A few of us likely remember Michael Novak's eulogy to Joe Paterno that was published on National Review (and originally linked by JBreezy in this FanPost). Well, as some people like to remind those of us inside the wagon circle, a substantial portion of the outside world was content to take the position that Paterno's morals couldn't possibly have been any higher than those of, say, Lane Kiffin or Steve Spurrier.

Michael Novak has some words for those people.

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but that was before it occurred to me that I was posting it in a thread that was sure to get shut down.

I think that the reason why those of us ‘inside the circle’ fixate on stories concerning Joe and his level of involvement is that we have seen what can happen to a person in today’s world when a story gets out of hand. A lot of us were saying back on that first weekend in November that we had no information that would sway our preexisting notions of who Joe was. We were saying (very rightly so) that the Grand Jury presentment did not contain the end-all be-all version of events. We were saying that anyone who was calling for Joe’s immediate firing was operating on assumption rather than fact.

Since then I have read countless articles and comments that are based on the paradigm of Joe being willfully blind, if not complicit in a conspiracy, for the sake of protecting his program. These items are typically peppered with inferences (if not outright statements) that Joe and Sandusky were friends, that Joe was effectively in charge of the entire University, that Police Services was not a ‘real’ police force, or any of a number of other red flags that indicate that the author’s intentions are at best sloppy and at worst libelous. These pieces have informed the majority opinion, as any objections are conveniently shouted down with claims that the objector does not care about children, or that no one could defend Joe if they stopped to consider what he would have done if it had been his grandson in the shower with Sandusky. The indelible image out of State College from the week after the presentment was released is the students protesting against the treatment of – what is in the minds of the great majority of viewers – ‘just the school’s football coach’.

Those students understood, just as many of the regulars on BSD understand, that Joe was much more than just a football coach. I’m not going to list his accomplishments beyond the football field, since anyone who is going to give a damn already knows who Joe was and what he did. The reason why those kids took to the street on November ninth, and the reason some of us will always continue to defend Joe, is that if a man of his stature can be taken down by speculation and lies, then what chance does any of us have?

I noticed that people are still reading that thread, as the number of recs seems to be increasing on a number of comments (including this one). I'm curious as to what part of this resonates with people, and whether it might play with non-cultists.

(The original text of this comment, and an link to the article in which it first appeared.)

It's implausible that any responsible lawyer, let alone one as experienced as Baldwin, would fail to make clear whom she represents and whom she does not. I believe she was instructed by Spanier to represent the three of them as Penn State employees. It's especially interesting that Joe Paterno brought his own counsel. He either spotted the obvious conflict of interest, realized that Old Main's objective would be to get people's stories straight (putting him at risk of perjury or conspiracy charges), and/or was (wisely) wary of being thrown under the bus by Spanier and those working at the President's behest.

As soon as Spanier issued his statement of "unconditional support" for Curley and Schultz, it occurred to me that he was trying to keep them on the ranch and have them "take one for the team." That hasty statement of support made no sense to me otherwise. It looked like the product of an anxiety attack from a very worried man. My opinion on this was further solidified when the University quickly agreed to pay Curley and Schultz's legal fees and allowed them gracious non-exits. "The team" in this case was probably sold to them by Spanier as good ol' State, but he was looking out for his own interests. They were on the stand, using that weird old man "horsing around" language they got from Jerry, because someone convinced them it was in PSU's best interests to get their stories straight and tell a tale that made the actual whistleblowers look like villains who downplayed the seriousness of the matter.

This scenario is further suggested by the statements made by the BOT about Spanier and Baldwin's minimization of the real risk to the University when Sarah's original Sandusky story appeared in the P-N as well as the CDT. In the frantic first days of unpreparedness following the arrests, Spanier was busy doctoring/softening the BOT's press release to suit his own interests, per several trustees. Garban, meanwhile, was inexplicably uninterested in reading the GJ report...why? Because he already knew what it said from Spanier?

