triponey and her connections to the Penn State debacle. When NCAA president Mark Emmert was at the University of Connecticut, he hired Triponey.  Now, Triponey works at The College of New Jersey, where her boss, R. Barbara Gitenstein, is also the president of the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, the accreditation body that recently issued Penn State a warning about its accreditation being in jeopardy.  Because Triponey started mouthing off about Penn State immediately after the Sandusky scandal broke, two things were apparent: 1) she still had sour grapes about being forced out at Penn State (i.e., losing to Paterno) and Vicky vitriolically vied to vindicate her view of the evil football program, and 2) she had a lot of influential and connected players in the media, the NCAA, and the Big Ten in her address book, and she took the opportunity to haul out the heavy artillery. Her media blitz resulted in articles that lionized her (pun intended) as the woman who took on Joe Paterno and won.

Of course, the media and other influential entities are still piling on, given that Penn State is in such a vulnerable position, especially when they all know they can play the outrage and sympathy card by bringing up the victims of Sandusky’s crimes.

Prato sums up by stating that Penn Staters are aware of the deceit, but it is too bad that we have to endure the continual media and public bitterness to prove our points.

Read it!

Mark Emmert, Hypocrite

Posted on Written by

It doesn’t require much more digging than is possible with a cheap computer and an Internet connection to find a plethora of reference points calling out Mark Emmert’s hypocrisy.

Take Ken Armstrong’s op-ed in the Seattle Times, for example. In essence, he opined that the culture at the University of Washington that Emmert walked into was just as corrupt, as would be just about any big-time football school.

Then, there was Emmert’s famous quote, “Simply put, success in LSU football is essential for the success of Louisiana State University.”

In 2010, Mark Emmert called Joe Paterno “the definitive role model of what it means to be a college coach.” He sang a much different tune on July 23 this year.

Then, there’s Ty Duffy’s piece, in which he states:

The punishment and the manner of its delivery, though, still carry the whiff of catering to the prevailing wind and charging triumphantly into an already razed village to plow salt into the fields. The true work has been and is being done and this distracts from it. The NCAA piled on, largely because it can right now with impunity.

Or, Bob Kravitz, of the Indianapolis Star:

It’s as if the NCAA looked in the mirror, didn’t like what it saw and reacted by lashing out at Penn State.

Of course, an equal number of writers have excoriated Penn State for its transgressions, stating that the penalties were deserved and appropriate. It is hard to fight public opinion where child victims are involved, where rationality and reason often take a backseat to emotion. Who can argue with the fact that children were mistreated and nobody did anything about it? Anything up to and including revocation of Penn State’s charter is on the table when child protection hysteria sets in.

Mark Emmert viewed this emotional climate as the perfect opportunity to pile on in order to show that the NCAA was “doing something” about the ignominious influence of football over academics, exceeding his authority by making Penn State the poster boy for all formerly good universities that have become vacuous football factories. If he could, by virtue of the unfortunate Sandusky scandal, make a negative example of Penn State, a purported paragon of athletic cleanliness and academic excellence, then other institutions would quake in their boots. No one was safe. Moreover, the public’s thirst for blood would be assuaged and the NCAA would be viewed as the hero.

A hero hiding a dirty not so little secret: that it actively promotes the football culture it condemned so visibly with Emmert’s Penn State grandstand play. To paraphrase Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel: never let a good crisis go to waste. Emmert hopped onto Penn State; it was his perfect “wag the dog” opportunity.

One problem with this approach, aside from its dishonesty, vindictiveness, and inappropriateness, is that throwing all the heavy artillery fire Penn State’s way left the ammunition locker empty. Having described Penn State’s issues as “unprecedented”, calling for maximum punishment, Emmert gave himself no leeway for penalizing schools that transgress in the areas of his purview, the confluence of athletics and academics.

That leads us to the University of North Carolina, a classic case of a big-time athletic program making a mockery of the so-called student-athlete. As you may recall, an internal audit revealed 54 ghost classes that never met yet yielded credit-hours and grades for the lucky students, most of whom were athletes steered to them by academic advisers. The university has expressed a reluctance to dig deeper, afraid that what its investigation revealed is only the tip of the iceberg. Chancelor Holden Thorp is hoping this will all go away, but he is pledging his support to whomever cares to get involved. He has now asked for a former state governor and a national management consulting firm to investigate the scandal.

But where is Mark Emmert? Having lunch with Vicky Triponey?

The NCAA has been mum on the subject.

Isn’t this the type of scandal that is completely under the NCAA’s purview? When will we see some action on this, Emmert? I want to know when the NCAA takes on the basketball and football culture at UNC. Shadenfreude perhaps, but I’m willing to bet that UNC gets off easy.

What’s your next move, Mark? The clock is running.

Sudden Impact — The Beat Goes On

Posted on Written by

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.

******

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?

******

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.

******

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.

******

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!)