FARK.com: (7224387) Penn State trustees vote to take Happy Valley out of the Bronze Age

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		Penn State trustees vote to take Happy Valley out of the Bronze Age (tracking.si.com)		491
		More: Hero, Happy Valley, Penn State, Beaver Stadium, Joe Paterno, NFL Network, board of trustees, Kimberly Jones

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gimmegimme		2012-07-21 01:32:42 AM

geom_00: gimmegimme: They are both losses of control, but one is WAY worse.

Thank you for answering that in a logical way.

I agree PSU is WAY WAY WAY worse. Again, thank you for answering this logically, and not killing me for asking it!

/Good luck with your season! I hope your new coach does your program proud....although..I am sure he will.

I dunno if I am a typical Buckeye fan. I am very angry with Tressel and especially with Pryor for all they did. (This includes Posey and the rest.) I am sad that Tressel wasn't what he claimed to be and I have always thought that he needed to go. Urban Meyer doesn't exactly have that Ivory 44/100 spirit around him...we will see.

As you may be able to gather from my posts, I have to believe the violations at Ohio State or Michigan or USC PALE IN COMPARISON to the institutionalized child rape at Penn State.

HaywoodJablonski		2012-07-21 01:34:45 AM

For everyone saying that these excessive punishments only hurt the innocent students and football program, let me ask you a question? Don't you think the administrators and trustees should have thought about that before making decisions based off of greed and self-preservation?

Hitting Penn State where it hurts is necessary to get their attention and hopefully gets the attention of the rest of the NCAA

geom_00		2012-07-21 01:38:10 AM

gimmegimme: PALE IN COMPARISON to the institutionalized child rape at Penn State

I totally agree. It saddens me to no end that the admins of the University that I love let innocent kids get hurt by not stopping Sandusky when they had the chance in 98.

I am not your typical PSU fan either. Do I like the football program? Yes..I do...but I value the education PSU gave me more than football.

tlchwi02		2012-07-21 01:40:12 AM

I had Snu Snu: How many other ways can I say that they deserve some incredibly harsh penalties? I have never once said otherwise, that doesn't mean that i think they should lose the entire program though. Again, do you want revenge or do you want justice and for things to change for the better? If you just want revenge and to cause more negativity than by all means take away their program.

then what sort of penalty do they "deserve"? you say that children getting raped doesn't "justify" having the program suspended. If 9+ children getting raped because of the football program doesn't "justify" the program being suspended, what does? What is the monetary/penalty worth of a raped child in your system?

IlGreven		2012-07-21 01:49:37 AM

sigdiamond2000: They better get the riot police and National Guard ready.

See, they would've needed it had whoever flew that dumbass banner over the campus on Wednesday try to make good on their promise. I don't think they'll need it for whoever executes PSU orders.

FreakinB: I'm sort of with you and Saban on this. Obviously something needs to be done, but I am a bit uncomfortable with the nuclear option because I agree that it wouldn't accomplish a whole lot more in terms of punishing the people most directly responsible*. It seems like a reasonable compromise and a good cause.

*Yeah, I know, culture, but I think the point has been made already with the overall reaction so far. Small sample, but the Penn State alums that I know are horrified.

The thing is, the culture already has been destroyed. Paterno's gone (in all senses of the word) and the two main people protecting him are gone, and whenever Pennsylvania gets their shiat together, the third will be as well. If a similar thing ever happens again, it will be because of a different culture evolving similarly. At that point, it's endemic, and the entire board needs to be wiped clean.

mikaloyd		2012-07-21 02:02:07 AM

Maybe they are getting rid of the statue and maybe they arent. The only people who really know are in charge of Penn State and they arent saying. Meetings are behind closed doors and kept from prying eyes.

Sounds like a valuable lesson has been learned here by Penn State's top brass and they will never have a culture of closed mouth closed door secretive sneaky smoke filled rooms ever again.

Huck And Molly Ziegler		2012-07-21 02:35:03 AM

gimmegimme: They'll think about JoePa each time they shave each others' chests and lovingly apply the paint to each others' abdomens.

I'll be in my bunk ...

BolloxReader		2012-07-21 04:08:46 AM

You know why you don't see Chi-Chis restaurants anymore? They had some bad lettuce or something. Someone died from eating a salad there. The entire company folded overnight, except for their frozen food brand (which was licensed to another company anyway). I worked in the industry when this went down and it served as a reminder of just how vulnerable businesses are to bad press.