Spanier is a so-so washboard player, but dude is truly some kind of magician. He's almost wholly disappeared from the Sandusky story, he likely engaged in machinations after the arrest to ensure that the BOT viewed Paterno as the bigger problem, and he somehow conned three professionals in his administration into taking actions that were not in any of their own best interests.

And now we're to believe that Baldwin somehow overlooked the one ethical lesson that is drilled into every attorney's head? Wasn't she in a large law firm where new clients are not accepted until a review is conducted to ensure there are no conflicts of interest? Seems a little difficult to believe she'd be so slipshod, especially because her hiring had to be for reasons other than the fact that some "external review" showed that PSU was highly unusual compared to its peer institutions because it didn't have in-house counsel. Why was she hired then, and not at an earlier or much later date? (The absence of in-house counsel would be an obvious oddity to anyone who spent time in any other major university setting. The complexities of a large university, including compliance with state and federal laws, make it extremely difficult for even a stellar outside firm to fully appreciate and advise on the day-to-day issues that crop up at a university.)

Yet in-house counsel (good ones) are pesky, always insisting that things be done on the up-and-up. I would not be surprised if Spanier deliberately avoided modernizing PSU's legal representation so as not to have his grand plans spoiled or delayed by annoying issues of compliance. No leader who truly cared about his/her institution (and not just his/her own ego) would subject such a well-regarded university to the level of risk that Spanier and the willfully ignorant BOT did. His reasons for doing so might have been similar to the reasons he lobbied for an exemption from typical Right to Know requirements for public institutions.

Why was Baldwin brought on board? Maybe Spanier knew this stuff was coming down, and needed to put a moat in around Old Main. Certainly, however, you'd think she'd get a strong head's up about the pending matter: "Oh, by the way, looks like your first big job will be to get us out of a mess involving our alleged complicity in allowing a pedophile to use our campus and the allure of PSU to entrap his young victims."

Unfortunately for Baldwin, however, the price of stepping up and filling that role on an emergency basis is that she now, along with Curley and Schultz, will take one for the team while the real culprit(s) play racquetball and pull rabbits out of hats (or whatever the hell it is he/they are doing these days). Maybe she was under Graham's magical spell, too, but why would this prominent lawyer in the later stages of her career agree to let Lanny Davis make her sound like an incompetent cardboard cutout of a lawyer?

Heck if I know, but I bet it's related to another mystery for our times--how it could be that a coach who allegedly "ran" all of PSU was told to dial a number to collect a "very special message" about the end of his career.

Great work identifying the real issues that tie the Sandusky mess to PSU, Sarah.

Impetus for creating this found here.

We the undersigned are concerned about the apparent lack of fairness displayed by the office of the Attorney General of Pa in publishing a Grand Jury Presentment that misled the public to believe that Mike McQueary testified to "seeing anal intercourse" as an "extremely credible" witness on March 1, 2002 in the Sandusky sex abuse case. Mike McQueary did not testify that he "saw anal intercourse". That misleading wording in the Victim 2 section of the Grand Jury Finding of Fact led to a media frenzy that inflamed public opinion against Joe Paterno and Penn State University. The public outrage led to the Board of Trustee’s firing of Coach Joe Paterno. We want the Attorney General’s office and the Governor and Board of Trustees to acknowledge that the wording of the presentment was misleading and a destructive distortion of the truth.

We want the Board of Trustees to acknowledge their mistake in hastily dismissing Coach Paterno causing great harm to his reputation and the reputation of the University they were chosen to govern.

Have at it, folks...

As some of you may recall, I was less than pleased when I read the first bits of information to be released regarding the Board of Trustees' Special Investigative Committee. Well, now that there are a few more details emerging, I may be starting to accept that the BOT is actually taking this matter seriously.

