I’ve managed to download the report, finally. If you’re having trouble with the PSU site, you can access the Freeh commission PDFs here.
Freeh News Conference Statement
Enjoy.
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BigAl says
Thanks for downloading the report. Reading it will give me something to do this weekend.
My first thought is that every 2nd Mile client who can prove that they spent time alone with The Jer is going to be a millionaire courtesy of Penn State.
My second thought is that JoePa’s excuses for not “doing more” were self serving BS. He knew about the 1998 incident but let Sandusky coach another year and retire with special privileges. He should not have “persuaded” Curley to abandon the plan to notify Child Protective Services in 2002. Sandusky may have deserved a second chance after 1998, but he didn’t deserve a third chance in 2002.
The Nittany Turkey says
One thing that was mentioned in the follow-up to the press conference on ESPN was that now, not only would Penn State’s endowment be vulnerable to litigation, but so would Joe’s estate. If true, I feel bad for Sue.
By the way, Matt Millen shows up as an absolute dunce every time he opens his mouth. I can understand why the Lions sucked as bad as they did when he was president.
I agree that Joe’s “hindsight” was indeed bullshit. He had two chances to do something about Sandusky and chose to go with benign neglect each time. One would think that after all the shit hit the fan in 1998, even though the prosecutor declined to press charges, Joe would have thought twice in 2001 when McQueary came to him with something that could have been prevented had Joe acted on it. Yet he chose to keep it internal. Sandusky should have been given a swift kick off campus at the very least in 1998. It is hard to believe that Joe neglected to do anything about the monster in their midst at Lasch after all that went down. Deplorable. How many kids will forever suffer as a result of Joe’s putting the clamp on reporting it?
Joe undoubtedly was the most powerful man in the university, so although Spanier should go down because the org chart shows him at the top, the de facto ruler, Paterno, deserves his share of the blame. When he spoke, Spanier listened. Curley was always his sycophant. Joe just wanted Curley around to run the other athletic departments besides football. As for Schultz, he feared and perhaps distrusted Paterno, but didn’t do anything about him, even after he retired. Joe, in retrospect, seemed to have a stranglehold on the university.
Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Here’s to better times!
—TNT
Lizzie says
I did not read the report but what I saw on TV up here, North of the 49th, is pretty damning to Joe. Will his statue at Penn State come down now or will the birds at least be able to deposit on it without guilt?
The Nittany Turkey says
The damn pigeons might have known best all along. The university can probably save some money by diverting the cleaning crew from the statue to the showers.
It is anybody’s guess what will happen to the statue. Students love to have an excuse to raise hell, so if it is removed visibly before people settle down, there could be a riot. Hence, it will be debated in committee, just like everything else in a university, especially when Paterno is no longer around to make all the decisions.
—TNT
jd says
2 things stood out from the report: Joe knew about the 98 incident(I was under the asssumption he did not), and that not a damn person in any leadership role tried to find out who the kid was and if he was harmed.
sad.
in re statue: leave it up. statues commemorate triumphs as well as tragedies. why not have both?
the south is chock full of statues in the center of town. many times, the statue is of a slave-owning racist in confederate uniform. nobody seems to mind them.
one friend even texted me today that psu should get new uniforms. i had to unplug at that point i was so furious.
jd says
my point about the statues being these peoplehelped perpetuate a crime for 300 years that was much harsher (not according to mark may-he insists what joe did was worse than slavery) than what happenned at psu these past 15 years.
The Nittany Turkey says
You know that there are idiots out there looking for symbolic retribution against not only Sandusky and those who enabled him, but also all the real and perceived sins of the football program, present and past, including all the bragging about graduation rate, Grand Experiments, etc. Haters will be haters, especially if they have a noble cause with which they can take the moral high ground.
It was also interesting that when McQueary called Paterno to tell him that he had something important to talk about, Paterno responded, “If it’s about a job, I don’t have one for you, so don’t bother coming over.” Funny that he wound up getting a job, ain’t it?
If anything, I hope the visibility of this tragedy convinces other universities to a) never let one man become so powerful, and b) come out of the closet with the skeletons and shuck the culture of secrecy. If there is a silver lining to this grey cloud, it is that other institutions might think twice about covering up transgressions.
—TNT
Joe says
Curious to get your opinion on this. I believe the “Failure to Report” charge is beyond the statute of limitations for Curley and Schultz. We saw in the Syracuse/Bernie Fine and Bill Conlan/Philadelphia Daily News child abuse allegations that the prosecutors in both instances did not prosecute for that reason even though they felt there was a valid case to do so. Do you think that happens here? I also acknowledge there is extreme culpability on both of their parts as well as Spanier (waiting for the GJ shoe to drop on him) and Paterno and more charges may be forthcoming but is it possible this charge goes away for these two because the statute of limitations has passed? Can’t imagine the uproar that would occur if this happened.
The Nittany Turkey says
Good question, Joe, and I have no answer. I lack the knowledge of the law and how one can be hid behind it to be exonerated for crimes we’re damn near certain they perpetrated.
My temptation is to put most of the blame on Paterno’s shoulders. After all, Curley was his “boy” and would do anything Joe told him to do. This doesn’t justify the crime, and it gives no satisfaction because a dead man cannot be taken to task, but we’ll just have to see how it plays out. Like you, I think there will be a shitstorm if anyone gets off the hook here.
—TNT
Joe says
I know the train has pretty much left the station on this in the various media outlets, but I found this very intriguing and perhaps explains why I just did not feel all warm and fuzzy that Freeh had gotten to the bottom of what really transpired after I read the report.
http://www.johnziegler.com/editorials_details.asp?editorial=219
In addition, Tom Harmon (Chief of Campus Police) and I believe the Assistant DA (I don’t recall the woman’s name) declined to be interviewed.
Mr Ziegler to my knowledge does not have any ties to PS, so I assume there is a measure of critical thinking/analysis done on his part for this article without the benefit of sipping the blue Kool-Aid.
The Nittany Turkey says
Either he is a natural born cynic or he sneaked out behind the barn to drink the blue Kool-Aid.
There’s a lot of hair splitting in his editorial.
I could be gullible, but I don’t think the Freeh report is a gratuitous hatchet job, and I can’t find any conclusions in it that I would consider laughable. It is not completely convincing to within a shadow of a doubt, but its conclusions and recommendations are reasonable, in my opinion. The recommendations need to be implemented.
—TNT
Lizzie says
I’m still thinking about the statue of Joe P and agree with jd that statues do represent good, bad, and ugly. As the Turkey stated, I am wondering if it will become a target for youth angst and anything else college students get ticked off about on campus. Will it become a Berlin wall and be chipped away bit by bit? I am thinking that the statue could be dressed up like the Mannequin Pis in Brussels. Last time I was there the little guy was dressed as the grim reaper. I have only seen him bare naked once out of three times.
The Nittany Turkey says
Think about the statue some more when you read my latest post, in which I make up my mind about what I think should happen with the statue.
—TNT