Writing in the September 21, 2012 issue of Blue White Illustrated, Penn State historian Lou Prato is the latest knowledgeable figure to condemn the much maligned Freeh report, its premature acceptance by the University, and its being used as a basis for draconian punishment by the NCAA and the Big Ten Conference, as well as an “accreditation warning” by the Southern Commission on Higher Education. The essay is entitled “Jumping to conclusions” and it appears on pages 56-58.
“ …the report stated that a ‘senior Penn State official referred to Curley as Paterno’s errand boy.’ That derogatory remark was out of line and should not have been included in a report from an experienced, high-profile professional like Freeh…” —Lou Prato
I recommend that anyone appalled by the media spurred rush to judgment against Penn State beg, borrow, or steal a copy of BWI. Reading it in the wake of all the other critiques solidified my feeling that the Freeh report is a piece of shoddy, biased garbage, a waste of $6.5 million. It is almost as if the BoT stated its mission to Freeh thus: “Here’s what we want, a hatchet job on Paterno, Spanier, Curley, and Shultz — now make it look good and make it your idea.”
Prato doesn’t quite reach that conspiratorial conclusion, but he does tear the report apart quite convincingly. Although he personally takes issue with a plethora of issues, he dwells on three areas. In his words:
” … there are three areas that caught my immediate attention because they epitomize for me the deceptive nature of the document: 1) the reliance on information about discipline from the Office of Student Affairs without any rebuttal; 2) the interpretation of the crucial 1998 child abuse investigation that never reached the criminal court; and 3) an uncalled for cheap shot aimed at the working relationship of Curley and Paterno.”
I think we all have concerns about those subjects and we’re pretty familiar with the rebuttals against the report’s conclusions in those areas. However, Prato adds some information about the Office of Student Affairs (OSA) connection that is new to me, albeit a subject of my conjectures.
Regarding the notorious Vicky Triponey and her involvement in the 2007 off-campus fracas involving several members of the football team, Prato writes:
The footnote credits the head of the OSA at the time – Vicky Triponey, who is not mentioned by name – as telling the committee she “perceived pressure from the Athletics Department, and particularly the football program, to treat players in ways that would maintain their ability to play sports,” and that Spanier later reduced the sanctions OSA imposed on the players. Since the scandal broke, Triponey has been saying this and more to a susceptible media unwilling to seek out a countering view. Thus far, no one has publicly rebutted her. One who might – Curley – cannot talk about it now for legal reasons. If Spanier told the committee anything about the disciplinary situation in 2007 during his interviews, it isn’t mentioned. And, of course, Paterno isn’t alive to tell his side of the story.
There is no indication the investigators talked to anyone who might have a different opinion or looked into Triponey’s credibility – which is suspect. ???? ???? ????? ??? ???? Almost from the day she was hired, she battled constantly with the university’s student leaders, not just the athletic department and Paterno. Those student leaders were so angry about her dictatorial style they set up a Web page that still exists: The Vicky Triponey Timeline of Terror.
Furthermore, even before her arrival, the Judicial Affairs branch of the OSA was considered by a large segment of students and local attorneys to be a “kangaroo court.” In fact, what really precipitated Triponey’s sudden departure – she only recently admitted publicly that she was fired – was an extensive review of Judicial Affairs in 2007 by a campus-wide academic committee that Spanier had commissioned. When Triponey strenuously objected to the committee recommendations that Spanier adopted, she was given the opportunity to resign or be terminated.
Anyone can read that committee report at safeguardoldstate.org. Obviously, Freeh and his committee didn’t.
If you are a new reader of the Turkey, you need to know a couple of things about Vicky Triponey and her connections to the Penn State debacle. When NCAA president Mark Emmert was at the University of Connecticut, he hired Triponey. ???? ?????? 888 Now, Triponey works at The College of New Jersey, where her boss, R. Barbara Gitenstein, is also the president of the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, the accreditation body that recently issued Penn State a warning about its accreditation being in jeopardy. ?????? ????? Because Triponey started mouthing off about Penn State immediately after the Sandusky scandal broke, two things were apparent: 1) she still had sour grapes about being forced out at Penn State (i.e., losing to Paterno) and Vicky vitriolically vied to vindicate her view of the evil football program, and 2) she had a lot of influential and connected players in the media, the NCAA, and the Big Ten in her address book, and she took the opportunity to haul out the heavy artillery. Her media blitz resulted in articles that lionized her (pun intended) as the woman who took on Joe Paterno and won.
Of course, the media and other influential entities are still piling on, given that Penn State is in such a vulnerable position, especially when they all know they can play the outrage and sympathy card by bringing up the victims of Sandusky’s crimes.
