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[Tony G]

Report: Joe Paterno reworked deal


Updated: July 14, 2012, 2:52 PM ET
Associated Press

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A Failure Of Leadership

Jeremy Schaap weighs in on the Freeh Report, Penn State's lack of concern for Sandusky's victims and restoring confidence in Penn State.Tags: Jeremy Schaap, Louis Freeh, Freeh Report, Penn State, Joe Paterno, Jerry Sandusky, Jay Paterno, Mark May, Matt Millen

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• Death Penalty For Penn State?

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. -- Veteran Penn State football coach Joe Paterno began talks that resulted in a sweetened retirement contract in the same month that he testified before a grand jury in the Jerry Sandusky sex-abuse case, according to a published report.
Paterno and the university reached agreement on the amended contract that eventually totaled $5.5 million in August, months before charges were filed against Sandusky, but they began negotiating in January, The New York Times reported Saturday.
According to the report, all members of the board of trustees weren't informed of the new package before the scandal engulfed the university.
More From ESPN.com

Rick Reilly admits that he was fooled all along by Joe Paterno, who was not the saint everyone thought he was. Story
By lying, Joe Paterno betrayed himself, his legacy, his university and, most of all, the children who were victims of Jerry Sandusky's serial pedophilia, writes Gene Wojciechowski. Story


The amended contract, which was reported on by The Associated Press in April, included a $3 million career bonus if Paterno retired at the end of the 2011 season, as well as well as forgiveness of $250,000 in outstanding indebtedness and an additional $100,000 in loans.
The package also included access to a stadium box for his family for 25 years as well as parking privileges and access to on-campus hydrotherapy equipment for his wife.
The newspaper cited university records in saying Paterno first broached the idea of revisiting his contact in January, the same month he made a brief appearance before the grand jury, and some top university officials had also testified before the panel before the agreement was reached in August.
But the paper, citing "people with knowledge of the events," said details of the agreement were known to a handful of board members but not shared with the full board, which only learned about the lucrative contract when Sandusky was arrested in November and two university officials were charged.
Paterno then publicly announced he would retire at the end of the season in a statement that also told school trustees to focus their attention on other matters.
"I have decided to announce my retirement effective at the end of this season. At this moment the Board of Trustees should not spend a single minute discussing my status. They have far more important matters to address. I want to make this as easy for them as I possibly can," Paterno said at the time. "This is a tragedy. It is one of the great sorrows of my life. With the benefit of hindsight, I wish I had done more."
Trustees, who agreed Paterno had not done enough to stop the abuse, fired him later that same day, a decision that was followed by rioting in State College. Paterno died of lung cancer in January at age 85. Sandusky is awaiting sentencing after being convicted of 45 counts of having molesting 10 boys over a 15-year period.
Paterno family attorney Wick Sollers told the Times on Friday that it was Penn State that proposed the lucrative retirement package, and that many elements such as the luxury box and use by Paterno of a private aircraft had existed in previous contracts.
Asked Friday if the university planned to try to recover money from the Paterno estate, trustees chairwoman Karen Peetz said, "Contracts are contracts, and no, there's no plan to do that."

[Tony G]

Culture of coach worship must end

Will educators have the guts to fight powerful coaches? Or will they run and hide?


Updated: July 13, 2012, 8:55 PM ET
By Ian O'Connor | ESPNNewYork.com

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Take Down The Statue

Bobby Bowden says Penn State should remove the Joe Paterno statue and discusses Paterno's legacy.Tags: College Football Live, Joe Paterno, Bobby Bowden, Jerry Sandusky, Freeh Report

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• Impact Of Freeh Report On Penn State Recruiting

Penn State will have to tear down more than the statue. Penn State will have to tear down the culture that inspired the statue, the culture built around the worship of a false god in thick glasses and rolled-up pants.
Joe Paterno turned out to be just another football coach who wanted to protect his program at all costs, even if the costs involved the human sacrifice of innocent young strangers he didn't know, and didn't want to know.
Paterno cared only about young men who could block and tackle with the best of 'em. The decades-long narrative that had Paterno molding boys into responsible adults, that had him "saving" kids who needed his guidance, turned out to be a colossal fraud. In the end, Paterno turned his back on the kids who needed him most, kids who weren't scoring any touchdowns for him on football Saturdays in the fall.

