Why punish the students for something faculty did. What if a professor did it, would you shut down the school? No you fire the staff involved, charge them and move on. Cancelling the football program makes no sense.

lol, exactly this.

And like it or not, this is the reason nothing will happen from the NCAA.

Its funny watching people say stuff like that. Some of the time its motivated by some sort of weird jealously like being able to find any reason to bash on thier own school's or alma mater's enemies, but the rest is just bandwagoning when people don't even know what happened or who was involved and to what extent.

A little off-topic here, as I could care less about a game of football; I'd like to address bandwagoning.


This is particular to people like badguy and myself (not to really single out badguy), who have often posted things of somewhat unverifiable (but widely believed) substance. It's taken me a long time to recognize 'when' I'm bandwagoning, and it often requires the pointing out of these things by people such as fomenta. The point being that I appreciate it when someone recognizes human behavior for what it is, and makes certain to correct their fellow man on specific incongruities in proper behavior and to essentially ensure that people learn to adjust their responses to various stimuli appropriately and with due temperance.

Kwang, I hope you didn't take what I said personally -- I don't know the extent to which you've read about the specifics of this situation.

I wasn't talking about any post in here specifically, but just about the general reaction of "people" to this incident.

Here's the thing. Its F*CKING terrible. Its a terrible situation, Sandusky got off easy in my book. It's instinctive to be appalled by what happened. But that doesn't mean we get to ignore the specific facts of the situation.

For example, I was talking to my friend about this the other day. Here's how the conversation went pretty much:

-- Her: So what do you think of Paterno now after the Freeh report?
-- Me: I don't know
-- Her: Well certainly you don't think he deserves to be held in such regard -- or to have a statue
-- Me: You think? Did you read the report? (I knew she didn't, at the most she skimmed it, most likely she just read some huffingtonpost article)? You've made that judgement based on a few pages of a single 300 page report? A report which focused very narrowly on a tiny sliver of the events of his life and which he can't even defend himself against because he's dead.
-- Her: I didn't, I just read an opinion piece -- it said that the pages in the report are more important than a football game
-- Me: I don't even know what that means. Thinking that he valued something like the football program or his legacy over children's safety would require a whole level of evil that I'm not ready to attribute to anyone without conclusive proof -- especially not to someone like Paterno who spent his life selflessly trying to help kids and donating his fortunes.
-- Her: Thats true.

Here's the thing. I played devil's advocate with her just because I knew she had no idea about the specifics and just based her opinion on some random blog post or editorial she read. What she doesn't get is that its the poster's job to draw eyes to their site. The competition for user's eyeballs is in high demand and the market is WAYYY oversaturated. So they write the stories in the most salacious ways possible, misleading or not, who cares? There is little editorial integrity these days whether online, on television or on print. The more sensational the more traffic it drives, even if its unecessarily so (see Glenn Beck).

I would never have this conversation with someone I didn't know as well as I do her, because the response I would get would be "are you telling me you support child rape?"

Of course not, but I can have an intelligent discussion about the facts without letting my emotions take over. But this is not the case with many people.

I've thought about this a lot, and I don't know what it is. There is something about certain specific situations that makes otherwise-intelligent people act like cavemen. The reaction to our reaction to 9/11 is a lot like this as well. For a while, you could attempt to have a discussion with an otherwise-reasonable person maybe expressing your concern for the wars America was committing to in the Middle East and you'd get this odd look and maybe a response of "So, you're saying you support terrorism?"

Not everything is as black and white as ____________ would lead you to believe. Not everything is as clear cut or salacious either.

Now, ignoring this situation and just talking about editorials, there's a difference between having an opinion and having an informed opinion. Not everyone that gives you their opinion is informed about what the F*CK they're talking about. I have an opinion on tons of stuff, but hardly any of them are informed. Of these columnists, I'd say maybe 10% are informed. And out of those 10% maybe half or less will write a fair, objective piece without needlessly over-dramatizing it.

I fall into these trap as much as the next person, don't get me wrong, but I've noticed that there is an enormous amount of bandwagoning surrounding these events in particular. I don't know why.

I had a few paragraphs typed up about my uninformed opinion but I took it out, because I don't know about enough of the facts of the situation to make a sufficiently informed opinion. The moral was that the guy who did this is horrid and got off easy.