Prato sums up by stating that Penn Staters are aware of the deceit, but it is too bad that we have to endure the continual media and public bitterness to prove our points.
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lawrence serewicz says
The Freeh report may be flawed, but does PSU really want the truth? Is it better to grouch about a report or go through a root and branch review of *everuything* wrong or alleged wrong with PSU football? The former allows the progamme to survive, as i have argued in my blog post, while the latter would likely see it disappear.
The BoT are doing what they do best, reputation management. Yes, it is a rush to judgement but it is the only one that PSU and the NCAA can survive. Once you open up the PSU report, the NCAA will unravel because it is has no legitimacy as the Taylor Branch repoert showed. I argued this point on my thoughtmanagement.org blog on PSU and reputation management.
From a true believer’s perspective, i want the truth. However, anypone who goes hat far, has to be ready to handle that truth. If you throw out the Freeh report, you are not going to make it better. This is going to get much worse and much uglier. Take one point to focus discussions.
The Freeh report had specific terms of reference. This was focused on Sandusky. Does PSU or the NCAA or the BOT want a full investigation of the paterno years? Do they really believe the programme is so clean it can survivce such an investigation?
If Sandusky was the worst, what are the scandals that were slightly better that were “successfully” dealt with by the school? Is every confidential agereement, every negotiated departure, every conflict between the football programme and academics going to be reviewed in public? Good luck and God bless.
You will need a bigger boat to hunt that whale.
The Nittany Turkey says
Go ahead, call me naïve, but I’m going to disagree with you. Not unlike many other Penn Staters who believe in Joe Paterno’s innate goodness, I would encourage a thorough and unbiased investigation of the Penn State football program. I continue to believe that it was one of the cleanest in the country.
If you get a chance, read “Paterno” by Joe Posnanski. It will give you a better feeling for the man and the coach. I’m not going to say that it will change your mind, but it is enlightening.
I’m going to predict that the NCAA is going to have a very difficult time remaining viable, at least in its present form, after this year. With scandals going on at many schools, the one at UNC thus far being the worst, and given the formation of the Big Ten and Pac-12 TV networks, what good is the NCAA, anyway? Hell, the Big Ten and Pac-12 could split off, keep the Rose Bowl, run their own basketball tournament and make out like bandits.
In any case, I appreciate your strong position.
—TNT
lawrence serewicz says
We may never know about Paterno, which is why the BoT are doing the strategically right (perhaps morally wrong) decision of burying the scandal with Paterno. Dead men cannot defend themselves. Moreover, I think Paterno would have understood the strategy. It is like going for 2 (to make the other team score twice) and then when it fails having the defense to keep the other team from scoring.
The Freeh report (any report in that timescale, context, and terms of reference) is flawed. The flaws, though are not fatal. Herein, we see the difficulty. PSU needs to get beyond the issue. If it does a root branch review, will it have a football programme in the future? Without a root branch review (current situation) it still has a programme.
The BoT will have weighed the cost of losing the programme or weakening it (but keeping it) and realized that they have to be in the game to win it. To put it differently, can PSU afford all the lost revenue (going forward after the the ban ends?) if the programme ends? No. They may be able to work around it, if needed, in the short term. In the long term, the University (as it is structured) is NOT financially viable if the football programme and its TV revenue go.
By all means complain about the report, by all means attack the decision. But never forget, once the schools opens up the pandora’s box and the money generated by the programme is gone (for good) how are they going to afford to replace that income? More to the point, if they do not clean this problem up quickly ( and effectively) then the debt they hold gets down graded. The borrowing costs increase. The University then faces a long term problem.
http://www.controller.psu.edu/Divisions/ControllersOffice/docs/FinStmts/2011FinStmts.pdf
This is as much about reputation as it is about the financial reality of a modern university. In sum, the school is basically insolvent and needs to maintain its revenue to service its debts. So long as the revenue continues, everything is fine. Once you take away the football money, and take away the cost of the litigation (and the reputation damage), you are looking at a large financial problem.
At the moment, this is under (relative) control. Once you open this up, then you start the financial roulette. Does everybody really understand how costly this can be directly and indirectly? This is not about two or three officials being sent to jail. This is about a university that could be on the brink of financial difficulties if it cannot sort out this problem and reassure credit agencies, investors, and donors.
The Nittany Turkey says
I understand where you’re coming from. In the context of what we’ve discussed so far, I could almost agree with you, although I’ll take exception to your implication that Paterno would have approved putting the issue to bed. Dead men don’t tell tales, thus they don’t attest to what their actions might have been.
