Let's Open The Floor To Innuendo and Hearsay - Originally Posted 2/3/12 

Coach Joe Paterno passed on Sunday January 22nd, 2012 amidst a tremendous controversy regarding his "legacy".  There are two camps.  The Paterno Camp looks at Paterno's long tenure at the helm of Penn State's Football Program...his stewardship of the players and his commitment to making Penn State a great place as his lasting and positive legacy....

During a Memorial Service held at Penn State on Thursday January 26th, 2012, Penn State players such as Charles Pittman, Jimmy Ceffalo, Todd Blackledge, Michael Robinson and Michael Mauti made a strong case for Paterno's positive impact on the lives of the players, the families and the thousands of regular alumni who experienced Penn State.

During that same Memorial Service, it was left to Nike Sports Group President, Phil Knight to sound an ominous tone.  Knight used his time to provide some historical details on his relationship with Paterno.  Knight spoke of Paterno as a hero...perhaps a man who could inspire flawed individuals to greatness...but Knight also took time to discuss, briefly, the "scandal" which had enveloped Paterno and which perhaps put Paterno into a medical tailspin which ultimately proved fatal.

Mr. Knight spoke of how Paterno had been made aware of certain awful acts being committed by a Paterno's friend and confidant, Jerry Sandusky and passed the information up a chain of command to the leaders of a "world class university" so that a proper handling of the matter could be developed.

Phil Knight is a man and like any other man he is biased by his relationship with Joe Paterno.  But, he made a observation which up until that point had been under the table.  Once the scandal was revealed by Pennsylvania Attorney General Linda Kelly, Paterno was pilloried, tried and convicted in the court of public opinion and tossed into the gutter like a dead cat...Both Ms. Kelly and Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett stated that Paterno was guilty of nothing but "he could have done more"

Subsequent to these damning statements the Penn State Board Of Trustees sought to get ahead of the scandal by firing Coach Joe Paterno.  The news reached JoePA by a phone call from Steve Garban, the Chairman of The Board.  Sixty one years of service, donations to the university, a lifetime of dedication to Penn State...done with a phone call by a Board of Directors who must have know all about the situation...now submitted for your examination is a report from the NY Times on these events...all The Raptor can says is: Wow!

"By PETE THAMEL and MARK VIERA
Published: January 18, 2012

The board, scrambling to address the child sexual abuse scandal involving the university and its football program, had already decided to remove Graham B. Spanier as president. Then, many of those present recalled this week, the tension in the room mounted. Joe Paterno’s future was next up. Surma announced that an agreement appeared to have been reached to fire Paterno, too — the trustees having determined that he had failed to take adequate action when he was told that one of his longtime assistants had been seen molesting a 10-year-old boy in Paterno’s football facility.

Surma, those present recalled, surveyed the other trustees — there are 32 — for their opinions and emotions before asking one last question: “Does anyone have any objections? If you have an objection, we’re open to it.”

No one in the room spoke. There was silence from the phone speakers. Paterno’s 46-year tenure as head coach of one of the country’s storied college football programs was over, and the gravity of the action began to sink in.

“It was hard for us to want to get to the point where we were going to say that,” said Ira M. Lubert, a board member who works in private equity. “I was laying in bed that night shaking. And I couldn’t sleep — thinking: We just terminated Joe Paterno.”

The 100 or so hours beginning with the arrest of Jerry Sandusky, a former defensive coordinator for the football team, had built to a crescendo by that Wednesday night’s meeting of the trustees. By then, the campus was aflame with discontent. Penn State students and faculty, its alumni and its growing number of outside critics had been roiled by anger and confusion, embarrassment and sorrow. Reporters had inundated State College. It was, plainly put, the most trying time in Penn State’s 156-year history.

On Wednesday, in a conference room in New Jersey, a group of 13 trustees spoke to The New York Times in detail about that week — a somewhat frantic, certainly exhausting week that led to the firings of Paterno and Spanier and to the disturbances on campus that those dismissals set off.

The board decided to share its story because it grew weary of hearing criticism, which included calls from alumni who started a group known as Penn Staters for Responsible Stewardship in an effort to replace the current board members. The trustees, over three hours, described how they had felt blindsided by Spanier’s failure to keep them informed of the nature and scope of the Pennsylvania attorney general’s investigation of Sandusky, along with the investigation of university officials.

