OT..very sad about Joe Paterno's

[alphaorange]

I doubt that anyone posting on this, or any other board, has the absolutely spotless moral history to be passing judgment on the ending of another person's life. It was a horrible situation that negatively impacted many innocent lives and JP certainly appears to be guilty of inaction that contributed to the ongoing abuse. However, since he is from a full generation different from mine, I wonder what the standard was for action to this would be. I don't know what the average person from that generation would have done. Maybe the same, maybe different, but I don't know. I can only recognize that there are major changes in the way these type of things are reported and handled with each new generation.

Guilty of not doing enough? Absolutely. Power to have stopped it? Yes. A full understanding of what was going on and what he should do? I don't know, so to say he deliberately stayed quiet to protect his program is something I have trouble stating with any conviction.For me, the question of his penance is direct tied to his thought process and motivation for handling it the way he did. I'm no apologist. I have never been a Paterno fan and I detest Penn State. However, I have never been a fan of lynch mobs and I'm not comfortable making a judgment on another life, especially without knowing all the facts and answers to questions I might have.

And BTW, since I have lost three members of my family to lung cancer, including my mother and my brother, I have trouble wishing that on anyone.

 

[NKR1978]

poor health. Whatever you think about his role in the penn state issue, it is still very sad to see someone of his stature go downhill so quickly.

Pat Summitt getting early onset Alzheimer's is sad. Old men dying is life.

I'll save my tears for the kids who were molested because of his complacence.

 

[Stern]

I doubt that anyone posting on this, or any other board, has the absolutely spotless moral history to be passing judgment on the ending of another person's life. .

There is a difference between a spotless moral history and standing by and doing nothing over a long period of time while Kids got raped by someone you knew had issues.

I mean cheating on your wife, lying on your tax return, all that stuff that might put a blemish on one's "moral history" doesn't even compare to JoePa and his not doing anything while someone he knew was raping children for many years in his football complex right under his nose!

Some of you people really are "lost" on this issue and it really is amazing. I am shocked by it to be honest. I have seen more outrage against Mark Schwartz on these boards than someone who aided a child predator! I truly believe some of you deep down think Mark Schwartz is a bigger scumbag than JoePa. It's silly.

 

[NKR1978]

CBS Breaking News: Report of Joe Paterno's death "horseplay."

I'm a horrible human being, but I laughed when I read this.

 

[NKR1978]

I doubt that anyone posting on this, or any other board, has the absolutely spotless moral history to be passing judgment on the ending of another person's life.

I doubt anyone here has turned a blind eye to child molestation.

And while this isn't necessarily in response to you, this whole idea that he didn't understand all of this because of his generation and men of his generation is just bullsh!t. My father is 72 and he understands it. My grandmother is about to turn 91, and though it's been quite a while since her mind was still there, she understood the evils in the world. Joe Paterno is/was a sophisticated man. And while Paterno may not have understood "man rape," he also didn't really have an honorable view of rape in general:


http://www.thedailybeast.com/articl...-s-troubling-attitude-toward-sex-charges.html

"In 2006, on the eve of the Orange Bowl, Paterno had this to say about a Florida State linebacker named A. J. Nicholson who had been accused of sexually assaulting a woman: “There’s so many people gravitating to these kids. He may not have even known what he was getting into, Nicholson. They knock on the door; somebody may knock on the door; a cute girl knocks on the door. What do you do?”
Paterno continued to a group of reporters: “Geez. I hope—thank God they don’t knock on my door, because I’d refer them to a couple of other rooms.”

 

[alphaorange]

Some of you people really are "lost" on this issue and it really is amazing..

Well, thank God we have a person with your moral turpitude and righteousness to act as our moral compass.

 

[OrangePA]

There is a difference between a spotless moral history and standing by and doing nothing over a long period of time while Kids got raped by someone you knew had issues.

I mean cheating on your wife, lying on your tax return, all that stuff that might put a blemish on one's "moral history" doesn't even compare to JoePa and his not doing anything while someone he knew was raping children for many years in his football complex right under his nose!

Some of you people really are "lost" on this issue and it really is amazing. I am shocked by it to be honest. I have seen more outrage against Mark Schwartz on these boards than someone who aided a child predator! I truly believe some of you deep down think Mark Schwartz is a bigger scumbag than JoePa. It's silly.

It seems that Bernie Fine had "issues" and was acting upon those "issues" with a young boy closely tied to the SU BB program and Boeheim did nothing about it.

