Around the Big Ten

[Jeff Buchanan]

I wonder if Rob will keep insisting I'm not "reading" Buchanan's position correctly. LMAO.

The usual denial.

Yep, nothing to see here in c-bus.

It would seem that only CFB fans outside of the state of ohio grasp the depth of rot and corruption that resides within the institution that is osu.

The blind adulation by osu fans of the principals at osu who have in the past and continue to define the institution's culture rivals that of the North Korean's adulation of their dear leader, Kin Jung-un.


tressel foreground, gee and smith background

[iam416]

Poor Rob. LOL. Defending a loon.

[Jeff Buchanan]

And finally, I've made numerous posts expressing (1) CFB is healthier than ever and going no where and ......

Really.

How do you think the revelations contained in The Freeh Report released today will be received? Will people taking the time to read the report, or listen to CNN's and Network newsmen reporting of it, declare all is well in the sport of CFB?

Institutions that we at one time or another trusted are not immune to collapse under the weight of their own corrupt, greedy behavior. I agree with you, ticket sales may not be affected in the short term and people have short memories and the news has an equally short shelf life. But there are undercurrents in CFB that don't bode well for its future ...... the limited value of "dinosaurs" predicting such things not with standing.

The Paterno affair (as I have now chosen to name it because that is exactly what it is) is going to have an impact that goes beyond PSU .... for those that want to look beyond the sordid behavior of Jerry Sandusky, the damage to the children and who knew what and when did they know it.

There are bigger questions here. One of them is how do football coaches like Paterno and tressel (yes I include the vest in this discussion because, you will all recall, Gee feared tressel firing him and stupidly said so publicly) become so powerful that they can set a corrupt agenda for institutions that we would otherwise trust? In Paterno's case, he sheilded a child abuser and pedophile; in tressels' case ..... well we know he lied, we know he covered up his lying to gain a competitive advantage (this according to the NCAA) but what we don't know about the tressel affair is how high up all of this covering up went nor, do I beleive, do we know the extent of the corruption in the osu football program that tressel was responsible for. osu dodged a bullet mostly because no federal or state authorities were significantly involved in digging shit up like they dug shit up against Paterno and PSU.

There is no denying, none at all, that these two football figures operated illegally and unethically with impunity within their respective institutions and in ways that clearly raised questions about the integrity of the institutions that employed them. In both cases, I think it is equally clear that their reach extended beyond their schools and into the organs of the state including law enforcement and possibly the judicial. I'm pretty sure that the Freeh report is going to lead to questions from sanctimonious politicos over how far did JoPa's authority to affect outcomes extend in the state of Pennsylvania? I'm pretty sure it went pretty far and so did tressel's

I'm going to leave PSU alone for the moment because that institution is going to pay both literally and figuratively for the incredibly bad judgement of principals within it regarding Sandusky's criminal conduct.

I don't think there is a CFB fan alive (that has a brain and intellectual curiosity) outside of the state of ohio who isn't raising questions about jim tressel and the similarities between him and Paterno with regard to their capacity to set their football program's, and the institutions that employed them, on questionable and potentially damaging courses.

That begs the question, who is riding heard on this sort of thing and potentially preventing it from happening. Clearly we can't trust President's of the ilk of Gordon Gee and Graham Spanier to do it. Should anyone or any organization be a watch-dog here? I can't answer those questions. I do hear them being raised by some of the sports talking heads who are beginning to move beyond the obvious horrors at PSU and ask larger questions like this. I think they should be asked.

I also think Lloyd had it right, when after being asked about how to stop the cheating, that there needs to be a counterpart to the NFL Commissioner in CFB who has the hammer to hold the principals - the head coaches, ADs and influential employees within the athletic departments - accountable. One would suppose that that is the job of the University Presidents but it is clear that does not work in the cases of PSU and osu.

As well, the amount of money involved in CFB has become staggering. Someone or some organization is going to have to step up to the plate to curtail the cheating, lying and sweeping program dirt under the carpet that is bound to happen to protect images, brands or any number of things the football (and basketball programs) represent to the universities that field these sports teams....... and make a shit ton of money and prestige doing it.