Spanier, two other senior university administrators and Paterno had all given testimony before a criminal grand jury by late spring of 2011. They had been questioned extensively about what they had done after learning of a report in 2002 that said Sandusky had molested a young boy in the showers of the football building. According to the trustees, Spanier never informed them of any of that before Sandusky’s arrest on Nov. 5.

The trustees also laid out what they said were three key reasons for firing Paterno: his failure to do more when told about the suspected sexual assault in 2002; what they regarded as his questioning of the board’s authority in the days after Sandusky’s arrest; and what they determined to be his inability to effectively continue coaching in the face of continuing questions surrounding the program.

The trustees, who had not spoken publicly in any detail since the firings, also disclosed that, while having fired Paterno, they were still honoring the terms of his contract and are treating him financially as if he had retired at the end of the 2011 season.

To some trustees, Paterno failed in not reporting to the police what he had been told of Sandusky’s suspected assault. Some of the trustees were also upset that Paterno was seen leading “We are Penn State” cheers on his lawn with students and fans who had gathered after Sandusky’s arrest, which some board members viewed as insensitive.

That Paterno knew of the nature of the suspected 2002 assault, which he stated in his grand jury testimony, was enough for some to decide that he had not acted appropriately in simply informing the university’s athletic director, Tim Curley, and another top official, Gary Schultz. Both of them have been charged with failure to report to the authorities what they knew about the incident and for subsequently lying to a grand jury.

“To me, it wasn’t about guilt or innocence in a legal sense,” the trustee Kenneth C. Frazier, the chief executive at Merck, said of Paterno’s decision not to go to police. “It was about these norms of society that I’m talking about: that every adult has a responsibility for every other child in our community. And that we have a responsibility not to do the minimum, the legal requirement. We have a responsibility for ensuring that we can take every effort that’s within our power not only to prevent further harm to that child, but to every other child.”

Saturday, Nov. 5

At 5 p.m., the trustees met via telephone for an emergency session.

The trustees on the conference call who had read the details of the charges against Sandusky and the two senior university officials felt a distinct lack of urgency by the university. Many were irked that Spanier had released a statement in full support of Curley and Schultz, who were indicted for perjury. The trustees were floored, they said, that Spanier did not seem to recognize the severity of the situation.

“We deal with crisis every day at this university,” they recalled Spanier saying. “We won’t have a problem with this.”

The trustees, meanwhile, were shocked by the charges — and caught completely unaware. There had been reports in The Patriot News of Harrisburg that a grand jury was investigating a claim that Sandusky had molested a local high school boy. But Sandusky had been retired from Penn State for years.

“There was a lack of information being provided to us,” said Mark H. Dambly, a trustee and the president of a real estate development company. “We found out about it when the rest of the world found out about it.”

Lubert, for his part, had just dropped off his son and daughter-in-law after brunch when he got a call from his son while driving home to Philadelphia. His son told him that Curley and Schultz had just been indicted on perjury charges.

“That’s impossible,” Lubert said. “If they were, I would know that.”

His son responded: “Do yourself a favor and when you get home turn on the television. It doesn’t matter what channel.”

Anne Riley, another trustee, said she would always remember being at the opera, sitting in seat 15, Row B, of the balcony, when she heard the news. The trustee Keith E. Masser was playing golf in Naples, Fla., and found out by peeking at his phone. Frazier heard about the severity of the situation while sitting in his car outside a burger place.

The trustees quickly realized that Spanier had chosen not to keep them informed.

During a board meeting last May, after Spanier had testified before the grand jury, the board received a short briefing — the trustees estimated it was 5 to 10 minutes — on Sandusky’s being under investigation by a grand jury.

The briefing, which took place during a “seminar” session not open to the public, included an explanation of what a grand jury investigation was by the university counsel Cynthia Baldwin. (Baldwin had sat in on the grand jury testimony but was not legally allowed to speak to the trustees about the contents of the testimony, according to Lanny J. Davis, external counsel and crisis management adviser to the office of the Penn State president and to the board of trustees.)

The trustees this week said that they were disappointed that Spanier, who was legally allowed to speak about his grand jury testimony, did not brief the board on the nature of the questions by the grand jury about the 2002 episode.

“He should have told us a lot more,” Lubert said. “He should have let us know much more of the background. He was able to legally share his testimony and I think that he had an obligation to do that with the board so we could get more engaged with the problem.”