The Report

Former FBI director Louis Freeh released a report Thursday outlining the failings of Penn State related to convicted pedophile Jerry Sandusky. Report
• Paterno family statement
• Paterno letter on scandal
• The Sandusky verdict

Watch the replay of the Freeh report news conference. Watch


No, college presidents can never let this happen again. They can never let another larger-than-life coach running a larger-than-life program turn a university into a monument to himself.
Paterno harbored and enabled the very essence of evil, a child rapist, rather than bring dishonor to his football team, and cowering administrators ditched their mission statement and followed the playbook. Helpless young boys were destroyed by a longtime Paterno aide, Jerry Sandusky, because football was very good for business at Penn State, and so was the fictional account of a Camelot graced by Saint Joe.
"If this isn't a cautionary tale for not only Penn State, but for all Division I schools, I don't know what is," said Michael Boni, the attorney representing the victim who triggered the investigation that ultimately brought down Sandusky.
"Now schools have to take a very hard look at themselves in the mirror. We know how many tens or hundreds of millions of dollars are brought into universities by football and basketball, but the priority of athletics dictating the culture, personality and character of these schools is just backwards.
"I'm a sports junkie as much as anybody, but these universities are supposed to be designed to bring young men and women into the world of business and education, and to instill good morals and ethics and virtues in people. Just being whores to athletics is so wrong."
When he was president of Vanderbilt University, E. Gordon Gee decided there would be no more athletic department, no more athletic director, no more jock dorms, no more full-riding quarterbacks and point guards representing a privileged class on campus.
"There is a wrong culture in athletics," Gee said at the time, "and I'm declaring war on it."
In a telephone interview in 2007, I asked Gee why he didn't declare war on this culture while he was in charge at Ohio State, Woody Hayes' old place.
AP Photo/Jim PrischingThe long-running narrative that had Joe Paterno molding boys into men and mentoring kids who needed his guidance turned out to be a fraud.


"I would've ended up pumping gas in Vernal, Utah," Gee said of his hometown.
After returning to Ohio State, Gee reminded everyone how badly he didn't want that job in Vernal. Jim Tressel got caught in a cover-up of his own, though his cover-up doesn't even belong in the same galaxy with Paterno's. It was a garden-variety scandal involving garden-variety lies, players trading memorabilia for tattoos, and a coach dressing ineligible players because he wanted to win, win, win.
Asked if he would consider firing Tressel, who was later forced out, Gee said, "No, are you kidding? Let me just be very clear. I'm just hopeful the coach doesn't dismiss me."
Gee later said he was merely joking, only he wasn't smirking, never mind laughing, when he said it.
Some university leaders have stood up to coaches who became too big, too powerful, and too willing to believe their schools were appendages of their programs and not the other way around. Myles Brand took on Bob Knight at Indiana. Nancy Zimpher took on Bob Huggins at Cincinnati.
But these are the exceptions in major college academia, where chancellors talk the good talk before granting outrageous contract extensions to coaches threatening to walk on existing deals, and before pilfering coaches from other schools on covert missions in the dead of night.
How, exactly, does a Bobby Petrino even exist in college sports? Simple. There's always another touchdown-hungry educator willing to forgive and forget the sins committed on someone else's watch.
Now that college presidents have settled on a football playoff system, they need to make a far more significant commitment. They need to quit recklessly paying and recruiting coaches forever hunting for the next big score. They need to stop allowing these coaches to effectively dictate policy, intimidate professors and administrators, and interfere with investigations and disciplinary proceedings.

SportsNation: Freeh report

Ex-FBI director Louis Freeh's report on the Penn State scandal blames former coach Joe Paterno and school leaders for failing to protect children from sex abuse. Has your view of Paterno's legacy changed? Should the NCAA punish Penn State? Vote!



They need to force coaches to coach, to offer up a model of responsible, accountable behavior for the students in their huddles, and to act more like they're running a team and less like they're running a program.
The Freeh report explains why in black and white. More than 430 interviews and 3.5 million documents told a sick, pathetic tale at Penn State, a tale of janitors and university leaders and everyone in between being too afraid to turn in a child rapist because of the pain it would cause a storied coach and a storied team.
"It was like going against the president of the United States," Freeh said.
And even the president of Penn State wasn't about to do that. At best Graham Spanier was a sorry excuse for a leader, and another official who harbored a rapist. The scandal that unfolded on his watch was the granddaddy of them all, one that put all the booster payments and grade-doctoring and point-shaving cases to shame.
According to the report, Spanier knew what Paterno knew, that Sandusky was sexually abusing boys on their property, and yet the university president picked football over common human decency, never mind his legal responsibility to act.
No case will ever be more disturbing than this one, shaped by what Freeh called a "total disregard for the safety and welfare of Sandusky's child victims by the most senior leaders at Penn State."
Truth is, Penn State shouldn't bother tearing down Joe Paterno's statue unless it is committed to tearing down Joe Paterno's culture. Football ended up making the school and then breaking the school, and now the leaders at Penn State have no choice but to take a season off and realign the school's moral compass. The victims are permanently damaged, and college presidents everywhere must learn from this real-life horror show. They must declare dead the era of the omnipotent coach. They must never again allow a false football or basketball god to lord over anything but game-day preparation.
Do these educators have the stomach for the fight against powerhouse sports programs running amok across their campuses? Or will they continue to tremble and hide as the marching band plays on?