In pro-sports, powerful entities stepped up to curb steroid abuse first and then thuggery when it raised its ugly head. A good deal of this was meant to protect the brand and rightfully so ..... there was big money to lose if the brand got hurt. How did they curb the abuse? By (1) exposing it, admitting it existed and (2) making the penalties so costly to players and team organizations for breaking rules of conduct that they were effective deterrents to rule breaking and bad acting. I don't think any sports fan would argue that MLB didn't do a good job of cleaning up steroid abuse or the NFL in curbing potentially damaging off field behavior of it's players and coaches. It can work in College Sports too.

talent and others can argue CFB is not endangered, it isn't going any where. I think they are wrong. I think there is a lot at stake (that involves a lot of money and prestige for a large number of elite universities and their sports programs). Admitting otherwise is to stick one's heads in the sand ..... nothing new for osu fans.

How many more Jerry Sandusky's , jim tressel's, Pete Carroll's, Cam Newton's and his bag men can CFB stand? Combine this with soaring ticket prices and astronomical costs of attending a post season game and I will guarantee you the number of CFB fans is going to dwindle. It happened to MLB baseball. It can happen to CFB. Not tomorrow, not in 2-3 years but if this kind of shit that is represented by the tressel and Paterno affairs continues, it will happen. It is just a matter of time if the deciders don't open their eyes and take concrete steps to reign in the growing amount of unethical conduct that is affecting college sports.

[Jeff Buchanan]

I will be helping with his orientation the last few weeks of August following into September while I am working close-by at our Laguna Niguel satellite office, until he gets settled.

I'm assuming you won't be in Dallas then. Is that right.

I have two really good tickets!

[iam416]

You think Tressel acted "illegally" and had reach that extended to law enforcement and judges. Not only that, but it is "clear."

I had no idea Tressel left you such a bitter, old man.

[Dr. Strangelove]

You're arguing with someone who has insisted that the respective crimes of Adolf Hitler and Jim Tressel are "comparable". And now covering up free tats, breaking no actual laws, rises to the level of enabling child rape.

[Dr. Strangelove]

As for JoePa, it's sad but the stuff that's come out today about the 1998 incident is damning. Haven't looked at the report myself yet but it sounds as if he lied under oath about it

[Tony G]

http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=8159311

[Tony G]

We're sorry -- that's all we want to hear from the Penn State apologists



By Gregg Doyel | National Columnist
July 12, 2012 12:53 PM ET

• 169 | Comments

You're sorry.
That's all I want to hear from Penn State today. It's all I want to hear from Joe Paterno's family. It's all I want to hear from Graham Spanier, Tim Curley, Gary Schultz. From the Board of Trustees. From Penn State fans.
You're sorry.







Why can't you say that? Why haven't any of you said that?
The Freeh Report was released Thursday morning, released to much fanfare, though I haven't the foggiest idea why. There was nothing special in the Freeh Report. Nothing we didn't already know. Jerry Sandusky raped kids for years? We knew that -- he has been convicted.
Penn State officials chose not to stop it? We knew that -- Jerry Sandusky raped kids for years.
But what we don't know, what we're about to find out, is how Penn State responds.
We're sorry.
Would that be so hard, Penn State? Would it, family members of Joe Paterno? Don't magically find another 712-word column allegedly written by Paterno himself, at some point after he was fired, which means he wrote it from a spot damn close to his death bed. Don't release his missive that defends Penn State, defends Paterno, assures all of us that, "This is not a football scandal and should not be treated as one."
Don't do that, because we don't want to hear it. Don't whine that Paterno never had the chance to defend himself because he's dead -- not when he had a personal biographer at the end of his life. Paterno never defended himself? The book's coming. If the publisher sends me a copy, I'll rip out the pages and use them to line my cat's litter box.
We're sorry.
That's all we want to hear from anyone associated with Penn State today, and yes, that means Penn State fans. This was not your fault, so don't confuse what I'm saying with what a lot of other people will be saying today -- that you created this culture of hero worship, that you empowered Paterno to the point that he ran that school. Part of that is true, of course. You did create a culture of hero worship, and you did lift up Paterno so high that he looked down upon all he surveyed like Yertle The Turtle, a wonderful book by Dr. Seuss that I'm positive was read, when they were kids, by many of the boys who would be abused by Jerry Sandusky.
Anyway, even if lots of that is true, it's not all true. You didn't rape kids, Penn State fans; Sandusky did that. You didn't fail to stop it; Paterno and his underlings did that. But for months you -- not all of you, no; but lots of you, OK? -- have been attacking anyone who would dare acknowledge what is pretty much fact: That Joe Paterno's gross negligence allowed Jerry Sandusky to roam free, to roam your cherished Happy Valley, for years.
We're sorry.
Be sorry for attacking us, when we were mortified and then furious that these atrocities were allowed to continue while Joe Paterno continued to win football games, as if football games mattered.
Penn State officials, those now still in charge? Apologize for what happened, what was allowed to happen, at your great school. Jerry Sandusky is your legacy, and so is the coverup that kept him free for years, and we're tired of fighting you about it. It happened. You can't just change the subject like you're changing the channel on the TV at the student center when CNN broke the Freeh Report on Thursday morning. Don't tell us what's wrong with the Freeh Report. Tell us you're sorry.
As for Graham Spanier and his pathetic band of enablers, Curley and Schultz, come out and say it. Apologize for not stopping Sandusky more than 10 years ago, before countless boys were taken into the Penn State football showers or into the Sandusky basement, or both.
Apologize to the world -- for God's sake, apologize to the victims -- for not stopping it when you could. And then apologize again for defending yourself so vigorously since November. That's just another layer that none of us can understand, your need to put your own welfare above everything else once this scandal went public.
I mean, we get that your nature is to put your own welfare above everything else. It's what you negligently malevolent monsters did for years, knowing what you knew about Sandusky but never taking the proper steps -- never making sure -- to protect kids from being raped by Sandusky on your own campus. That's what you did, Spanier. You, too, Curley. And Schultz. And Paterno, may he not rest in peace. That's what all of you did for years, and it didn't work out so well for you. Nor will it work out for you now, when the world doesn't want to hear more defenses, more excuses.
What does the world want to hear? We want to hear that you're sorry.
You are sorry, aren't you?