The mention of the grand jury investigation by Baldwin and Spanier was so brief that Surma barely remembered it. No one asked questions.

“Part of being a leader at that level is to be a risk manager and to think through what might happen,” the trustee Karen B. Peetz, an executive with Bank of New York Mellon, said of Spanier.

Spanier has not been charged in the perjury case. He told the grand jury he was never told that Sandusky’s encounter with the young boy in the showers in 2002 involved sexual assault.

Spanier declined to comment for this article when reached on his cellphone. He listened, but would not respond, when told how the trustees had described his actions.

Paul Suhey, a former football captain for Paterno and an orthopedic surgeon in the State College area, was the only trustee on campus for the 5 p.m. conference call as others dialed in from around the country.

“I was pretty upset,” Suhey said. “I knew we had a problem.”

Steve Garban, the board’s chairman, admitted to not reading the grand jury’s charges until late Sunday night, more than 24 hours after it went public. After he did, he felt that Paterno, his former coach, lifelong friend and occasional drinking buddy, needed to be let go.

But the trustees concluded their call with a deepening skepticism about how the university administrators would handle it.

Peetz, the bank executive, said she came to a simple conclusion: “We are up against the challenge of our lives.”

Sunday, Nov. 6

The trustees met again Sunday night, some of them now on the scene in State College, having arrived by private plane or car. When they met, they realized that Spanier and others had already arranged for lawyers from two firms to be present, as well as representatives from a public relations firm. They were meant to brief the trustees on how to handle the crisis.

“It was indicative of the culture,” Dambly said. “We showed up and it was already determined what law firm it was going to be.”

The Sunday meeting ended with the trustees eager to issue a news release, expressing a commitment to a full internal investigation and sympathy for any victims.

In the interviews this week, they accused Spanier of having altered the release. It was made to appear as a joint release from Spanier and the board, and diluted the language involving the promised investigation.

“I got up the next morning to read the press release online and it really didn’t reflect what we had come to the conclusion of as a board,” Lubert said. “I remember reading that, and I was sick. I then knew we had a serious problem.”

Surma added: “The big difference that I remember was that we had very explicit comments about the independent investigation and what it would investigate and its freedom of access. What came out was something much different than that.”

Garban said he soon informed Spanier that he could no longer speak for the university on the issue.

“I have to take some blame for this,” Garban said. “I still sort of thought Graham could get us through this or help get us through this. And he participated in writing the press release, and after it came out, I knew it wasn’t right.”

Garban read the grand jury report after the meeting and regretted not reading it sooner: “It was like, ‘Oh my God, Steve, where’ve you been?’ It floored me.”

Tuesday, Nov. 8

On Tuesday, Surma and Garban met to have breakfast at the Nittany Lion Inn around 7:30 a.m. Sandusky’s arrest had been headline news for four days. Paterno was supposed to meet with reporters for his weekly conversation about the team’s next game.

A 1959 Penn State graduate, Garban was a former captain of the football team, and he subsequently had a 33-year career at the university. But several members of the board were upset with his leadership during the days after Sandusky’s arrest. Garban had remained loyal to Spanier for too long, some felt; other trustees wanted Spanier gone.

The trustees, indeed, were clamoring for a change. Garban recognized the discontent among the board members. So Garban and Surma asked for time alone. Sitting at the breakfast table, Garban broached the subject of changing the board’s leadership before Surma could even bring it up.

“John, let’s not go there,” Garban recalled telling Surma. “You need to take this over. And let’s agree — take it over.”

Stepping into the power vacuum, Surma joined Garban at Old Main, the central administration building on campus, to meet with university personnel, including Spanier. Surma said that it became clear to him that Spanier was no longer in control of the university. Surma said Spanier seemed to realize as much himself.

“Do I have support of the board?” Spanier asked Garban.

“I can’t answer that question,” Garban recalled replying.

The trustees promptly canceled Paterno’s weekly news conference. It was evidence of how much the board’s confidence in Paterno had eroded.

Then Surma said he started making preparations for what might come next with Spanier. He handed out orders to the university’s counsel and the public relations firms working on its behalf.

Perhaps the most important moment came when Surma met with Rodney A. Erickson, the university’s executive vice president and provost. Erickson explained to Surma that he did not know anything about the allegations until shortly before Sandusky was arrested. Surma believed Erickson was sincere.