You stand on several assumptions that might in themselves be flawed. One major one is that the football program would be shut down if an NCAA investigation would reveal transgressions. However, the “death penalty” turns out to have never been on the table, and that’s per the published words of the President of the NCAA Executive Committee, Ed Ray. This doesn’t imply that it wouldn’t be available as a punishment if Penn State were found to be in gross violation in areas in which the NCAA actually had jurisdiction, but I personally doubt that it would ever happen. Just my opinion, which is as good as the bucket of bits it was pulled out of to appear on your screen.
That all having been said, though, you miss a significant reason for keeping this ball rolling: dirty Pennsylvania politics. If you do some background investigation outside the bounds of the NCAA vs. the University, you’ll find some intertwined financial arrangements between the governor and the Second Mile (Sandusky’s charity organization); a district attorney whose disappearance, which happened while the current governor was state attorney general, has never been accounted for and who was legally declared dead this year; and that governor who sits on Penn State’s board of trustees a primary voice in wanting to put this thing in the past. There are probably many more reasons why some highly situated state officials would want this matter to be buried in the mud at the bottom of the Susquehanna River, just where the aforementioned missing and presumed dead district attorney’s computer was found, more reasons than I need or care to know.
I’m aware that this represents a loose collection of facts strung together to fit the framework of a paranoid conspiracy theory, but wasn’t the Freeh report itself merely a loose collection of facts strung together to fit the framework of a complete hatchet job on a university and its football program?
Mind you, the people of Pennsylvania paid $6.5 million for a report that was not only flawed but also could have possibly been manipulated in order to find and vilify enough scapegoats to potentially appease the angry public, and turn their attention away from any monkey business among their honorable governor and his minions.
We need to move on — eventually.
—TNT
BigAl says
The financial statements you referenced do not support your thesis that Penn State is bankrupt without football revenue. First of all, the statements do not even mention the costs and revenues associated with the football program.
The only category where football revenues and costs could be logically reported is “auxiliary enterprises.” “Auxiliary enterprises’ had revenues of $364M and expenses of $317M for a net “profit” of $47M. $47M sounds impressive but it only represents 13% of the total 373M in net operating “profit” for 2011.
And football doesn’t account for all of the “auxiliary enterprise profit.” I remember seeing an article which claimed that the Penn State athletic department turned a profit of about $20M after subsidizing all the money losing Title 9 sports. $20M is a drop in the bucket for a $4.5 Billion operation like Penn State.
It’s fair to say that Penn State would have had to eliminate its entire intercollegiate sports program if football received a 4 year death penalty, but loss of football wouldn’t have bankrupted the university.
The Nittany Turkey says
One further negative issue about accepting the Freeh report and moving on: it is a springboard for actions against Penn State. Not only have the NCAA and Big Ten justified their punitive actions by the conclusions expressed in the report, but also Sandusky’s victims lawsuits against PSU will have a much better chance of succeeding if the report remains uncontested. Not that the report in itself was conducted as a legal inquiry, but it could sure as hell sway a jury who were aware that Penn State had accepted it without question.
Disclaimer: I care about the victims. I just don’t want them and their plaintiff counsel getting rich off Penn State if Penn State isn’t culpable, although with the hatchet job having been ongoing for so long, it might be too late.
—TNT
lawrence serewicz says
I have over simplified for space. I think paterno would understand the strategy even if he disagreed.
He is not beyond reproach given his lack of vigour in pursuing the initial issue. As such, it does follow tht he would appreciate the need to move on, ie how Sandusky was allowed to negotiate a lucrative departure.
On the accounts, the school has more liabilities than assets. Technically it is solvent, because it can service its debts. If its debts increase, it has to make choices about how they are serviced ie morfe debt or cut programme funding. The uncertainty of litigation and lost revenue and prestige will affect the school’s ability to gain funds in the long run (if the school cannot reassure financial donors and markets that he problem has been resolved.)
There is a wider political context, which on the surface is quite ugly. If this opens up, then we are looking at huge problems. What other deals have been made? What is happenning with second mile, what other low level scandals, (this is human nature so there will be issues to consider) that still are yet to emerge. I like PSU. The issue is the scandal is not isolated and this is what the Freeh report’s limited terms of reference.
If there is a review that draws in external issues, this will get a lot worse. The backstories raise a lot more questions that will further erode the university’s position because of its relationship with second mile.
What has to be kept in mind is that the wider this goes, the worse it is for PSU. The destination may be to exonerate certain people and implicate others. However, it will not change the underlying problem Sandusky and the coverup and failure to redress the wrong doing. Perfect justice can be achieved but at what cost? Do we destroy the village to save it? I doubt PSU is as clean as claimed and the people making the decisions will know this better than most. Too much money, too much ego and too much human nature to not have scandals that are yet to be seen. If the first reaction was reputation over justice, it sets the tone for how all such problems will have been adressed. No one said this was out of character, rather it was accepted as the way of doing business by the people involved.