[Tony G]

I don't understand how anyone views Paterno's legacy as positive. http://espn.go.com/sportsnation/polls?pCat=46&sCat=3110

[THE_WIZARD_]

When asked about retirement, [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Paterno"]Joe Paterno - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame] once said that he would not, because it would leave college football in the hands of "the Jackie Sherrills and the [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Switzer"]Barry Switzer - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame] of the world.

Heh.

[Tony G]

Penn State: Freeh report

How do you view Joe Paterno's legacy?

• 34%Mostly positive
• 33%Equal mix of positive and negative
• 33%Mostly negative

(Total votes: 189,556)

Should the NCAA pursue sanctions against Penn State over the Freeh report's findings?

• 65% Yes
• 35% No

(Total votes: 46,081)


Should possible sanctions against Penn State include the "death penalty" for football?

• 43% Yes
• 57% No

(Total votes: 47,156)

Should Penn State remove the Joe Paterno statue from campus?

• 52% Yes
• 48% No

(Total votes: 214,529)

How do you feel about Penn State's decision to fire Joe Paterno?

• 73% Justified
• 27% Unjustified

(Total votes: 62,606)

[Jeff Buchanan]

We've got some pretty sharps mind here and maybe I'm missing something but ......

dsl, are you arguing that the NCAA has no ByLaws pertaining to ethical conduct and that someone subject to those ByLaws cannot or should not be punished under them? Seriously, I don't get that. The ByLaws are clear and have been sited by both myself and Stan.

There's NCAA case law showing how an an athlete and a coach subject to the Ethical Conduct ByLaws were punished by the NCAA (google unethical conduct ases involving the ncaa .... you'll get several for your perusal).

I don't get your question about Petrino .... and yes, I absolutely think he should have been punished by the NCAA for his lack of ethics in the matter. The fact that the NCAA doesn't routinely take action under the Unethical Conduct ByLaws would be evidence of their ineffectiveness and the continuing bad behavior of those subject to it's rules. I do think the argument that we may not want to have the NCAA undertaking a role like this given there general incompetence has merit but I'd rather revise the rules and strengthen the NCAA's ability to enforce them and punish violators than to just ignore them because they are incompetent.

I also fail to see the difference between the NCAA's ByLaws that pertain to ethical conduct and those of any other institution that has them along with the authority to punish an offender subject to the ByLaws. The argument that the ByLaws are ambiguous or amorphous has no bearing on whether the authority should apply the ByLaws and punish an offender of them.

[Tony G]

dsl, are you arguing that the NCAA has no ByLaws pertaining to ethical conduct and that someone subject to those ByLaws cannot or should not be punished under them?

When has the NCAA ever enacted punishment on a school for an incident that did not pertain to the student athletes or in any way give a program a competitive edge? Has a precedent been set before?

[Dr. Strangelove]

Jeff- The ethics clause is so vague that it can arguably be applied to almost everything. What do you think it should apply to? I tend to think it should be activities directly related to the recruitment, education, management of student athletes. When you start saying the NCAA has the authority and responsibility to investigate any unethical conduct by anyone even loosely connected to the athletic department, where does it end?

If an assistant AD cheats on his wife with a graduate assistant, should that be the subject of an NCAA investigation? If an athletic booster is caught embezzling from his own business, totally unrelated to his support of the program, should the NCAA come to town?

Keep in mind that the NCAA is inept, understaffed, and woefully inconsistent as it is. And now you're suggesting that the NCAA should supplant the legal system by conducting its own investigations into what are essentially criminal matters, with no power to subpoena, and that this will result in fairness and justice?

Go to page 47 of this document, a copy of the NCAA policybook. The clause you and Stan are citing is a brief statement of general policy. This section is much more detailed and goes into better description of what the NCAA considers unethical conduct. Of course, they leave the door open to say that the list is not exhaustive, but look at what's on the list and what is not there. There's nothing about extramarital affairs, personal tax fraud, or other matters that land people in criminal court.