Then Surma hinted that Erickson, who had been looking to retire in the near future, might be asked to take over the presidency.

“If it comes to it, we may need you,” Surma told Erickson.

Erickson simply replied, “O.K.”

Spanier’s inquiry about the board’s support set the agenda for what would be a conference call among trustees at 7 p.m. The call lasted two to three hours. Surma chaired the discussion and told the trustees that Erickson could be an alternative to Spanier.

That Erickson, who was widely respected by the trustees for his broad understanding of the university, said he would be willing to replace Spanier gave the trustees confidence about firing Spanier. But the trustees still had to make a final decision on Paterno. The seriousness of the task was not lost on the board members, and it was decided that the board would meet in person the next night.

“I’d like everyone to come together tomorrow and look people in the eyes,” Lubert recalled saying during the call.

Wednesday, Nov. 9

The trustees glumly descended on State College for what they knew would be a long and painful day. Lubert said that he had trouble sleeping. Peetz recalled feeling as if she were an executioner going to the guillotine. Stephanie Nolan Deviney, a trustee and a partner at the law firm Fox Rothschild in Exton, Pa., remembered going to the bedroom of her 7-year-old to kiss him before she left for State College.

“I thought of the mothers of all those boys in the presentment,” Deviney recalled this week. “And I thought about what they must feel when they kiss their sons good night.”

The trustees gathered in a conference room at the Penn Stater at 7 p.m. In a rare occurrence, the governor joined the meeting by telephone for its duration. However, the soberness of the discussion was broken up by the clamor of tool-belted workers crawling around under the table trying to fix the telephone line. “Governor,” Surma asked every few minutes, “are you still with us?”

The trustees first discussed Spanier’s status. The trustees said that they sensed there was a consensus about Spanier’s future as the president. Earlier, Spanier had tried to submit his resignation, but Garban and Surma did not accept it. Garban told Spanier that the board felt it needed to deal with the matter itself. So, instead, the trustees paged through Spanier’s contract, and then decided to fire him. They named Erickson the interim president.

Then the trustees decided the fate of Paterno, who had come to Penn State as a young assistant coach in 1950 and who had helped build it into a national university, to which he donated more than $4 million. The 13 trustees interviewed Wednesday said that Paterno did not reach out to them before the Nov. 9 board meeting, and some said that it would not have mattered, because they did not believe that he could say anything to save his job.

Wick Sollers, Paterno’s lawyer, issued a statement Wednesday in response to the accounts offered by the trustees: “After learning of the alleged incident in 2002, Joe Paterno reported it immediately and fully to his superiors at the university. He believed these officials, who had the authority and responsibility to conduct investigations, would act appropriately. He did what he thought was right with the information he had at the time. Blaming Joe Paterno for the failure of administration officials and the board to properly investigate Jerry Sandusky is unjustified.”

On that Wednesday night in November, though, the only thing left for the board to do was to figure out how to carry out the firing. Could representatives safely show up at Paterno’s home amid the media frenzy? Was it realistic to expect Paterno, then 84, to meet with the trustees? The trustees decided to fire him by telephone, a decision that many board members interviewed expressed as their biggest regret.

Shortly before 10 p.m., Fran Ganter, the associate athletic director for football, delivered an envelope to Paterno’s home, just off Penn State’s campus. Inside the envelope was a telephone number. Paterno called the number, and Garban answered. Then he passed the telephone to Surma, who was seated next to him. Surma asked if Paterno could hear him O.K. Paterno said that he could. Then Surma told Paterno of the trustees’ decision. “The board of trustees has determined effective immediately you are no longer the football coach,” Surma recalled saying.

Then he heard a click. Paterno hung up.

Surma and Garban sat at the table for a moment, numb. Then the telephone rang again. Surma answered. It was Paterno’s wife, Sue, who said, during a short conversation: “After 61 years, he deserved better.” Then she hung up on Surma.

Board members at the meeting lingered and eventually decided that they would join Surma at a news conference at a ballroom elsewhere in the Penn Stater. The ballroom quickly filled as hundreds of onlookers gathered. Trustees sat on a raised dais behind Surma, who sat stoically as Garban turned over the news conference to him.

Then Surma announced to a room full of reporters and television cameras, and to the country watching at home, that Penn State’s board of trustees had fired Joe Paterno."
 