Now, most people would consider what happened at PSU to be far worse than accidentally serving some bad lettuce.

What is a rational reaction to this scandal? The Free Market would say to simply close the entire school permanently because you will never be able to remove the taint of the scandal from the brand. Consider that as you argue for preserving the football program. If ONLY the football program is sacrificed, the school will be far better off than it deserves, considering the magnitude of what the culture of the institution permitted. If it were anything but a school, it would be wiped from the face of the planet without hesitation, its employees and clients scattered to the winds. Everyone who still has a job there or who is permitted to take classes there is very fortunate. What happened there was on par with what went on at that California school where they either fired or transferred everybody who worked there.

I'm well aware of the fanaticism that surrounds college programs. I saw Miles Brandt struggle with the issues of brand loyalty among alumni when he fired Bobby Knight at IU. Then while he was at the NCAA he spoke frequently about how irrational and damaging to society and to individuals that sort of culture can be. Too bad he's dead because I think he'd be the perfect individual to deal with PSU.

Overall, I think that the collegiate atmosphere is very unhealthy, whether one talks in terms of athletics or in terms of academics. On both sides, you have administration gone rabid. One could argue that this is an outlier, but from an anthropological perspective I would argue that it is merely one point on a spectrum of bad outcomes stemming from a poisoned environment. Having dealt with university administrators on multiple campuses, I would suggest that a poisoned environment is typical for these schools. They just express it differently. Typically it doesn't manifest in such a public or offensive way. But I would argue that it deserves a Darwin award and be rendered incapable of transmitting its cultural DNA to future generations.

IlGreven		2012-07-21 04:39:56 AM

BolloxReader: You know why you don't see Chi-Chis restaurants anymore? They had some bad lettuce or something. Someone died from eating a salad there. The entire company folded overnight, except for their frozen food brand (which was licensed to another company anyway). I worked in the industry when this went down and it served as a reminder of just how vulnerable businesses are to bad press.

Eh, I would not use ChiChi's as a good example of something like this, as they were going under anyway. The Hepatitis outbreak was more of a coup de grace than a staggering blow, if you know what I mean. If such an outbreak occurred at a restaurant that wasn't already going under, I doubt the outbreak would make the restaurant go under.

BolloxReader: Overall, I think that the collegiate atmosphere is very unhealthy, whether one talks in terms of athletics or in terms of academics. On both sides, you have administration gone rabid. One could argue that this is an outlier, but from an anthropological perspective I would argue that it is merely one point on a spectrum of bad outcomes stemming from a poisoned environment. Having dealt with university administrators on multiple campuses, I would suggest that a poisoned environment is typical for these schools. They just express it differently. Typically it doesn't manifest in such a public or offensive way. But I would argue that it deserves a Darwin award and be rendered incapable of transmitting its cultural DNA to future generations.

Which is why Jemele Hill's article on the actual atmosphere similarities between Penn State and Florida A&M was spot on. There are two main differences, and both are in the reaction to the scandals:

1) On the defensive side, defenders of FAMU actually defended the hazing that led to the death. No Penn State defender directly defended child rape. They might ignore the cognitive dissonance that applies in defending an enabler of someone who rapes children, but they don't directly defend child rape in the same way FAMU defenders defend hazing.

2) On the offensive side, I doubt very much that anyone flew a banner over the FAMU campus promising vigilante action if they didn't get their way. In this case, everyone on all sides of the PSU issue should be saying to that dumbass "YOU'RE NOT HELPING"

doglover		2012-07-21 05:28:54 AM

Weaver95: NOBODY in the PSU football program is 'innocent'. they all looked the other way

Just like ALL the US soldiers looked the other way when that 12 year old Okinawan girl was raped by three men in 1995? Just like they all looked the other way when that sergeant took out all those families with kids in Afghanistan? Why didn't we just shut down the whole base each time and go home?

Because, you don't take out your emotional rage at a crime on people who didn't do anything wrong. That's what chimpanzees do. That's what feral dogs do. It's not what intelligent humans do. There's no one left in the program who was party to what happened. Punishing all of the players, and incidentally the community at large that depends on tourism and students, isn't going to help anybody.

oryx		2012-07-21 08:15:03 AM

Maybe.

IlGreven		2012-07-21 08:16:30 AM

doglover: Because, you don't take out your emotional rage at a crime on people who didn't do anything wrong. That's what chimpanzees do. That's what feral dogs do.