Instead, the examples of "unethical activity" are ALL related directly to the eligibility of student-athletes. Academic fraud, extra benefits, complying with NCAA request, gambling, illegal drugs, etc. There's NOTHING on that list that even hints that something like covering up a child molester falls under the purview of the NCAA's governance.

http://vmedia.rivals.com/uploads/878/957137.pdf

That's probably because the NCAA was not developed as a body to regulate what's normally handled by civil or criminal courts.

Let me advance what I mentioned to Stan earlier but he didn't respond to. The Principle of Ethical Conduct is only one of 16 "General Principles" the NCAA lists as part of its core mission. Principle #2 "The Principle of General Student Well-Being" includes this:

2.2.2 Cultural Diversity and Gender Equity: It is the responsibility of each member institution to establish and maintain an environment that values cultural diversity and gender equity among its student-athletes and intercollegiate athletics department staff.

That principle is listed as prominent as the one on Ethics. If I were to read the bylaws the same way you and Stan are, would you not agree that the NCAA has the power and responsibility to punish schools for any and all claims of racial, gender, or cultural bias? So if the University of Michigan Athletics was accused of discriminating against gays or accused of not doing enough to promote women's softball, the NCAA should investigate, and hand down a bowl ban if found guilty?

Some of the other Principles are so broad it would be ridiculous if the NCAA tried to punish schools who violated them. "The Economy of Athletics Program Operation"? If I read that broadly, I can interpret it to mean the NCAA can and should punish schools who don't operate their programs in the black.

Do you believe that broad a scope for the NCAA is appropriate? I don't. The NCAA is responsible for regulating student athletics and maintaining a fair playing field. They are far too incompetent and smalltime to allow them to handle and regulate more serious subjects like the Sandusky case.

[iam416]

Really great post, DSL.

And, Tony, wow. I'm really sorry hear that. I wished I believed in hell simply for those MFers.

[Tony G]

Unfortunately, it happens far more than many think

[Rob F]

BTW. Just in case you want to question my motives, I am a survivor of sexual abuse having been attacked as a child. I have had a long and painful journey to deal with it including a nasty substance abuse issue that I have dealt with on a daily basis for the last 18 years. I want to see the guilty pay fully. But just the guilty.

I must say that I, too, admire you for the courage you have to post this, Tony. My guess is that it's not the first time you've spoken publicly or posted about it and that even then, it must be difficult to talk/post about, and even more trying to deal with when stuff like the Sandusky/PSU mess is discussed.

Thanks for putting this a little more in perspective for the rest of us.

[Tony G]

Well it's been a lot of work to get to the place where I can talk about it. If I hadn't got sober I never would have. Some of it is in going from victim to survivor. There's still crap that surfaces from time to time but as you pass through them you learn to cope. This one hasn't really rocked me. The Graham James case (Sheldon Kennedy and Theo Fleury) stirred the demons with me.

[entropy]

By TIM DAHLBERG
AP Sports Columnist


Joe Paterno is dead and so is what was left of his good name, shredded to pieces by investigators who didn't seem terribly impressed by anything the coach once did on Saturday afternoons.

Jerry Sandusky will spend what is left of the rest of his life in prison, paying for crimes so despicable they are hard to even comprehend. Some former Penn State administrators could be heading there, too. After Louis Freeh's damning report, they might want to think twice about taking their chances before a jury of their peers.

The cult allowed to fester at State College has been exposed, with a once-proud university looking like a backwater institution where worshipping at the statue of Joe was more important than protecting young boys exposed to horrors that will haunt them the rest of their lives.

Paterno's family can protest all it wants, but there is no way to spin this: He hurt a place where his word was gospel, and it may be decades before anyone outside Pennsylvania hears the words "Penn State" and doesn't immediately think of naked boys being abused in the same showers used by the young men who brought the university glory on the football field.

His name has already come off a Nike child care center in Oregon. His statue outside Beaver Stadium should come down next.

Unfortunately, it's not enough. Nothing may ever be enough to make up for what is arguably the worst scandal to hit college athletics. There is no way to turn back the clock, no way to give back to the victims, now grown men, who testified against Sandusky the childhood innocence they lost forever.

There are, however, ways to make sure the culture that enabled Sandusky never takes root on any college campus again; ways to help re-establish some moral authority in college sports; ways to make sure no university janitor is ever afraid again to report a terrible crime because he fears losing his job.

Yes, Penn State has already paid dearly, its pristine reputation damaged beyond repair. "Winning with honor," a motto made famous by Paterno, is worth a wince and a cringe. The school will also surely pay from the pocketbook, with untold millions going to victims in civil suits.

