Re: The Freeh Report and the Future of Penn State
Quote:
Originally Posted by
psuasskicker
OFirst, Enron is still operating today. It's no longer "Enron" that's operating. But it's not that the executives of that company were found to have committed accounting fraud, then suddenly the entire company simply vanished off the map. The company was broken up and sold or spun off in pieces, and those pieces still operate today either on their own or as part of a bigger corporation. And while innocent people certainly got hurt and lost their jobs in that mess, a good number of them didn't. No one burned that company to the ground. Nor should they have
That's not accurate.
Enron become a liquidation company, selling off it's parts to other companies to settle the bankruptcy claim. Enron no longer exists and is most certainly was "burned to the ground", thanks to the volume of pay outs.
I think you're parsing words when it comes to the claim "the entire institution is guilty". Nobody thinks the Bio-101 professor is guilty and should suffer directly. But when there are STILL people getting paid (sans Paterno, for obvious reasons) even though PSU is claiming the bad seeds have been removed, it's hard to argue anything other than the university, as an institution, is still doing the dirty deed of covering, ducking and jiving their way out of something of their own creation.
So yes, the entire institution was guilty. They are STILL guilty for the utter botching of the post report handling of the issue.
Re: The Freeh Report and the Future of Penn State
Quote:
Originally Posted by
psuasskicker
I hear this argument a lot from fellow Penn State friends of mine, that it really wasn't a football scandal. It makes me hang my head.
The biggest question I ask people is, "If McQueary walked in on a highly respected biology teacher in that shower, not a highly respected ex-coach, would we have heard about this in 2001, or in 2011?" IMO, clearly the answer is "2001." i.e. Paterno, Schultz, Curley and Spanier all would have agreed to alert the proper authorities, and while ugly for the university, it would have treated the situation correctly and not have shown any sort of institutional lack of controls.
That by definition makes it a football problem. The reason they didn't alert authorities was to protect the football program. The only other argument is if you claim that they wouldn't have reported anyone (like the bio prof). But flat out, I don't believe that.
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Yes. Sad for sure.
The real life lesson for all of us should come from asking, what if? What if Paterno et al had simply acted appropriately? For starters, how many boys lives would have been saved? I suppose that question should be for starters and for enders. No reason to even consider beyond that tragic question.
But think about what really would have happened to the football team if Sandusky had been stopped at the first whiff of all this? Would the team have really been damaged when it was revealed their coordinator was a pedophile? I think not? Was the Carolina Panthers organization destroyed when it came to light what Rae Carruth did -- to pick a random comparison?
Why, Joe, why? Why defend the indefensible when you really had nothing to gain?
When will we learn that it's always that cover-up, not the original misdeed, that does the most damage? (R.I.P. Richard Nixon).
You tried to teach your kids at the earliest ages that they shouldn't lie. You teach them to admit their mistakes and above all else be honest.
It's sad that we have to talk about a man in his eighties who never learned this lesson.
Re: The Freeh Report and the Future of Penn State
Quote:
Originally Posted by
RavensNTerps
There are simply some PSU fans like yourself that will never rationally see the forest from the trees, unfortunately, which is reason enough to disband the football program for at least one season.
It's ironic to me that you claim I'm the one not thinking rationally about this. You still aren't actually addressing the issues at hand. Seriously, you expect us to take your argument seriously, yet you provide nothing in the way of rational argument when stating your thoughts on how this should be handled. Answer the questions I asked in a previous post...
1) How do you know that death penalty for a season will have the appropriate response (i.e. to force the institute to realize football isn't what's important here, safety of children is what's important) and ensure everyone will come to such realization?
2) How do you know that ONLY the death penalty for a season will ensure the appropriate response, as opposed to some other level of punishment?
Until you have actually come up with good answers to these questions, you cannot possibly make a claim that the death penalty is the correct response to this situation, particularly without balancing against the impact imposing such a penalty would have on other innocents tied to the program which you want to punish.
And I'm not asking for actual answers to those questions, btw. You (or anyone) can try if you want, but those questions are far deeper than any of us here can possibly hope to answer.
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Re: The Freeh Report and the Future of Penn State
The "oppropriate response" in either case would be to make an example out of PSU in the hopes that no other school would let something like this happen.
Unfortunately i dont think you can avoid the collateral damage to students and staff of PSU.
Re: The Freeh Report and the Future of Penn State
The death penalty is important because as long as the institution continues to profit from the football program, the mentality will not change. Yeah, maybe the next time it won't be as egregious as what Sandusky did but the entire culture needs to shift drastically. Big time. Football is NOT Penn State and Penn State is NOT football and until that point has come across the problem isn't solved.
So one scum bag is in jail and another scumbag is dead rotting in hell somewhere. That's all well and good, but nothing changes. You should watch The Wire.
Re: The Freeh Report and the Future of Penn State
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Originally Posted by
HoustonRaven
Enron become a liquidation company, selling off it's parts to other companies to settle the bankruptcy claim. Enron no longer exists and is most certainly was "burned to the ground", thanks to the volume of pay outs.
They did become a liquidation company, but the point was that no, it didn't just get burned down. Many of the portions of the company were sold off to other companies and still operate today. Enron in its known form no longer exists. But it's simply not accurate to say that the company was burned down...it was disbanded.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
HoustonRaven
I think you're parsing words when it comes to the claim "the entire institution is guilty". Nobody thinks the Bio-101 professor is guilty and should suffer directly. But when there are STILL people getting paid (sans Paterno, for obvious reasons) even though PSU is claiming the bad seeds have been removed, it's hard to argue anything other than the university, as an institution, is still doing the dirty deed of covering, ducking and jiving their way out of something of their own creation.
So yes, the entire institution was guilty. They are STILL guilty for the utter botching of the post report handling of the issue.