Foremost among the items making me feel better is the person who has been tapped to spearhead the investigation - former Federal Judge and FBI Director Louis Freeh. Reading his bio, I see no ties to Penn State, but I do see a long history of not being afraid to piss off politicians from both sides of the aisle. I also see that after leaving public service, Judge Freeh went on to start a consulting group that sounds like it's perfectly equipped to turn over every stone in this investigation.

As long as Judge Freeh is actually able to work completely outside the sphere of influence of the current Board of Trustees, I am willing to climb on board with this plan.

This is the letter I just sent to the Pennsylvania Attorney General's office:

Regarding the Penn State Board of Trustees' Special Investigative Committee that has been announced - As a Penn State alumnus (Mechanical Engineering, 1997), I find it very disturbing that the Special Committee is going to be primarily made up of current members of the Board of Trustees. These people are the very same who have demonstrated willful ignorance and lack of control for the last 13 years and allowed Jerry Sandusky to continue his affiliations with Penn State. I would feel much more comfortable if the Investigative Committee were completely governed by a third-party entity with no direct ties to Penn State University, such as a committee appointed by Governor Corbett or even the United States Department of Justice. I hope that the Office of the Attorney General can be of some assistance in either making this happen, or directing me to a more suitable path toward this end. Thank you.

I hope that some of my fellow alumni will join me in doing what we can to make sure that the investigation into the actions of all parties involved in the current situation is handled competently and fairly.

If anyone knows of a better path to pursue this, I'd be glad to hear it.

Awesome... absolutely awesome:

After the meeting, Frazier said who will sit on the committee and how many spots there are hasn’t been determined yet. But Frazier said trustees will make up most of the committee as well as faculty and students.

Full article here.

So the committee is going to be mostly made up of the very same people who have been at the helm as the SS Nittany has run onto the rocks, backed up into an iceberg, torpedoed itself, then sunk in shallow water only to get covered in seagull shit...

Absolutely fucking awesome.

I've been sitting on this idea for a few days, because even I found it absurd at first. I guess that one too many times of hearing 'why didn't he stop it?' finally pushed me over the edge.

Before March 1, 2002, Mike McQueary knew Jerry Sandusky very well. He grew up with Jerry's kids, played high school football with them, and likely visited the Sandusky home on many occasions. He went to Penn State and sat through countless team meetings with Jerry, and considered him a leader who was practically as important as Joe Paterno in terms of teaching the game of football. He worked with Jerry on probably a daily basis for two years in his role as a Graduate assistant, and considered Jerry a role model for his own career path. He saw Jerry as a humanitarian who walked away from a spectacularly successful coaching career to devote his life to helping children achieve a better life. By any reasonable measure, Mike McQueary would have had nothing but respect and admiration for the man. He likely had a relationship with Jerry that was closer than what many men of 28 years have with their own fathers.

Then one night Mike McQueary had a sizable portion of his life shattered. Without recounting the graphic details contained in the Grand Jury's summary, I'll just say that he saw one of the most heinous acts a person can commit. It was bad enough to even witness such a thing - the janitor who had found himself in a similar situation a couple of years before had become physically ill, and considered it to be worse than anything he had seen in his time deployed in a war zone - that I probably wouldn't find much fault in Mike if he had done what he did next even without any personal connection to Jerry Sandusky.

The fact that he had such a personal connection to the person performing an act of pure evil right in front of him had to make it difficult, if not impossible, for his brain to even process what he was seeing. I'm not a trained psychologist by any stretch, but I've read the definition of the term 'Cognitive Dissonance' and I can't imagine a clearer example of a situation that would cause a disconnect between our paradigms and our observations. This was a mentor, a father of friends, a highly respected member of the community, and he was performing an action so incredibly vile that most people have a hard time imagining anyone doing anything of the sort. Mike likely had flashes of every time he had ever visited the Sandusky home throughout his childhood, questioning whether he had ever seen anything like this happen before. He may have immediately questioned whether his friends, Sandusky's own children, had ever been subjected to such a thing. He may have even questioned why the child wasn't pleading for help - in the words of the mother of Victim #1: "He was like, 'Well, I didn't know what to do … you just can't tell Jerry no.'"