I wonder if you feel the same moral outrage over what was happening "under Boeheim's nose"?

Or, are you willing to consider that JB knew nothing about it.

 

[NKR1978]

It seems that Bernie Fine had "issues" and was acting upon those "issues" with a young boy closely tied to the SU BB program and Boeheim did nothing about it.

I wonder if you feel the same moral outrage over what was happening "under Boeheim's nose"?

Or, are you willing to consider that JB knew nothing about it.

The difference is that Boeheim, if you believe him, knew nothing about it. Paterno had knowledge going back at least to 1994 that something was going on.

 

[Stern]

It seems that Bernie Fine had "issues" and was acting upon those "issues" with a young boy closely tied to the SU BB program and Boeheim did nothing about it.

I wonder if you feel the same moral outrage over what was happening "under Boeheim's nose"?

Or, are you willing to consider that JB knew nothing about it.

Have you read anything I have written here the past 3 months? I mean seriously if you have to ask ME that you then don't pay attention. I have been attacked on this board by damn near 90% of the people here over and over again for coming out against Boeheim.

 

[SWC75]

No man is an island entire of itself; every man
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as
well as a manor of thy friends or of thine
own were; any man's death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom
the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

That's actually a excerpt from John Donne's Meditation XVII:
http://isu.indstate.edu/ilnprof/ENG451/ISLAND/

Joe's problem was that he became an island when informed of what Sandusky had done. We should not be an island when we hear of his death.

 

[bnoro]

It's not JoePa's fault, he didn't know how a man and a boy could have sex so he just forgot about it... I don't really feel sad today.

“I don’t know that it would have done any good, because I never heard of, of, rape and a man. So I just did what I thought was best. I talked to people that I thought would be, if there was a problem, that would be following up on it.”

 

[Oakland]

It's not JoePa's fault, he didn't know how a man and a boy could have sex so he just forgot about it... I don't really feel sad today.

“I don’t know that it would have done any good, because I never heard of, of, rape and a man. So I just did what I thought was best. I talked to people that I thought would be, if there was a problem, that would be following up on it.”

I just glad that piece of crap lived long enough to get his share of the pedophile scandal and assure that it won't be forgotten any time soon.

 

[Ghost]

From The Onion:

Joe Paterno Dies In Hospital; Doctors Promise To Tell Their Superiors First Thing Tomorrow​

 

[Ghost]

This is ignorance at its finest. Paterno, aside from this one mistake (albeit a huge one that he has admitted to), is and has always been renowned for having the best graduation rates, and making more of players and young men. What he did with those that were in his program was monumental. Anyone who doesn't recognize that is blind. He had consistently been tops of the graduation rate for his whole time at PSU. I hate PSU. I always have, but he had done a ton of good outside of one big mistake, too.

FWIW, some of the stuff that came out after the scandal seemed to indicate that Paterno didn't really care all that much beyond his players being on the field and was more than happy to apply pressure to other officials at PSU to leave his players alone. I'll try to find the link later.

I don't really give anyone at these schools, even Syracuse, too much credit for graduation rates, etc...my friend was an adjunct at Hofstra and had pressure there to pass kids. I can only imagine what goes on in the Big 10 or in any other major program. JoPa ran that school - wouldn't be surprised if they were a huge offender in that regard.

 

[IthacaMatt]

It's too easy to conclude that he allowed these things to happen.

He clearly did not allow anything to happen.

Should he or could he have done more? Sure.

But when a man of 84 years says that he didn't even know that a man could rape a male, that tells me that he was generationally, socially and professionally incapable of dealing with something that he obviously didn't understand.

The hate that some of the posts above seem to reflect is very disappointing to me.

I would like to think that SU Football people would have a bit more empathy and sympathy for a decent man who just didn't get it in this bizzare instance.

I think you're a sucker. Joe Paterno knew what men do to each other in prison. Generational difference, my ass. He's continued to coach young men into his 80s. Even if he's only been losing it for 10 years, it was still 10 years before that this first happened. He isn't still living in some pollyanna white America of the 1950s. We're talking 20 years ago when the worst incident happened, and it has happened more than once. McQueary is still on the staff how many freaking years after he saw Sandusky rape a 10 year old. Where is his conscience in all of this? And what about the icky comment about all the football coaches at Penn State showering together after practices, according to that former assistant coach in the ESPN article ? There have been a series of complaints about Sandusky over a number of years. It didn't just happen once.