The Raptor recalls lady from Pittsburgh who called into a show after the Paterno Memorial...she represents the other Paterno Camp...The Haters.  These so called Haters are tied by their distaste for the bad things Paterno did.  The list is lengthy...Paterno manipulated the football schedule, he threatened High School Coaches, Paterno eliminated Pitt from the football schedule as a grudge because Pitt joined the Big East Conference and most importantly, Paterno amassed a fortune in land deals as a result of insider info.

So Ms. Pittsburgh as The Raptor calls her said "all this admiration is well and good but, Paterno allowed a child to be raped at Penn State and did nothing about it" as if he was a villain.  How can you defend Paterno? It's impossible.

Underneath all this story is the culpability of individuals like Governor Corbett.  He seems to have been avoiding a direct path towards releasing any information to the public when he was presented with evidence during his tenure as Attorney General.  This could have created a groundswell of criticism which may have tanked his run for Governor.  Can you imagine the angst of the Pennsylvania Republicans who loved Paterno and lived in the great expanse of central Pennsylvania only to have their icon vilified.  Corbett would have lost...if anything, Governor Corbett should produce any email or correspondence from his election campaign which indicates a cover up and he should resign if it is determined that he held the news...

And how about Sports Reporters like Mike Lupica?  Every chance he gets he goes down hard on Paterno.  For Lupica, Paterno has no legacy...he looks at an interview which Paterno gave less than two weeks before he died.  Paterno said he was not very worldly so he was uncomfortable hearing allegations regarding rape of a man...Reporters like Lupica have repeatedly tied the molestation reports connected to the Catholic Church as proof that Paterno was being disingenuous since Paterno was Catholic and he should have known about that stuff....geeeze....

I think it's safe to say that Jerry Sandusky is probably enjoying this...but keep in mind that his future is none too bright...

The Audible Sigh - Originally Posted 11/19/11 

You all know the feeling...you are so overwhelmed with that feeling of depression and ennui that you issue the "audible sigh"...first made famous by former Vice President, Al Gore during the Presidential Campaign of 2000.  During debates held in the fall of 2000, Gore had the nauseating habit of issuing audible sighs whenever eventual winner, George W. Bush made one of his patently aggravating dumbass comments.

Now it seems that with every new day there is a new story coming from the Penn State Scandal which triggers the audible sigh.  Last evening was no exception as the world learned the former Nittany Lion Head Football Coach, Joe Paterno, is suffering from lung cancer.

The prognosis from the Paterno family is that the cancer is "treatable" and that Coach Paterno should make a full recovery.  Sigh....

This newest development is certainly sad news and it is probable that there will be some folks out there that will look at it as a "justly deserved" ending to the Coach's inability to do more to mitigate Jerry Sandusky's alleged transgressions back in the period from 1998 to 2002 when Sandusky did a lot of touching and a lot of trucking (sic).

As Penn State prepares to take the field today, The Raptor will be watching to see if the Lions can win won for Paterno.  Hang in there Joe...

Innuendo And Hearsay To Center Stage - Originally Posted 11/17/11 

The Raptor had to laugh.  One of his favorite TV Programs, "South Park" had jumped on the "bash Penn State" bandwagon and put together a sobering episode which was funny and sad at the same time. The episode "The Poor Kid.", had a number of offensive segments such as one in which a social worker is meeting with SP Principal Character, Eric Carman and says...

 "Now it says here that your mother was operating a meth lab,...and it also says here that Penn State prefers to be losing at halftime, because at Penn State, they like it when you're a little behind in the locker room. That's a joke, did you get that one? It's a play on words, we like to have fun here."
 

Oouuch! ...or....snap!.. depending on your politics...then later on in the episode the same social workers says to other unfortunate kids about to go into foster care...

"Now listen," the social worker told the kids. "You're going to be put into a foster home, so would you like to go to Neverland Ranch, the Catholic Church or Penn State University? [Laughs] We're having fun here, aren't we?"
 

How awful is this?...the daily news flash, the glaring commentary, Anderson Cooper talking to John Walsh about "the cover-up", Former Seantor, Rick Santorum, calling for Penn State to be banned from playing in a bowl game?!  WTF!

Then, our old friend, Mike McQuaery was in the news...

Penn State Assistant Football Coach, Mike McQueary...On Administrative Leave Of Absence...