That Mike McQueary even had the presence of mind to remember any details of the situation is outstanding to me. He then proceeded to call the most trusted person in his life - his father - probably more to compose himself than to seek advice. Mike's father, likely knowing the University policies on what employees are to do in the case of witnessing a crime, advised Mike to notify the person immediately above him in the chain of command. Any conjecture that Mike's father advised him to leave the building without ensuring the safety of the child is inflammatory and, frankly, immaterial - the Attorney General determined that Mike had acted appropriately in this case when others who were notified later on have been charged with failure to report a crime. We know from the Grand Jury's summary what happened over the next few days - that Mike was involved as the report of what he had seen was communicated up the chain of command to the highest levels of University administration. He met with Gary Schultz, who - whether Mike had known it going in to the conversation or not - was likely introduced as the man in charge of University Park Police Services. Mike gave his account of the incident to what he understood, both by University policy and Pennsylvania law, to be the proper authorities. He was not concerned with tarnishing the reputation of a man who had recently been such a respected mentor and colleague. Mike McQueary, as much as he may have wanted to completely forget what he had seen, was willing and able to give a report that potentially would ruin the lives of people very close to him.

To all the sports writers, ESPN talking heads, radio callers, and anyone else who questions why such a physically fit man was unable to forcibly end the rape of a child I ask you: what would you do if you witnessed your own father performing such an act? This is the part that I considered absurd up until recently - I was afraid of eliciting nothing but vitriol from the person being asked the question - and exactly why the question needs to be put forth so harshly. Most people aren't even capable of envisioning someone they respect performing an act of pure evil. To consider a person of high esteem as actually being the lowest example of humanity literally turns your worldview on its head. Despite having his entire picture of what it means to be a respected member of the community called into question, Mike McQueary was still able to remember and convey what he had witnessed, and I applaud him for it.

On the one hand, you couldn't find a more credentialed candidate for the job. No matter who the next president is, they wouldn't be sticking around long regardless, so it's not like we're signing up for a long-term commitment. Hell, Spanier overstayed his welcome by at least half a decade, even without recent events...

Then again, I'm sure he has close connections to a lot of the currently-known key players, and likely any more that may surface in the coming days. If the Board of Trustees or Governor Corbett is really looking to clean house, why get someone who already knows the best places to hide the dirt?

Just trying to get a feel for the pulse of BSD on this, so to that end:

Poll

Is Tom Ridge a good option for our next (likely interim) president?

75%

Yea

117 votes

25%

Nay

39 votes

156 votes | Poll has closed

After the NCAA brought the hammer down on USC a while back, I know that Conquest Chronicles put the kibosh on new posters. I was reasonably sure the tOSU outlet did the same thing when they got put under the broiler. Has there been any such action on BSD since last weekend? We seem to be getting very few trolls, and most of the 'foreign' posters are very supportive and sympathetic. Maybe I'm just looking for a little bit of good left in humanity... or maybe I just want to know that the good karma that Joe's policies have engendered over the years is paying off. Either way, I'm just hoping that it's not an electric fence that's keeping the wolves out.

DJK snorted the lines, and the rest of the team smoked all the grass.

Before anybody (Rambler, I'm looking in your direction) accuses me of being a hater, I'd like to point out that I got this joke from a U of I alumnus.

Wow - you don't realize just how long seventy five words is until you fall short of that mark. I'll never quietly mock anyone who uses fillers to flesh out an anemic FanPost again.

I'm just perusing the new Coaches poll standings, and a couple of things jump out at me right away. First is that PSU isn't even in the 'others receiving votes' list, and second is that Michigan State is still ranked ahead of Iowa.