(sorry for the long rant)

Not sure why you consider me a bandwagoner..... is it because I don't have time or energy to fact-check every statement that comes out of my mouth?
I know you're not trying to be a dick or anything but I'm the last person to ever be considered a "bandwagoner", as my nature is to question everything and believe nothing untill I can proove it for myself. Once I have done the research and am confident I know what I'm talking about, I form my own opinion and move on. However, people always ask me to "proove it" then when I show them documents they then tell me that the source is bad or its just a lie, But when I ask them where they got their story from they always say T.V. (faux,cnn)

Lets be honest. the media has a clear agenda to sensualize and get rateings and make money. The media is not interested in the truth. Which is why i tell folks that sites on the internet are more credible because people who put the information out online have nothing to gain. If someone makes a webpage putting out information they arent making money or worrying about rateings, to me this makes the information possibly more credible then television. But all I hear from teachers in school is "oh anybody can put things on the internet", which is true, anybody can, that doesn't mean the person who did it is a total scumbag with an agenda. Doesn't mean the information is bad, yet people always wanna associate the internet with un-profesional behavior.

Fomenta is right about how people hear shit and just dont investigate it and run their mouths like sheep. Joe Pa did know about the abuses, which is why everyone wants him to be punished, but you can't cuz he's dead. You can't punish the football program either, because then you are punishing the kids, and thats not right. However, the SCHOOL administration needs to be removed for covering it up. But yeah the lemming-like mentality in this country is annoying as F*CK.

My advice:

Make fake accounts with the exact same username, on websites that you'd never go to. Equestrian forums, stamp collecting forums, romance novel discussion groups, etc. Use different birthdays, names, locations and contact info (AIM, gmail, etc.). You can use some of the same info repeatedly (if you do this, don't do less than 3 "alternate identities) or different random info for each site. Don't use any of your other passwords. Use throw away email accounts from sites like http://mailinator.com/. Make this info as public as you can if there are settings (it might be worth checking out existing member's profiles first, to see how much info can be shared). In all you should still be a guy. In a few, sprinkle in the true information (where you're comfortable).

Take a few accounts and go into a bit more depth, use the same profile pic or avatar for them (you can just steal one off a google image search for faces or whatever).

But before this, change the info or close any random accounts that you own legitimately. Changing the info is actually better, but closing them might be preferred as it keeps things neater.

Create an email address specifically for your online identity, don't give any personal information in when signing up, even to Google. Change as many email address settings as makes sense to this new email address. If getting the email will be a problem you can always forward the email from new one to your main one. Never link yourself as Kwang to your real name, at least not somewhere that is crawlable.

Set all your facebook-type pages to private and never, ever, ever accept people you don't know. Half the time these are throw-away bot accounts that scrape your data and then provide it (for a fee) to investigation services, background check sites etc. Remove any friends you have that you don't know. Don't let "friends of friends" do shit.

Don't say or do anything online, even under alternate names or accounts that you wouldn't want linked back to the IRL person. If someone wants to spend the time connecting the dots, they will. I want to see what happens to presidential elections in 20 years.

There is little doubt that Paterno at the very least suspected what was happening and conspired with other top Penn State officials to conceal it. Louis Freeh, the former Director of the FBI, was hired as a consultant to investigate and this is what he said:



There is no bandwagoning going on here, no misdirected jealousy, no unwarranted desire to punish. What happened at Penn State was disgusting and criminal. Several of the officials involved are no facing the very real possibility of criminal charges for their involvment in this scandal.

The outrage of the public is completely warranted in this case, especially in light of the fact that Sandusky was convicted on 45 counts of child molestation and based on an independant third party investigation executed by a reputable and qualified professional the officials in charge knew what was going on.

Penn State must be sanctioned. The NCAA severely punishes athletic programs for improper recruiting and compensating athletes outside of the scholarship program, I remember in the 80's when the SMU football program got the death penalty for paying players. What happened at SMU back then pales in comparison to the fact that the Penn State administration knew what was going on in this case and chose to cover it up.

Yeah, I read this -- about the first 100 pages then skimmed the rest. Not sure if you did, but had you, you would probably agree it was written more like an editorial than a fact-finding report, which was disappointing.

I read the report looking for facts, not conjecture. I have no doubt that this was their opinion, but they weren't able to support it with facts. You can choose to believe this opinion, many have, but if I like to thieserve the benefit of the doubt, especially when it comes to weighty accusations such as these, so I extend that to everyone. Its a shame others are so quickly to judge.

Yep, 100% agree.

I don't know man, that report does not read much like an editorial piece. There is a detailed timeline of verifiable events on pages 19-30 that clearly shows how the main cast of characters colluded to keep things quiet, including their describing the plan of action as "more humane" than bringing in the police. Every chapter opens up with a list of relevant key findings to the subject that are clear facts followed by some exhaustive documentation of the facts that support those findings, and it details how the administration chose to violate its own policies as well as Federal Law in regards to reporting and investigation of child abuse.

There really is not much in the way of opinion in that report...it is a pretty damning analysis of what went on for over a decade. I would not call it a rush to judgement by any stretch...this was a detailed analysis of some very heinous activities that resulted in allowing a child predator to continue molesting victims for years.