McQueary, said that he informed some police agency that Jerry Sandusky was involved with a child in the shower in 2002  but no agency can locate a report...of any kind.  Now Michael Issikopf, a NBC Investigative Reporter, is on TV as I write this stating that McQueary played in beneficial fund raising football game with Sandusky and a charity golf tournament...after he witnessed Sandusky in the locker room in 2002 with the adolescent male!  Are you kidding me!...when will it end?!

On a different note, The Raptor would like to examine and call out both Governor Tom Corbett (past Attorney General) and present Attorney General Linda Kelly on this matter.  It was during Ms. Kelly's news conference to announce the findings of the grand jury two weeks ago that she used language such as..."Penn State Head Coach Joe Paterno informed other Penn State officials about Sandusky's actions and is not suspected of wrong doing...but he could have done more"  Governor Corbett seems to have endorsed Kelly's position himself...

Now, if Joe Paterno has been fired for "not doing enough" shouldn't Corbett and Kelly face the same fate?  After all, then Attorney General began investigating this matter in 2009 and he could have potentially allowed Sandusky to continue with pedophile type activities for almost 3 more years!

Sandusky Speaks! - Originally Posted 11/15/11 

The Raptor was surprised to learn that Bob Costas had interviewed Jerry Sandusky on his TV Show last evening.  A portion of the interview was shown this morning on MSNBC's Morning Joe...What Sandusky said to Costas wasn't unusual but it speaks volumes of how ill Sandusky must truly be. Mr. Sandusky talked about how he liked to "horse around".  He enjoyed mentoring adolescent males and perhaps shower with them and maybe participate in some towel snapping...yawn...c'mon Jerry get to the point. Oh really?...your point is that you are completely innocent of all these charges? Well...ooookkkkkaaaayyyyy...all is well!

So now folks like Joe Scarborough want Penn State to voluntarily shut down their football program for one year to suffer some sort of penalty as a result of this scandal.  Is one year enough? Can you imagine the logistics of this initiative?  All the collateral damage which has been seen so far is minimal compared to the cancelation of a huge rolling snowball....ya I know...it's about the victims! However, I am willing to acknowledge that perhaps cooler heads should prevail.  Maybe, somehow Penn State could embark on a 10 year commitment to benefit the victims by playing the games.  This may be a shallow concession coming from a Penn State Alumni but it's got to be a better idea than shutting down the program.

Innuendo and Hearsay Update...Penn State Fans as well as Penn State (Paterno) haters have long lived for the day when Joe Paterno was no longer the head coach.  There has always been a painful realization by the Fans that there is absolutely no one who could fill Paterno's shoes. But at the same time the Haters have developed a extraordinary level of "Schadenfreude" regarding Paterno.

For the haters, Paterno is an "old, miserable, crotchety, curmudgeon of a man who is over rated as a coach and should have retired years ago"...they now are publicly calling Paterno great while privately cheering his demise...but it's possible that there is another Paterno that no one knows about.

Consider this...as previously mentioned Joe Paterno knew about the Sandusky Problem  After all, why did Sandusky go from being the heir apparent head coach in 1998 to off the team in 1999.  By the  year 2000 when Sandusky began he post coach pedophile activities, Paterno was 70 years old.  Not ancient yet but let's face it...retirement was in his future.

But when the 2002 incident occurred, Paterno did report the matter to his superiors and he may have sensed that as a result of the pending "cover up" that future potential newly hired coaches would ultimately pay a heavy price if the matter ever saw the light of day.  As a result, Paterno held on, even though he was asked to resign in 2004 in the midst of a downturn in the on field success of the football team.

Now in 2011, Paterno and the entire University are facing immense pressure and it's possible that the program will face overwhelming sanction.  But with all of the public furor erupting, Paterno has been relatively quiet. Like I said, its all theory, innuendo and hearsay but it may be close to the truth.  Perhaps we will never know.  The Raptor is just not willing to curl in a corner and let the chips fall.

Let's Open The Floor - Originally Posted 11/11/11 

The news that Penn State Head Football Coach, Joe Paterno, had been fired on Wednesday evening produced a firestorm of protest and violence on the Penn State Campus.  The rioters were thought to be a few "bad apples" who took the opportunity to go rogue.  This incident, which was derided by the media is a perfect example of what can go wrong in this not-so-perfect world we live in.

The Penn State Board Of Trustees felt they made the right decision in The Best Interest Of The University"...I guess it didn't work out so well. 