The almighty football program at the center of all this must pay, too. It must or else we have learned nothing from this sordid mess.

Don't wait for the school to impose some voluntary sanctions on itself. It won't happen. No one at Penn State has the guts to do it.

That leaves you, NCAA. You must act. Now.

No more excuses. No more using semantics to try to dance around the responsibility of policing the seamy side of college athletics.

The independent investigation is complete, and it's a safe bet it's far more thorough than anything the NCAA could have produced. Freeh, the former FBI director, laid it all out in a 267-page report that concluded Paterno and three former administrators conspired to conceal Sandusky's sexual attacks on children to avoid damage to the reputation of the university and its vaunted football program.

Penn State football deserves to survive, though barely. The NCAA can't give it the so-called "death penalty" anyway, because it applies only to schools that commit a major violation while on probation. Aside from that, there's no punishment too severe for the Cowardly Lions.

If Ohio State gets a one-year bowl ban for players selling jerseys, what should Penn State get for selling out a whole community? If Reggie Bush cost Southern California a four-year probation for accepting cash and cars, what should Penn State get for letting a child molester use its locker rooms for his perverse fantasies?

The NCAA rulebook never contemplated this kind of thing, but that's of no real importance. NCAA President Mark Emmert told the university in November that a failure to exhibit moral values or a pattern of "deceitful and dishonest behavior" could be cause for action by itself.

Moral values went out the window when Paterno and campus officials made no move to keep Sandusky off campus in 1998 after a woman complained her child had showered with the then-assistant coach. The pattern of deceit and dishonesty followed when no one turned Sandusky over to the police after he was seen sexually abusing a boy in the showers in the football locker room.

An NCAA official gave the usual bureaucratic response after the report was released, saying it needs to hear Penn State's response to some questions before the agency can proceed. Given the devastating conclusions drawn by the Freeh report, the university might as well leave its response blank. There's no defense.

NCAA - here's a suggestion for punishment: Give Penn State a year's probation and bowl ban for every year Sandusky ran amok at State College since 1998, until he was arrested last year. That's a staggering 13 years, a penalty that would gut the football program much as Sandusky gutted the lives of those young boys.

They never got a second chance, but the NCAA can still take the high road and give Penn State one. Shave a year off the penalty for every year the university demonstrates it is moving forward and has control of the program. Throw in a bonus year if everything symbolic of the cult of Joe is removed from campus once and for all.

Six years from now, declare it a new day and let Penn State football emerge for a new era.

No, it's not fair to the players currently enrolled. It's not terribly fair, either, to new coach Bill O'Brien, though he had to know when signing his deal that a day of reckoning would come. And it's certainly not fair to Penn State fans, whose only crime was believing all that was St. Joe.

Remember this NCAA: There was nothing fair at all about what was done to those young boys, either.

This one is so simple. There is no other choice. Gut the program. Doing anything less will strip the organization of the last bit of credibility it has as the watchdog of college athletics.

Post Extras: * * *

[Dr. Strangelove]

Another black eye for Paterno

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/14/sports/ncaafootball/joe-paterno-got-richer-contract-amid-jerry-sandusky-inquiry.html?_r=2&ref=sports

Paterno Won Sweeter Deal Even as Scandal Played Out

In January 2011, Joe Paterno learned prosecutors were investigating his longtime assistant coach Jerry Sandusky for sexually assaulting young boys. Soon, Mr. Paterno had testified before a grand jury, and the rough outlines of what would become a giant scandal had been published in a local newspaper.

That same month, Mr. Paterno, the football coach at Penn State, began negotiating with his superiors to amend his contract, with the timing something of a surprise because the contract was not set to expire until the end of 2012, according to university documents and people with knowledge of the discussions. By August, Mr. Paterno and the university?s president, both of whom were by then embroiled in the Sandusky investigation, had reached an agreement.

Mr. Paterno was to be paid $3 million at the end of the 2011 season if he agreed it would be his last. Interest-free loans totaling $350,000 that the university had made to Mr. Paterno over the years would be forgiven as part of the retirement package. He would also have the use of the university?s private plane and a luxury box at Beaver Stadium for him and his family to use over the next 25 years.

The university?s full board of trustees was kept in the dark about the arrangement until November, when Mr. Sandusky was arrested and the contract arrangements, along with so much else at Penn State, were upended.

[UMStan White]

"Really great post, DSL. "


...says one moron to another. But then again what can one expect from a fan of Oshitu