[Mike]

Matt Millen is a world class idiot. He says he's not sure how big of an impact this scandal will have on JoePa's legacy? He simply is not an intelligent person.

[Jeff Buchanan]

........ please don't tell me you just noticed that. Sorry, I had to say it.

I saw the video of Jay Paterno's interview with ABC on the evening news, which was actually taped about an hour after the release of the Freeh report. I already had heard about it as he was absolutely ripped a new ass hole by every CFB radio commentator I have come to enjoy and, IMO, deservedly so.


Apparently, the Paterno family(and their attorney's) were given an advance copy of the report so they would have time to react to it. So, Jay's appearance was planned. That he is a PSU employee and was allowed to do this, bothers me.

Jay should be out on his ass and the sooner the PSU administration and their Board of regents get's their heads out of their asses and cleanses PSU of any and all reminders of Joe Paterno, the better.

It just amazes me that Jay continues to defend his father. He and PSU would be well served by Jay shutting up and getting out of town. There is nothing defensible about Joe's legacy. He will be and should be remembered as a man who allowed a predatory pedophile to continue to associate himself with PSU while molesting kids in PSU's facilities for, it looks like now, well over a decade.

This is simply unconsicionable and no amount of trying to explain how good a man Joe Paterno was and what might have been the reasons for his mistakes is going to excuse this behavior.

[lineygoblue]

He will be and should be remembered as a man who allowed a predatory pedophile to continue to associate himself with PSU while molesting kids in PSU's facilities for, it looks like now, well over a decade.

And that's only when it came to light. It may have been going on for decades before that. Sandusky was with the program for over 30 years. I doubt that he raped his first child in 1998. This has probably been going on for many, many years.

[Jeff Buchanan]

There appears to be some controversy over whether or not the Paterno family was given advance notice of the Freeh findings. As a matter of fairness I present this NYT piece:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/11/sports/ncaafootball/paterno-family-questions-inquiry-of-penn-states-role-in-scandal.html?ref=ncaafootball

Regardless, I stand by the view I voiced above. I think Jay knew this was coming. I feel pretty certain that the U new it was coming. That Jay claims he didn't know seems a little bit of a stretch.

[*JD*]

And that's only when it came to light. It may have been going on for decades before that. Sandusky was with the program for over 30 years. I doubt that he raped his first child in 1998. This has probably been going on for many, many years.

That's probably a sad but true assumption.

[Optimus Prime]

You're arguing with someone who has insisted that the respective crimes of Adolf Hitler and Jim Tressel are "comparable". And now covering up free tats, breaking no actual laws, rises to the level of enabling child rape.

Joe Paterno likely now would have been indicted if he had survived, with regret, much like Tressel dogging the hangman's noose.

Had there been a proper criminal investigation prior to the NCAA/OSU whitewash and immediate termination, Tressel too would likely have been incarcerated as well...you guys dogged a huge bullet.