Eleven Warriors

tl ; dr

No Penn State, you will not be a constructive leader in reporting and preventing these things. You will be the ASSHOLES that covered this up and harbored a sexual predator for more than a decade for your own profit and gain.

Get off your high horse Penn State. You are the most sickening and disgusting institution of higher education.  Anything you do now is reactive and is just throwing lip service at an issue that had a CLEAR and EASY remedy that 99.9% of society would have chose in your position.

^^ this. If you accept responsibility, how do you justify yourself as one of the best people to lead the institution and spearhead change? Empty words.

It really pisses me off that they keep saying "mistake" this was much more than a mistake. A mistake is when you order a pepsi instead of a coke. This was a very deliberate coverup of a very horrific crime!

Steensn,

That isn't how it works. Heads roll and organizations pay penalties when stuff like this happens. The people who then replace their headless predecessors are left with the task of moving on after both the atrocity and the subsequent penalties. There is no piling on here-everything Penn State is going to have to go through is deserved. With Joe being dead and Curley and Schultz and Spanier being gone, and Sandusky being imprisoned, Penn State isn't off the hook. To be honest, they need to be made a harsh example of. This is the worst American Sports scandal and quite frankly, nothing will ever approach it. Someone needs to make sure that is the case by making the penalties and punishment SO severe that nothing approaching this ever happens again. Simply removing\punishing the major perpetrators is only the start.

Please take what I said into context, I said they should be punished and I've said it a lot in other threads. I'm only addressing the reaction to the current admins words and people over reacting to them. They didn't do it, thy are not monsters, no one needs to step down. They can't take responsibility, they arent the ones that covered it up.

The former penn state admin did it, and penn state should be punished. But no need to harp on the current admin and call them out for something they didn't do. They booted everyone involved out they could before any of the reports came out and thy knew the extent. Don't call for their heads, but yes call for penn state punishment.

BHop,

Yes I do. I think its right that OSU is punished because they are greater than the sum of its parts. The players and coach are wrong but it happened under OSU's watch and therefore, they pay the price. Also, you say "At least LOIC" but there is nothing 'least' about LOIC. Its the most severe charge in the book. I'm saying Penn State didn't actually fail to monitor anything and when covering something up actually displayed a total lack of control, as a matter of speaking.

In addition to the argument that NCAA punishments impact those who were not involved in the wrongdoing (and justly so one could easily argue, though I wish they would be more severe to the perpetrators), I would add that those associated with PSU are already facing some punishment with their football program and university being publicly dragged through the mud, and rightly so.  What sickens me is those people seem more concerned with the PR for their institutions and getting back to normal.  While preserving everything as if their university leaders caused no harm is their main focus.  Their culture--the rioting after Paterno's termination, the insane harassment of Triponey after she stood up to Paterno and perhaps is one of the only people who ever has, their blind worship of Paterno, and esteem of the football team above all else--also played a large role in all of this.  They are a huge part of the power basis which Joe Paterno wielded to do as he pleased--including covering up for child molester.

PSU, as it turns out, was very understaffed for compliance, just like they were egregiously neglectful to comply with the Clery Act.  They obviously did not have the proper structure in place to balance power and maintain accountability. The leadership of the institution, the fans, the football players, the media all bet on Joe Paterno, founder of the Grand Experiment, proclaimer of success with honor. They all blindly believed he always did the right thing. Why else neglect to staff a proper compliance office? Why else allow Paterno to handpick his AD? Why else write puff piece after puff piece about how great a guy Joe is? They were all wrong. And because they let that man call his own shots several children, innocent young boys, paid a price far more dear than any of them ever will pay as a result of this tragedy. Let them transfer to a different school. Let them watch as a deceitful, corrupt man's legacy, statue, and altar of worship is torn down. Let them find a new team to root for, or for the love of God, take a breather from college football for a year. THEY should be the ones demanding these changes, and calling for strict self-imposed penalties. It would be but a small pittance in the whole scheme of losses.

Even during the day the Freeh report was released I was not leaning towards harsh penalties like the death penalty.  I read the report, its findings, reactions and opinions from other. I thought "this bad, even worse than I thought it would be in a worst case. "  It's taken some time, but the more I read and the more I digest of this the more I lean toward harsh penalties for this institution, including the death penalty or maybe even the DOE 'death penalty' (which I view as way worse, 'nuclear bomb penalty' sounds more appropriate to me). I also don't say this lightly, these worst case penalties could be harmful for the Big Ten and its members, including Ohio State. (What was the name of that conference SMU played in again?) I also hope that doesn't cloud our judgement.

I can't believe I'm even going to quote from a Rick Reilly article (I hate him almost as much as I hate Peter King, and...I'll just stop there). Reilly is spot on in this piece, and he owns his own misjudgements and part in this mess regarding Paterno.

"What a sap I was.

I hope Penn State loses civil suits until the walls of the accounting office cave in. I hope that Spanier, Schultz and Curley go to prison for perjury. I hope the NCAA gives Penn State the death penalty it most richly deserves. The worst scandal in college football history deserves the worst penalty the NCAA can give. They gave it to SMU for winning without regard for morals. They should give it to Penn State for the same thing. The only difference is, at Penn State they didn't pay for it with Corvettes. They paid for it with lives." 

I loathe ESPN, but this another opinion that hits the nail on the head: 

"It went so far that this Penn State four could no longer keep their lies, their corrupted priorities, in order. It went so bad that even the power -- that so often does whatever it can to protect itself -- could no longer deny all that the trusted had not done and had to request outside review that produced a numbing, devastating self-criticism that makes it impossible to deny what must be done.

Penn State cannot be allowed to have a football team."

Personally, I see a movement that is continuing to grow as it sees the grounds and justification for harshly punishing this corrupted university with upside down priorities. The facts of the larger scope of this 14-year failure are coming to light, and it is beyond ugly. 

Just compare the Second Mile with the university and the football program.  It was a 35 yar old charity which served at-risk youth.  A far greater cause than PSU football, despite the rhetoric that Paterno used as a tool for recruiting and fundraising (and crafting an image that gave him more power). That non-profit charitable organization with good programs that parents and school partners still see a need for is being shut down because donors will no longer support it, volunteers will no longer serve it, and agencies will no longer refer it. Yet, as I have read, donations to PSU have actually increased? It is clear where priorities are when it comes to PSU and football, and they clearly have not learned.

Can they stop calling it a mistake? A mistake is a one time thing. Not reporting this for 14 years was making a mistake each and every day- that's around 5,110 mistakes. That far, far outweighs any good side of the ledger. It isn't one mistake versus all the good Paterno and PSU did during that time- it is 5,110 decisions to allow child rape versus those good things. It's actually more since multiple people covered it up. Four main people, so 20,000 plus mistakes at least.

That's not even taking into account what a mistake really is. A mistake is putting orange juice in your cereal insteadof milk. Failing to report child rape is not a mistake- it's a failure to be a human being at even the lowest decent level. Its a failure to do the most basic act of any species on Earth; protect its young and next generations.

And why? For football.