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Penn vs. PSU: A Tale of Two Scandals
Philly Mag's Richard Rys, the author of the excellent 2007 piece about the University of Pennsylvania's pathetic handling of the Scott Ward case to which I referred in Sunday's column, dropped me an email this morning. A nice one.
In it, he mentioned that he'd noticed the eerie similarities between the Sandusky and Ward cases back when the Penn State story broke last year and he posted a piece about it at the Philly blog. I just read it for the first time and it, too, is excellent.
Check it out here.
Stay tuned for more about all this in tomorrow's newspaper.
In it, he mentioned that he'd noticed the eerie similarities between the Sandusky and Ward cases back when the Penn State story broke last year and he posted a piece about it at the Philly blog. I just read it for the first time and it, too, is excellent.
Check it out here.
Stay tuned for more about all this in tomorrow's newspaper.
posted by Spencerblog at
7:40 AM
23 Comments:
Good read. Thanks. This line say's it all "his colleagues either defended him, or worse, ignored their instincts; and it wasn’t until the day he was arrested that Sandusky was cast aside."
A bit of a factual error in the underlying blog post of Mr. Rys. The author says:
"Penn State’s treatment of Sandusky was nearly identical: After multiple accusations of child abuse, the school gave him emeritus status and an office; his colleagues either defended him, or worse, ignored their instincts; and it wasn’t until the day he was arrested that Sandusky was cast aside."
In reality only one claim of child abuse was made prior to Sandusky's retirement and the charges were dropped and the university was told that no criminal activity had taken place.
This is "good read." Great comparison of the two cases. I did not know the detailed background of the Ward case. People, especially at Penn, should be outraged at Ward's special treatment.
Anyone surprised that Bob chose to spew the line that's factually incorrect?
No, neither was I.
Thanks for the link and the kind words, Gil. As for the issue raised by Anonymous regarding Sandusky's early behavior, the police spoke with two boys in 1998 who told similar tales of abuse. Here's a timeline of events:
http://www.npr.org/2011/11/08/142111804/penn-state-abuse-scandal-a-guide-and-timeline
Richard Rys:
Your biography says you are an adjunct journalism professor in addition to being a freelance writer in Elle, New York, Details and Cosmopolitan. The Philadelphia magazine blog, with the exception of Chris Friend, is almost uniformly liberal in its perspective.
Wouldn't it be accurate to say that publishing an article in your preferred media forums requires a certain politically correct bias?
So unless you found a way to trash a conservative icon like JoePa your words probably would never have seen the light of day.
With that understanding, how do you think your article is fair when it associates JoePa having bodies in the backyard with convicted criminals like Ward and Sandusky?
Why didn't you explain how you thought a football coach could overrule the Centre County DA who declined to press charges against Sandusky?
Why didn't you explain how you thought a football coach could overrule the child welfare authorities who approved Sandusky as an adoptive parent?
Why didn't you explain how you thought a football coach could overrule the university's General Counsel who legally advised that Sandusky couldn't be treated any different than any other retiree?
Why didn't you explain how you thought the football program "enabled Sandusky's abuses for years" when he hadn't worked for the program for 12 years?
(For the Bob-impaired, the real Jake, going into his PSU senior year, was in 3rd grade the last time Sandusky was officially associated with the football program.)
Don't you find it rather hypocritical to speculate about JoePa's character when you write for magazine and their blog that chooses to employ a convicted felon and sexual predator like Larry Mendte?
Jake - Why did you find it necessary to mention the age of your son at the time Sandusky was involved with the football program? That's just plain weird Jake. I think we're going to learn a lot more about your beloved JoePa as time goes on. And it's not going to be good.
@ Jake:
If you’re to right of Mr. Spencer on this, you might want to calm down a bit. Gil wouldn’t recommend an obituary on report on a dog show written with liberal bias as a good read, so why are you jumping down Mr. Rys’ throat on some mythical liberal bias.
I’m all for calling out and giving grief to people false attempting to give some mythical level of law enforcement power to Joe Pa or who seem to want to blame a round brown object for Sandusky’s behavior or won’t give enough blame to Spanier’s failure to run the organization properly, but I doubt anybody is going after Joe Pa because he was Republican.