...no, they don't. Because they don't do this shiat to begin with.

Johnny Swank		2012-07-21 08:24:50 AM

geom_00: I have voiced this before: What would be the economic impact of the small towns around PSU if they would not play football?

Who cares? Any business that builds their business model solely around the affairs of what 18-21 y/o boys do deserves to go out of business it they're too damn stupid to adapt to changing conditions in the world around them. Reality happens. Reality in this case is that a football program endorsed raping kids. That's.....problematic.

o5iiawah		2012-07-21 08:37:11 AM

IlGreven: No Penn State defender directly defended child rape. They might ignore the cognitive dissonance that applies in defending an enabler of someone who rapes children, but they don't directly defend child rape in the same way FAMU defenders defend hazing.

Do you live in PA? Swing a dead cat and you're likely to hit a few apologists who acknowledge that the rape happened but anyone who reported it is a bunch of snitches and that Paterno is squeaky clean. Though I have sat radio in my truck, on occasion, i listen to the local meatball talk radio station in Philly (the one with Mike Misanelli) and callers like that are bound to sprout up whenever they cover the PSU topic.

I find it hard to swallow that a program can get a bowl ban or the death penalty for boosters giving benefits to players but an institutional wide cover up of child rape is met with responses like: "Dont punish the players!"

GoldSpider		2012-07-21 09:23:44 AM

Weaver95: y'know... you might find a review of the Nuremberg trials worth some time and effort. the 'I didn't know' defense didn't work very well for those folks, I don't think it's gonna fly for the PSU football program either.

I believe you are referring to the "I was just following orders" defense. Slight difference, don't you think?

GoldSpider		2012-07-21 09:28:06 AM

o5iiawah: I find it hard to swallow that a program can get a bowl ban or the death penalty for boosters giving benefits to players but an institutional wide cover up of child rape is met with responses like: "Dont punish the players!"

It's because in this case the players weren't involved with the scandal.

I think something needs to happen to the football program, but they need to be fair to the players who had nothing to do with this. Allow them to transfer to other schools and retain any scholarships they were given. I don't think that's unreasonable.

Weaver95		2012-07-21 09:54:01 AM

GoldSpider: Weaver95: y'know... you might find a review of the Nuremberg trials worth some time and effort. the 'I didn't know' defense didn't work very well for those folks, I don't think it's gonna fly for the PSU football program either.

I believe you are referring to the "I was just following orders" defense. Slight difference, don't you think?

there was a lot of that going on at PSU as well.

veedeevadeevoodee		2012-07-21 09:54:07 AM

doglover:

Just like ALL the US soldiers looked the other way when that 12 year old Okinawan girl was raped by three men in 1995?

cinemafanatic.files.wordpress.com

gimmegimme		2012-07-21 09:55:29 AM

GoldSpider: o5iiawah: I find it hard to swallow that a program can get a bowl ban or the death penalty for boosters giving benefits to players but an institutional wide cover up of child rape is met with responses like: "Dont punish the players!"

It's because in this case the players weren't involved with the scandal.

I think something needs to happen to the football program, but they need to be fair to the players who had nothing to do with this. Allow them to transfer to other schools and retain any scholarships they were given. I don't think that's unreasonable.

Everyone agrees with you. Most of the "don't punish the players" people are saying that Penn State football should have no punishment whatsoever because the players didn't know.

Let Penn State football take a time out for 3-5 years and the players can go to any school they want without waiting out a year to play.

GoldSpider		2012-07-21 10:08:47 AM

Weaver95: there was a lot of that going on at PSU as well.

Granted. Nevertheless, you're taking a "guilty until proven innocent" approach to this investigation. You didn't seem that type before this Sandusky story broke.

birchman		2012-07-21 10:43:14 AM

tlchwi02: I had Snu Snu: How many other ways can I say that they deserve some incredibly harsh penalties? I have never once said otherwise, that doesn't mean that i think they should lose the entire program though. Again, do you want revenge or do you want justice and for things to change for the better? If you just want revenge and to cause more negativity than by all means take away their program.

then what sort of penalty do they "deserve"? you say that children getting raped doesn't "justify" having the program suspended. If 9+ children getting raped because of the football program doesn't "justify" the program being suspended, what does? What is the monetary/penalty worth of a raped child in your system?