Okay, so I can almost understand it - they're Michigan, so they must be good, right? So three people give them a 25th place vote. ...or somebody puts them in 23rd. Neither here nor there, because the game finished late and most coaches were probably either watching Oregon or still working. At the end of the day, the only Coaches poll that really matters is the one that comes out the second weekend in December, anyway. What I find absolutely astounding, though, is that a substantial portion of the voting body in the Coaches poll can't be bothered to notice that the score of the MSU-Iowa game is indicative of total domination, and thus they put MSU ahead of Iowa. Seriously? This is how College Football crowns a national champion?

I know - the fact that coaches are kinda busy on Saturdays and can't be expected to pay attention to every aspect of what goes on has been thoroughly beaten to death. Still, even the cashier at the place where I had breakfast was aware that both Michigan Big Ten schools took a whoopin' yesterday.

Maybe we should make a Cashiers and Waiters Poll part of the BSC formula...

My division recently got bought, and our new corporate management thinks it's a good idea to have engineering services located close to our customers. While that might be a sensible idea on its face, the result of this is that my job is being relocated to southeastern Michigan.

I'm going to be somewhere around Novi, which is about 25 miles northeast of Ann Arbor, and about an hour from East Lansing. Sure, it's not the worst location for being able to catch lots of Big 1T1en news and sports action, but it still feels like I'm being forced to move into the seventh layer of Hell.

If anybody knows of any PSU-friendly hangouts in the area, I'd be happy to hear about them, but mostly I just want your support as I venture into the belly of the beast.

I log on this morning for my daily dose of hearing about how bad our MBB team sucks, Uncle Rambler's History Corner ®, and to have my hopes for a new video detailing fugi's frustration at the futility of ill-timed FanPosts dashed; and I notice the updated look from SB Nation. It's not unpleasant, and I suppose they have to keep their designers in beer and cigarettes somehow... Then I notice that they've resumed using the 'background' ad space on either side of the window, and that both sides are showing ads for KY Intense. The top banner and the ad on the upper right of the main page are also for KY. Is this some sort of targeted advertising that pops up based on the content of BSD? ...or do they just assume that we're all sexually frustrated and they're 'looking out for us'?

I'm looking at the Top 25 overview on SI.com's CFB page this morning, and a snippet of a headline catches my eye. I follow the link and sure enough, the headline reads: "Jon Wilner: Stanford Cardinal will upset Pac-10-leading Oregon Ducks"

I don't know if anyone is familiar with Mr. Wilner, but his voting for the AP poll could be charitably described as 'suspect'. The guy doesn't seem to have a friggin' clue about fundamentals of football, and is prone to chase whatever flavor of the week happens to be the hottest. This, however, crosses the line into blatant homerism and outright idiocy.

If you followed the second link above, you may note that Mr. Wilner gave Oregon second place in his AP poll ballot. Conveniently, five days later, he pens a column where he predicts that Stanford will upset the vaunted Ducks. In case you hadn't noticed- JON WILNER WRITES FOR STANFORD'S HOMETOWN PAPER. It's kind of like making a straw man argument, except that in this case, you're creating a strong team out of straw only to have the locals knock it down. I always thought Wilner was a wee bit off in his opinions, but when the reasoning behind them becomes so transparent, I can only take comfort in the fact that at the end of the day, the AP poll counts for nothing.

The host of one of my preferred tailgates is taking a page out of Curley's playbook and doing theme weeks this season. As fate would have it, the theme for the Iowa game is going to be 'All Things Bacon'. We already have plans for taking hot potato salad, but I wanted to extend the wonder of bacon into dessert.

The first idea that came to me was to make chocolate peanut clusters, and replace 1/4 to 1/3 of the peanuts with well-done bacon. That seems a little weak to me, though, and I was wondering if anyone here has any practical experience with a bacon dessert. Basically I need to come up with something that's tailgate-friendly, and as focused on bacon as possible.

Thanks, Coach. I'll hang up and listen.