Thursday, July 12, 2012

Time for the NCAA to throw the book at PSU football

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The results of the PSU sex abuse scandal were made public today – just like many of us expected – PSU officials to include former head football coach Joe Paterno covered up these heinous and disgusting vile acts for over 14 year period, there is no excuse for this felonious criminal behavior, none.

PSU officials have known since 1998 that Jerry Sandusky was a sexual predator and was abusing young boys on the grounds of Penn State University, yet they covered these crimes up. This is unacceptable! The Penn State officials that covered up these crimes are also culpable for the heinous acts that were committed against the victims of Jerry Sandusky.

There is no way of sugar coating this - this is a horrible disgusting scandal cannot go unpunished – the NCAA has to respond to this, if the NCAA fails to respond to this in an acceptable manner they have no credibility what-so-ever. The NCAA needs to come down hard on the PSU football team - the "death penalty" for the PSU football team would be a good start.
State College, Pennsylvania (CNN) -- Penn State's most powerful leaders showed "total and consistent disregard" for victims of child sex abuse and failed to protect children, according to the findings of a long-awaited internal review over how the university handled a scandal involving its former defensive coordinator. In fact, the report says several former officials "empowered" Jerry Sandusky to continue his abuse, and investigators say legendary head football coach Joe Paterno could have stopped the attacks had he done more. Read the report here (PDF)
I read a good number of the Freeh report until I couldn’t stomach any more of it - I hope Jerry Sandusky rots in hell. There are a few items in this report that I found to be really egregious. The University knew about this as early as 1998.
Investigators found that even before May 1998, "several staff members and football coaches regularly observed Sandusky showering with young boys," but "none of the individuals interviewed notified their superiors of this behavior," according to the report.

It also found that university police "and the Department of Public Welfare responded promptly to the report by a young boy's mother of a possible sexual assault by Sandusky" in 1998, and top university officials were "kept informed of the investigation.
In what universe is an adult male showering with a young boy to be considered to be normal behavior – that should have been the last incident in this story not the beginning of a long line of abusive incidents. Again, there is not excuse to these incidents - none - the victims of Jerry Sandusky will suffer the effects of their abuse for the rest of their lives.

Another thing that I find disgusting is on Page 62 of the Free Report it states.
On Friday February 9, 2011, University graduate assistant Michael McQueary observed Sandusky involved in a sexual activity with a boy in the coach’s shower room in the University Lasch Building. McQueary met with and reported the incident to Paterno on Saturday, February 10, 2001. Paterno did not immediately report what McQueary told him, explaining that he didn’t not want to interfere with anyone’s weekend.
Wait, What? Didn’t want to interfere with anyone’s weekend, you’ve got to be kidding me. I had to read this twice because I couldn't believe that Paterno could be so callus, the health and safety of the children victimized are way more important than some university suit's weekend being interrupted because one of their assistant football coaches was a sexual predator and had perpetrated a felonious crime against a minor child. This is nothing but arrogance of an out of control football coach and staff.

Finally, They should take the statue that stands outside of Beaver Stadium and smash it into a thousand pieces melt it down and sell the rubble as scraps, because the actions of a few bad apples in  have tarnished the reputation for Penn State for a very long time.

The ball is in PSU’s court, the rest of the world is waiting for you to make the proper and right move.
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