Lost in all this hub bub is the plight of the nine "victims" of the scandal. Ironically, an attorney representing some of these victims is worried that they could become scapegoats...hmmmmm....you think? The attorney, Ben Andreozzi, also stated that firing Coach Paterno was a mistake.

The Raptor has been thinking of ways to give this story some traction since it's shelf life as a major story is tenuous.  This morning it dawned on me to use some circular logic in the same vein as Jason Whitlock had earlier this week.  You will recall that Whitlock, a sports reporter for Fox News, opined that Penn State had some how controlled the events leading up to the PA Attorney General's news conference last Saturday so that Penn State Football could score a Public Relation coup with the 409th victory of Joe Paterno's career.

So, lets open the floor to some innuendo and hearsay.  Sandusky was considered the "heir apparent" to assume Head Coaching duties upon Paterno's retirement.  Unfortunately, the 1998 shower incident had soured the coronation and Sandusky retired the following year.  In order to soften the blow (sic), the Penn State Administration continued to support Sandusky's non-profit efforts.  It was business as usual as Sandusky showed up periodically with "young boys" at public events such as the 1999 Alamo Bowl.

However, Sandusky had developed a insidious plan to crash the Penn State University into chaos.  That it took almost 10 years to carry out is pure genius.  Sandusky found a perfect patsy at The Second Mile and reached out to touch him...by showering him (sic) with gifts and attention.  This included a visit to Penn State to "see the gang"...maybe even get an autograph or two. 

On one particular evening in March 2002, noticing that major doofus, Mike McQueary was hovering around the Football Building attempting to make sure Sandusky kept his pants on, the brutish former jilted Defensive Coordinator set his plan in motion.  Knowing full well that Penn State would never want adverse publicity he engaged the victim and made sure McQueary saw him do it.

The rest is history...McQueary told his father (also a doofus) who told his son to not get involved but "pass the info up the chain". The fact that Mr. McQueary then drove around for 10 years with the story instead of doing something is just as damning as Paterno's inaction.  Could old man McQueary have been a patsy too?...possibly...however, Sandusky had done the deed...all those bastards that had blocked his promotion to head coach would eventually get their just desserts.  Paterno, ... Spanier ... Curley ... gone and Sandusky is STILL at home...planning his next dastardly deed...job done...

As The Shoe Drops (Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead!)- Originally Posted 11/10/11 

In the light of a new day, The Raptor is attempting to come to grips with the late breaking news which hit the airwaves at 10:15 PM yesterday evening. The Penn State University Board Of Trustees had convened for an emergency session and decided that the enemies were Graham Spanier and Joe Paterno and that they were collateral damage in the growing scandal surrounding former Penn State Coach, Jerry Sandusky...

Sandusky, the real criminal in this catastrophe could not be reach for comment.  As The Raptor stated yesterday, firing Joe Paterno will not change what happened to the adolescent males who were molested by Mr. Sandusky. 

Subsequent to phoning Coach Paterno to give him the Board's decision, the spokesman for the Penn State Board, John P. Surma, fielded questions from a stunned gathering of University Officials, Students and the growing cadre of news reporters coving this story.  There really wasn't much to disseminate...Spanier and Paterno had been fired to reduce the intense scrutiny of their handling of the Sandusky Scandal "in the best interests of Penn State University."

Can you fathom all this?...The Raptor is mentally ticking through the collateral damage which has been created through Jerry Sandusky's actions.  Mike McQueary, Joe Paterno, Tim Curley, Gary Schultz, Graham Spanier, Penn State University.  Everything apparently hinging on Joe Paterno's decision to NOT call the police in 2002 when Sandusky was discovered by McQueary...oh really?

Well, every thing should be better now...the wounds will heal...Penn State will carry on...Lou Holtz and Chris Fowler can rest easy come game day.  With Paterno not handling the coaching responsibilities, Tom Bradley will effectively gather his players to perform in front of 110,000 fans and a large television audience.  Perhaps the team will play inspirational football and deliver a game ball to  Coach Paterno on his front porch.

Paterno can fade away while the Nation tries to make the necessary changes to shackle predators like Sandusky and his ilk.  Will there be other shoes to drop in this scandal...probably...most notably, can someone please give Mike McQueary his walking papers to oblivion...perhaps if McQueray had rescued the unfortunate victim and stuffed Sandusky in a locker till the cops were called in, this whole matter would have ended differently.