What may have to be accepted is imperfect justice, which the BoT see as a price worth paying.
BigAl says
Penn State’s liabilities DO NOT exceed its assets. Total liabilities are $3.9B and total assets are $5.9B. And the biggest liability is accrued retirement benefits rather than long term debt.
Penn State’s problem is illiquidity rather than insolvency since most of its assets are either designated for specific purposes, or immovable plant and equipment
But, even then, total short and long term debt is approx 1.7B which could theoretically be wiped out by liquidating cash on hand of $1.5B, short term investments of $.2B ,and Accounts Receivable of $.4B.
The real issue here is whether continuing to fight the NCAA would result in significant FUTURE reductions in State appropriations and alumni gifts. Penn State would not be able to survive if the 333M in annual state appropriations were suddenly withdrawn . And for all we know, Corebutt may have told the BOT that he would do just that if the BOT fought the NCAA sanctions.
PS Laurence, accounting does not appear to be your strong suit. Your economic arguments might be stronger if you got assistance from the accounting faculty at your university.
lawrence serewicz says
Big Al
Thanks for clarifying. I was using insolvency and illiquidity interchangeably. This is sloppy shorthand. If you have illiquidity, you cannot service your debts. This is what ate up aig and lehmans. Yes, PSU has assets but they cannot turn those all into cash. Moreover, if you have illiquidity you are soon insolvent.
PSU will not go out of business. What they face is reduced income and donors. Also if federal funds are pulled, the university will have to cut something until it gets federal funds back.
PSU and its BoT have to work with that constraint. These are not empty threats that go away because someone refuses to accept them. The BoT would be derelict in its duty if it did not act within this calculus.
I am not affiliated with a university, however, i have spent enough time around fundraisers to know the mill stone this type of publicity creates. You will get the rally round the flag effect so donations go up. Then as the national media stories continue “PSU refuses to accept blame. PSU fights Freeh report. PSU finds more problems.”. Will not help with fund raising. If the litigtion gets out of control (3 cases in action or being considered) this gets worse and stretches into months, and even years.
The BoT are doing damage limitation as best they can. They see these types of constraints. Even if they wanted to do a root branch review, it does not fit the damage limitation model they are following. Now no matter what is done, this is going to get worse before it gets better. How much worse and how much damage is largely in the hands of the BoT if they get it right, it is just this problem. They get it wrong it turns into a soapopera that runs for years.
Each day and each week this remains a story, the university loses money and reputation. Both of these take time and resources to rebuild. My fear is that this becomes a cancer that weakens PSU and lingers for years. I may be wrong, but the prognosis does not look good.
The Nittany Turkey says
After this weekend’s entertaining, but anticlimactic, board meeting, I am inclined to agree with you and Joe, letting the truth evolve rather than pursue the revolutionary approach. I agree that funding issues are critical as the Clery Act investigation and the accreditation visit approach. I’m going to hope that Ms. Peetz and the BoT know what they are doing, hoping that they can avoid further punitive measures, although I do not have much faith in dog and pony shows to do the trick.
It’s football season, so why taint Penn State’s true mission with all this scandalous crap? (Just a touch of humor.)
—TNT
Tom Fitzsimmons says
I have read this back and forth stuff about cleanliness and finances. I think this is quite humorous as we are talking about a college. You know, an institution of higher learning.
While I have earned 2 degrees from old state, I think that one of the reasons why Sandusky caused soooo much devastation and carnage to sooo many people is because we have put tooo much emphasis on football. I am glad that PSU is gonna have to just be like Bucknell and Cornell for a while, as football will take a back seat to the real puspose of Penn State university – to provide a good education. Really, is that not enough?
The Nittany Turkey says
I might be oblivious to the real situation at State, but I never had the feeling that football was the cart dragging the university’s horse. Oh, yeah, it’s been an increasingly big deal since my matriculation in 1964, when we had good ol’ Rip and a 44,000 seat stadium through now with 108,000 seats and $20 million net, but I’ve always thought of Penn State as an educational institution, not a football factory.
Cornell, Bucknell, and all the other “Nells” are examples on the one hand. On the other, we have superior academic and research institutions such as UC Berkeley, Stanford, and Northwestern, all with big-time football programs. MIT has a Division III team, the Beavers, but I digress.
College football in the fall is a great tradition: the tailgates, the barroom bullshit, the involvement of the community, and so forth. It’s part of the student experience. Well, shucks, for some students, anyway.
So institutions of higher learning should not have finances, either? Public funds are involved, so debate is appropriate. You might be able to divorce academics from football, but in the real world, an institution of higher learning is not going to run without money. And where big money is involved, there are sometimes improprieties.
If you prefer to fly above all the flack, that is fine. Stay safe up there.
—TNT