Some facts:
- Chris Friend, who is as conservative as Nancy Pelosi is liberal, is roasting Corbett for protected his campaign contributors (all Republican mind you) instead of procecuting Sandusky the right way.
- Ray Gricar, the district attorney for Centre County in 1998, is the elected Republican who failed to prosecute Sandusky when there was enough credible information to do so.
To be clear, I’m not blaming Republicans for this at all. I’m just pointing out some facts that don’t jibe with your anti-Republican media fetish.
So Jake, until some news organization publishes a headline like “Republican Party Conspires to Molest Boys at Penn State” you need to get over your sasquatch hunting on the “liberal media” at Philadelphia Magazine trying to take down Joe Pa. The element of this story doesn’t exist. If it did, I’m sure Gil would be point it out rather than linking to the story with words of praise.
@ Bob:
All you need "to learn about Joe Pa" is that like many other middle managers, he chose to protect his job and keep negative attention away from his department rather than oppose the wishes of his employer who wanted to fire him if given the chance.
If you’d like to feed in to the “Joe Pa should have used his magical powers to make Sandusky disappear” meme, go ahead.
If you wanted Joe Pa fired because he didn’t do more to limit Sanduksy’s access to football facilities on campus, go ahead.
If you think the statue should have been taken down for the whole situation, feel free.
You jumping on here with “I think we’re going to learn more” is totally unfounded. It’s as foolish as taking away football from the student athletes, students, and fans who had nothing to do with this problem or acting like Joe Pa’s 409 wins didn’t happen.
MediaMike - The four sweetest word's in the English language are "I told you so"
Gore Vidal
You'll see Mike. You'll see.
In response to Mr. Rys reply about early accusations of child abuse, it is important to note that in addition to Victim 6, whose charges were found to be unfounded, one other young man reported "similar conduct" to that alleged by Victim 6, but there is no evidence that he accused Sandusky of molestation. Moreover, there is no indication that this second incident was conveyed to anyone in the Penn State administration who was negotiating (and had been negotiating prior to the 1998 incident) the terms of Sandusky's retirement. Precision about facts is important and Mr. Rys has glossed over the important details of the 1998 incident to assist in making his case. In fact the evidence of which we know about the pre-retirement period is there was in fact only one accusation.
MediaMake - FYI, I'm in agreement with most on this site that the penalties levied against the football players, the team, and the removal of past wins was unnecessary and unfair. However, I still believe that Paterno knew about Sandusky for years and turned a blind eye. I thought this before the Freeh report, and I believe information in the Freeh report supports my belief. As far as I'm concerned, Paterno was caught lying. Some would say he was just old and forgetful. Maybe so, but I'm not buying it.
Bob Bohne,
You are allowed to believe whatever you wish. Just because someone believes in Santa Clause, the Easter Bunny or that Elvis isn't dead doesn't make any of those things true.
Let me get this right, Bob: You say that you are in favor of the penalties levied against the football players? You have to be kidding. Please tell me you misspoke, Bob. Why should the players in 2012 be subject to penalties that you are in favor of due to the alleged trangrssions of the University's administration that occurred in 2001 and prior? This is 2012, Bob. The players of today are only in their late-teens or early-20s. Which means they were in grade school when McQueary reported what he says he reported. Please explain why in your liberal logic these kids should be penalized. What did they do wrong?
Charlie - Do you actually read others posts or do you just assume? I'm going to assume. I'm going to assume that you're a moron. So let me help you get this right Chuck. I did NOT say I was in favor of the penalties. Read it again Chuck. Read it slowly.
Bob Bohne, assume is just another way of saying believe, so you are assuming Joe Paterno knew about Sandusky for years. Just a wee bit inconsistent to take someone else to task for doing exactly what you have done.
Anon (Charlie) - Bite me
I think Charliesix owes Bob Bohne an apology for going on a rant and accusing Bob of saying just the opposite of what was really said. We'll see how much of a man Charliesix really is.
Bob Bohne, it wasn't Charlie, but I am concerned about the lack of intelligence in that "bite me" response. Are you still in junior high?
Anon - You're right. I'm sorry.
I meant to say "bite me dough boy"
Bob Bohne,
See you've regressed to elementary school.
Thanks Anon. Its good to feel young.
The smart money says Charliesix isn't man enough to man up to his error.
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