The NCAA really needs to go the distance on sanctions here...the football program and the entire athletic department at Penn State needs to be completely dissassembled and rebuilt untainted by any existing personnel. This one warrants a more severe penalty than what was handed out to SMU in the 80's. I would say a 5 year ban for football and a mandatory sacking of the entire athletic department is in order here. The knowledge of what was happening is too far reaching within the organization, and the entire thing needs to be washed.

I don't like to read big posts or write them so ill keep it simple. College football is the single biggest money maker for a college,Penn state made a ton of money the years this shit went on and they knew about it. With that said they should lose their program for good time period,5 years sounds like a winner 3 would even be good. Believe me as a fan i was caught pulling for a team that lost their right to go to a bowl for a year only to have a perfect season,it hurt. But this isn't about the players or the fans its about them making money when they should have taken their lumps.And im sure all the players could petition to the NCAA to not lose any eligibility if they transfer,they have done this before.

If the news on the radio is right, the sanctions come out today. They also plan on removing his statue (apparently he has a statue on campus), but they'll be leaving his name on the Library. Word on the street is that there were threats to the school if the statue stayed. Not sure how true that is, but I wouldn't be surprised.

I not sure I was clear with what I thought about the whole situation before, but basically: I hope people would give me the benefit of the doubt and the presumption of innocence, so I like to extend it to everyone else, Paterno included. I realize the deck looks stacked against him, but I can only wonder if it would look the same as it does now if he were still alive to defend himself.

I just would hate to do a lifetime of good deeds and have them all thrown away by an innocent mistake. (Assuming its innocent, we'll never really know. If it wasn't, then fuck him too.)

Think about it.

Seems like wishful thinking. This article says the last time a program was shut down by the NCAA was in 1987 and for only a year. And Wikipedia says its only been done 5 times.

Also, ESPN reports they won't get the death penalty at all. This article also says that the NCAA taking these steps without infractions directly related to the program are unprecedented, and there is some debate about whether any sanctions, once announced, will even stand after review.

http://msn.foxsports.com/collegefootball/story/penn-state-punishment-jerry-sandusky-sex-abuse-scandal-072312

They got nuked. They did not get the death penalty only because the program was not currently under sanctions which is a prerequisite for that. In any case the sanctions they did get pretty much amount to the same thing.

It is doubtful these will be overturned. The NCAA has broad discretion in applying sanctions when there is evidence to suggest illegal or immoral behavior on the part of program officials. Arguing that the NCAA has never aplied sanctions for this is untrue. In fact illegal activities are often included in the list of reasons behind sanctions, and have often colored the severity of the sanctions. The only thing that can be said is that the NCAA has never acted unless there is also some violation of their own rules as well.

The actions of Paterno and the Penn State athletic department leadership pretty much forced the NCAA's hand on this one.

I don't know about that prerequisite thing. I read that also, but all the talk up until today leads me to believe it was an option. And at the press conference they didn't say it wasn't an option, they said they chose not to do it because they didn't think it would have been a proper punishment.

In terms of whether it is unprecedented, you'll just have to take that up with the sports columnists like the one who wrote the ESPN one I linked.

You're right about not overturning it though. The board members were the ones saying they were appalled about the actions of the NCAA and they would fight it, but the NCAA press conference indicated that the univ. president knew about the sanctions and consented to them. Good for him really, take the punishment and try to move on.

From what I heard on the radio that penn state actually negotiated these sanctions with the ncaa, and that it was this or they would get the death penalty for a year plus other sanctions. I don't know if this is full true and doubt we will ever really know but I don't think penn state accepted these happily or justly. I am only guessing but I would assume the ncaa said take it or we will nuke you and penn state bent over.

What they got was worse than the death penalty.60 million in fines loss of scholarships loss of bowl games. They also lose all wins from 98 till now so Bobby is back in the lead and like i said any player can transfer this year and play this year,that's hardly ever done.And the NCAA reserves the right to hand down even more penalties after this is over. I was a Joe Pa lover till this went down but F*CK him,im satisfied. By the time the civil lawsuits are over their wont be a Penn state anymore.

Just saw a funny little headline while I was watching baseball on ESPN: apparently, Paterno's family is quite upset that the NCAA didn't consult them before they handed out all these sanctions and fines....

What if you get IP traced?

So fucked up, lemme get this straight, you're gonna punish the school's administration by erasing football records earned by the students who had nothing to do with this scandel?? so wrong, I am all for teaching the school a lesson by punishing the people who run the college, Punishing the students and football program is the most idiotic thing I have seen in a long time. But hey, thats the NCAA.

So if a teacher raped a kid, and the teacher just so happened to teach a class needed for your degree, Does the NCAA have the power to take back your degree???? because that is essentially the same logic involved. They went beyond punishing the people involved and have moved on to punishing student atheletes that had nothing to do with anything. Why people are cheering for this makes absolutely NO SENSE whatsoever.