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Joe Paterno's Legacy

Predictions

  • Total voters
    131
  • Poll closed .
Possible jail time for Paterno

"Michael McCann, a sports law professor and NBA TV's on-air legal analyst, wrote for SI.com this week that Paterno's statement to a grand jury will come under close scrutiny as these other cases go to trial.

Plus, when the lawsuits start to roll in from the young victims' families -- and those will be for a staggering amount of money -- Paterno could still be found negligent in a civil trial."
 
The funny part is that if he retired when he was supposed to (in 2004 when the BOT was trying to force him out), his legacy would be safe. Now, in his van effort to break the record, he hung around long enough to impart an unwashable stain on his career.

Fitting.
 
RJKarl said:
You guys are missing the real story. Paterno did nothing himself. Nor did he coverup what Sandusky did.

He should have done more, but it wasn't his crime.

This will be a very sad footnote but will not destroy over fifty years of coaching.
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Nope, age is impacting your analysis here.
 
I would like to ask Paterno if the GA came into your office on that day and said he saw Sandusky was raping your grandchild would you have just contacted the athletic director?
 
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Serious question.

If someone that you thought you knew well, and had interacted with on a daily basis for 30-odd years was accused of such a thing, would you have trouble believing it?

That's kind of what I think may have happened. Not to excuse, but he might have thought "McQueary probably wouldn't lie about it, but he may not have seen what he thought he saw. I've known Jerry a long time and I just can't believe he'd do something like that. I'll let the AD know and maybe he can find out what the heck is going on."

To me that's not *that* hard to believe. People delude themselves into thinking their friends are better than they are sometimes, and overlook their failings. While I agree that Paterno is basically a dick to the media and has always had a siege mentality as far as his program goes, he seems to be very loyal to his guys and put a lot of belief in them. Maybe this is an unfortunate manifestation of that?

I've spent quite a bit of time saying he was rightly fired, he should have done more, and he may not be done paying for it yet. But now I'm just trying to think of it from the perspective of how this got where it is. I cannot imagine Paterno wanted things to spiral out of control to this extent (even before the story came out). I'm sure he would have known he was putting his job at risk if he protected it. So how it did it get there? And I think a chain of events like this might at least start to explain.
 
Deac83 said:
Possible jail time for Paterno

"Michael McCann, a sports law professor and NBA TV's on-air legal analyst, wrote for SI.com this week that Paterno's statement to a grand jury will come under close scrutiny as these other cases go to trial.

Plus, when the lawsuits start to roll in from the young victims' families -- and those will be for a staggering amount of money -- Paterno could still be found negligent in a civil trial."
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***warning amateur legal analysis below***

Paterno is certainly going to get sued but I think people are overstating the chances the victims can win.

Traditionally speaking there is no legal obligation for failure to warn unless enacted by statute (or fall into special exceptions). Under the PA statute that I copy pasted below it appears Paterno did his "legal" duty. They can still try to present a common law negligence case but they probably cannot get him for negligence per se (violation of a standard of care statute).

According to the PA statute:

Required reporters—
(i) Persons who, in the course of their employment, occupation or practice of their profession come into contact with children and have reasonable cause to suspect, on the basis of their medical, professional or other training and experience, that a child coming before them in their professional or official capacity is a victim of child abuse.

§ 3490.13. Reports by employes who are required reporters.

(a) Required reporters who work in an institution, school, facility or agency shall immediately notify the person in charge of the institution, school, facility or agency or the person in charge’s designee of suspected abuse. The person in charge, or the designee, shall be responsible and have the obligation to make a report of the suspected child abuse to ChildLine immediately. Nothing in this chapter requires more than one report from any institution, school, facility or agency.
 
KanhojiAngre said:
Serious question.

If someone that you thought you knew well, and had interacted with on a daily basis for 30-odd years was accused of such a thing, would you have trouble believing it?