Unfortunately, it has allowed douche bags like Mike Lupica (NYDaily), Jason Whitlock (FOX News), Chris Fowler (ESPN), Andy Staples (Sports Illustrated) and Joe Scarborough (MSNBC) to mope around asking why Joe Paterno didn't do more.  What?...is there some manual of moral culpability that we all should bone up on?...if Paterno had called the police instead of Tim Curley would he still be coaching? Geeeeze!

One final thought...the investigating Grand Jury began reviewing the case in perhaps, 2008.  Why didn't someone associated with that panel act then? It appears that Sandusky was enabled for three more years until he was arrested the other day!

It's The Day After In Happy Valley (And It's Still Sad) - Originally Posted 11/09/11 

Yesterday, The Raptor developed some of the timeline regarding the "Jerry Sundusky Scandal" and at the end of the piece the readers were left with some suggestion that there was more to be said...First, The Raptor can reiterate that the world can all cry out in unison for Joe Paterno to resign and to clean house....this is a noble gesture, but, it is a gesture at best.

Paterno detractors (and there are many)...you know the pedigree, the coach is too old...he's a dinosaur...the team could be better...it's been 25 years since he's won anything...these detractors are anxious for Paterno to resign anyhow...as a result all will be well right?

Ok...maybe not...consider this...Jerry Sandusky arrived in Penn State Land in the 60's as a player...he became a coach in the 70's and spent 30 years as an integral part of Penn State's rise as one of the nations top college football programs.

He was obviously a friend and confidant of Head Coach, Joe Paterno. When the previously mentioned "Janitor Incident" occurred in 1998...Sandusky seems to have resigned from the program roughly a year later...were these two events connected?...possibly.  Anyhow, Sandusky still had "access" to Penn State facilities and was on campus when Graduate Assistant, Mike McQueary found him engaging in sex with an adolescent male in the shower room...

...McQueary seems to have done nothing right is this matter...when he apparently discovered Sandusky in the shower room it is said he did nothing proactive to stop Sandusky...instead he consulted with his father and was told by Dad to pass the information up the chain...to Coach Joe Paterno.  This singular act is probably the lynch pin....had McQueary done something dramatic such as punch Sandusky out or perhaps kick him in the groin we may have not had to endure what is about to be a total cluster muck (sic)...

Unfortunately, by telling Paterno, it put the legendary coach in the tricky position of turning Sandusky out to the wolves.  Paterno did what was "legal"...he informed his superiors about the incident...probably to avoid an awkward confrontation with Sandusky...this singular reaction, this "I did what was required under the law" is proving to sway no one and as a result "Paterno Must Go"

So, lets fast forward...there are several football games left in the 2011 Penn State season...before last Saturday, these games all had the potential to energize the Penn State Nation...Nebraska, Ohio State, Wisconsin, Inaugural Big 10 Championship Game, possible prestigious slot in the Rose Bowl...all of that excitement seems gone now.  If Coach Paterno resigns what about McQueary? How about Tom Bradley and Larry Johnson? should they resign too?

The Talking Heads are clamoring to make sure that this never happens again...yeah right...as long as America is America there will be sad, sick individuals preying on children (boys and girls).  The Raptor is totally creeped out by this.  Scroll down and look at the attached photo of Jerry Sandusky...I don't know about you but it seems to The Raptor that he has a look of resignation.  Gone is the gleam associated with sexual conquest...instead it's the sad realization that illness has forever ruined what was a "Grand Experiment"...it's not just about he football...it's about the parents and children who placed trust and were rewarded with treachery.

The Raptor can tell you all one thing.  Having Joe Paterno resign in disgrace will solve nothing...

It's A Sad Day In Happy Valley - Originally Posted 11/08/11 

As The Raptor sat in silence and listened to ESPN's "Around The Horn" yesterday afternoon he knew there was trouble afoot.  The subject of their lead discussion were the powerful and chilling allegations that Jerry Sandusky, a one time influential member of Penn State's Football Coaching Staff had been involved in some deviate activities which include adolescent boys...

This horrifying news story has gained considerable traction in the few days since it surfaced.  It is engulfing Penn State's whole Administration and Athletic Department and has created some "raised eyebrow" questions regarding Penn State Head Coach, Joe Paterno's culpability...