Even if you narrow it down to just talk about the football program and school executives, the "entire institution" STILL wasn't fully involved or guilty. There were other coaches and executives that didn't have any knowledge of this situation. Was it the heart of the university and football program? Of course, I don't argue that. Was it caused by an institution-wide attitude that the integrity of the football program was stellar and any impropriety would have a drastically problematic impact? Yes, I agree with that. I argue that it was NOT the entire institution, though.
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Re: The Freeh Report and the Future of Penn State
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Originally Posted by
RavensNTerps
You should watch The Wire.
I have. Twice. Best show in TV history.
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Originally Posted by
ballhawk
The "oppropriate response" in either case would be to make an example out of PSU in the hopes that no other school would let something like this happen.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
RavensNTerps
The death penalty is important because as long as the institution continues to profit from the football program, the mentality will not change.
Not good enough.
We don't live in a country where you dish out punishment and simply hope that it changes the attitudes of other people. There needs to be reasoning behind it. The appropriate response is not give the death penalty, hope other institutions heed the warning and hope something like this never happens again. You bring down punishment because you're certain that's what it takes to ensure PSU and other programs heed the warning and ensure nothing like this happens again.
You don't punish because you assume the mentality won't change without the death penalty. RNT, you can claim that as much as possible, but you have literally no idea
a) that the mentality will not change if they do not impose the death penalty, nor
b) that imposing the death penalty will in fact change that mentality.
Until you know both of those things, you can't make a reasonable argument for the death penalty.
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Re: The Freeh Report and the Future of Penn State
I would like to see PSU self sanction the football team. Obviously football and the power that the program had was the crux of the issues that lead to the situation. I don't think they should shut down the program for a year. Here some of the things they could do. 1. Petition the NCAA to let any current players transfer without having to sit out 1 year. Obviously the situation is not great for the current players. 2. Reduce number of scholarships by 5 a year for a 5 year period. Offer equivalent school schollies to kids of abuse. 3. Donate all bowl proceeds for the next three years to a charity for abused children.
At the same time they are sanctioning the football program release steps being taken to manager sports programs and coaches. Well Documented and publicized.
Re: The Freeh Report and the Future of Penn State
FWIW, no matter what sanctions get imposed, not just will not everyone be happy, but a majority of the people will think it's unfair. I have yet to hear one statement around what sanctions should be, where a majority of the people think it's the "right" answer.
No sanctions? PSU apologists are happy, most middle-of-the-road people are angry they got nothing, PSU detractors are pissed.
Death penalty? PSU apologists are pissed, most middle-of-the-road people are angry they got too hurt, PSU detractors are happy.
Something in between? PSU apologists are unhappy they got anything, most middle-of-the-road people are okay but most likely say "they should have gotten [more/less] because of [XYZ]," PSU detractors are unhappy they didn't get penalized enough.
Like I said, there's simply no easy answer here.
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Re: The Freeh Report and the Future of Penn State
Quote:
Originally Posted by
psuasskicker
They did become a liquidation company, but the point was that no, it didn't just get burned down. Many of the portions of the company were sold off to other companies and still operate today. Enron in its known form no longer exists. But it's simply not accurate to say that the company was burned down...it was disbanded.
Semantics. The company was burned down the only way a company that large can be burned down, given it was the largest, most complex bankruptcy in American business history. It's not like the neighborhood Mickey D's getting shut down where you pad lock the doors and leave a hand written sign on the front door, saying "Thanks!".
You made the claim it still exists. It most certainly does not.
And I have a hard time comparing the largest, most complex bankruptcy in American business history with that of a school that covered up the buggering of more than a dozen children for 14+ years. It's a college with a famous football program, employing 1/100th the number of folks Enron did. That's all; nothing more. You treat it like you would any other college.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
psuasskicker
Even if you narrow it down to just talk about the football program and school executives, the "entire institution" STILL wasn't fully involved or guilty. There were other coaches and executives that didn't have any knowledge of this situation. Was it the heart of the university and football program? Of course, I don't argue that. Was it caused by an institution-wide attitude that the integrity of the football program was stellar and any impropriety would have a drastically problematic impact? Yes, I agree with that. I argue that it was NOT the entire institution, though.
From a legal (and moral, IMO) standpoint, the 4 top people ARE the institution. This isn't the football program of say, the Terps. Football IS the institution at PSU. Since football (and it's most famous football employees) were the very thing wrong with the institution, then yes, the institution is guilty, especially when we now know the cover up involved.
Re: The Freeh Report and the Future of Penn State
Re: The Freeh Report and the Future of Penn State
Quote:
Originally Posted by
HoustonRaven
From a legal (and moral, IMO) standpoint, the 4 top people ARE the institution. This isn't the football program of say, the Terps. Football IS the institution at PSU. Since football (and it's most famous football employees) were the very thing wrong with the institution, then yes, the institution is guilty, especially when we now know the cover up involved.
No, I completely disagree with every bit of this.
Not sure how legally you mean that the top four are the institution, can you explain that more?
Football is what Penn State tends to be known for outside PA and it's what most people associate the college with when you first mention the school, but it's like that literally everywhere where there's a big football program. Football IS the Penn State institution no moreso than it IS the Ohio St, Florida, Michigan, Alabama, USC, etc institutions as well. The problem is, that's just not true. All of those are far more schools than they are football schools, no matter how you cut it.
I argued before that taking the football program away is a massive impact to the university. And it would be. But the numbers still say it's only around 3% of the university's revenues. You simply can't claim that something defines a university when it only makes up that little a portion of what the university actually entails. It's not like PSU is a little 300 student school which draws 100,000 people for its football games. Half or more of the student body doesn't go to the home games and Penn State - while deeply impacted by the football program - does not revolve around it.
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