That's kind of what I think may have happened. Not to excuse, but he might have thought "McQueary probably wouldn't lie about it, but he may not have seen what he thought he saw. I've known Jerry a long time and I just can't believe he'd do something like that. I'll let the AD know and maybe he can find out what the heck is going on."

To me that's not *that* hard to believe. People delude themselves into thinking their friends are better than they are sometimes, and overlook their failings. While I agree that Paterno is basically a dick to the media and has always had a siege mentality as far as his program goes, he seems to be very loyal to his guys and put a lot of belief in them. Maybe this is an unfortunate manifestation of that?

I've spent quite a bit of time saying he was rightly fired, he should have done more, and he may not be done paying for it yet. But now I'm just trying to think of it from the perspective of how this got where it is. I cannot imagine Paterno wanted things to spiral out of control to this extent (even before the story came out). I'm sure he would have known he was putting his job at risk if he protected it. So how it did it get there? And I think a chain of events like this might at least start to explain.
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If I knew of a similar prior incident involving that person, no, I don't think I'd have that much trouble believing it.

I (and others) have said on the various Paterno threads that this would have been a plausible explanation in 1998, but after that incident/investigation, I don't think JoePa gets to go down that road. He was on notice with the prior events, so saying he "just couldn't believe it" is just him sticking his head in the sand.
 
Buddy of mine is an Air Marshal and texted me that he was on the same plane yesterday that Corso was on, sitting a row behind him. Corso was talking to someone and the whole conversation consisted of how this is just going to get way worse. No details but he said this was not going to get anything but worse.
 
Wakelaw2006 said:
If I knew of a similar prior incident involving that person, no, I don't think I'd have that much trouble believing it.

I (and others) have said on the various Paterno threads that this would have been a plausible explanation in 1998, but after that incident/investigation, I don't think JoePa gets to go down that road. He was on notice with the prior events, so saying he "just couldn't believe it" is just him sticking his head in the sand.
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Good chance you're right. But people do that too. They just don't want to believe the people that they've shared large parts of their lives with are capable of monstrous actions.

Again, none of this is to excuse. I'm just trying to get some people's ideas on how it got to this point. I mean at the very least, once Sandusky left his post on the staff, PSU and Paterno could have distanced themselves more than they did.

Of course, all of this assumes that Paterno wasn't knee deep in the whole mess, if not involved himself. Nothing seems to suggest that right now and I really hope it's not the case.

It's not on the same level, but I think of what people who are friends with date rapists or abusers do to convince themselves their buddies are worthy of spending time with despite their activies. I guess some similar mentality has to be in play here. The psychology of the cover up is what really intrigues me. It's not like they couldn't have offed Sandusky and gotten a new DC, or just barred him when he retired if the facts were all known to the administration and Paterno. That he was a freaking commencement speaker in 07 tells me that people may not have known everything at this point. I don't know why the university would do that if it was. I just can't imagine PSU taking that kind of chance of their cover being blown if there really was a full cover up.
 
He was caught three times. If no one told JoePa about the other two incidents, there is a reason that they did not. His legacy is forever stained.
 
Deacfreak07 said:
When kids Wikipedia him in 30 years, this will be in the opening page, and the first link people chase. This is the single greatest scandal in the history of sports. The only comparisons seem close are OJ and Shoeless Joe. None of the other coaches come close.
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In thirty years there will be a new form of electronic communication that is unthought of now (and no Wikipedia). The notion of collective history itself might be an anachronism as the ability to obtain and navigate source documents grows. The role of journalist, or historian, as middlemen or gatekeepers might be highly diminished. The notion of consensus "ten best football coaches" or "ten worst sports scandals" might be gone as everybody who gives a damn can form their own personal opinion.

In many ways, currently, history is an inverted pyramid where the amount of information about any topic diminishes geometrically over time. The gatekeepers cull information in order to write history. With current (and future) storage and retrieval technology, there may well be a new paradigm for history.

Therefore, the answer to Joe Paterno's legacy seems to possibly be that it will be as varied as the opinions of today.
 
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