He's been dancing around that question the whole thread. He knows something wrong happened but doesn't know what to do about it. He might actually be a great candidate for a high level position at PSU.

debbie_does_dishes		2012-07-21 10:45:52 AM

Again, as a holder of 2 degrees from PSU, I fully support melting down the statue and not allowing football at PSU for a few years. Make an example out of the situation for other institutions to look at: protecting corporate culture is no excuse for covering up over a decade of lewd, illegal activity.

Bring honor back to PSU through academics.

GoldSpider		2012-07-21 10:50:03 AM

tlchwi02: What is the monetary/penalty worth of a raped child in your system?

Framing the debate around what a child's innocence is "worth" makes rational discussion of the fallout here impossible.

birchman		2012-07-21 11:04:31 AM

GoldSpider: tlchwi02: What is the monetary/penalty worth of a raped child in your system?

Framing the debate around what a child's innocence is "worth" makes rational discussion of the fallout here impossible.

No, it doesn't. If what happened isn't enough to justify the death penalty, it's a fair question to ask how much worse it needs to be before it is. That establishes boundaries in which we can frame our arguments. He's taking the convenient position of not having a position, which is great for him because nobody can criticize him while he sits back and takes pot shots at everyone else. Wait, I think we just found Mitt Romneys fark handle guys!

born_yesterday		2012-07-21 11:06:08 AM

tlchwi02: I had Snu Snu: How many other ways can I say that they deserve some incredibly harsh penalties? I have never once said otherwise, that doesn't mean that i think they should lose the entire program though. Again, do you want revenge or do you want justice and for things to change for the better? If you just want revenge and to cause more negativity than by all means take away their program.

then what sort of penalty do they "deserve"? you say that children getting raped doesn't "justify" having the program suspended. If 9+ children getting raped because of the football program doesn't "justify" the program being suspended, what does? What is the monetary/penalty worth of a raped child in your system?

One million dollars each, same as Demi Moore and Randy Quaid.

Pockafrusta		2012-07-21 11:24:43 AM

If any football program deserves the death penalty...it's the one hiding rape to preserve the cash cow. The message has to be sent that looking the other way will never be tolerated again. Remove the statue.

Millennium		2012-07-21 11:47:52 AM

I had Snu Snu: Millennium: Joe's martyrdom is fading, as people come to their senses about him

Millennium: The continued prevalence of Paterno-apologists proves it.

Soooooo, which is it?

Honest question: Do you think you can really change the culture of that community just by taking away the football team for a few years? Wouldn't actually changing the culture be more effective at changing the culture? Like they've done and been doing?

They're not changing the culture, just the leaders. This is the problem. To change a culture, you've got to replace the people at its core, who as often as not aren't the leaders themselves. Paterno's death would have helped in this had he not been idolized quite so much, but even in such a case, he was only the central figure: replacing him alone would not have been enough.

Ultimately, though, if you look at the way people are changing, you'll find two groups: the adults who are coming to their senses, and the students -who vastly outnumber the adults- who are not. You can't simply expel them all, of course, but you can radically alter the environment to remove the cancer: PSU football. A six-year death penalty allows for a virtually-complete turnover in the student body before football is allowed to return: there may be a few grad students left over, but that would be all.

What you're suggesting isn't a "surgical strike". That would be getting rid of the people involved. Cutting away the cancer, if you will.

I do plan to get rid of the people involved. All of the people involved. Since they cannot all be physically removed, a different approach is needed: in this case, removing what holds them together. In six years they will have long since dispersed, and without that concentration in one place the culture will wither away. That's the point when football can be allowed to return, or perhaps "to be reintroduced" would be a better term.

His martydom is beginning to fade because he's no longer part of the program and most people are looking forward.

Then why is there still so much opposition to removing the statue? Like I said, his martyrdom is fading among the leaders, but not among the people who can pressure them.

Krymson Tyde		2012-07-21 01:59:48 PM

Galloping Galoshes: birchman: YouWinAgainGravity: Shutting down the football program really accomplishes nothing at this point. I can't believe I'm saying this but I agree with Nick Saban's idea, have the football program instead donate its profits to charities and organizations that help kids for the next few years. The people who were involved in the coverup are gone and hopefully the legal system takes care of all of them. Instead of some thermonuclear approach that does cause punish a lot of people that weren't involved, find a constructive way to punish the football program.

I more or less felt the same way until I read this. Nuke it.

Saban's idea accomplishes nothing except to assuage the guilt of the community and university. They would get to feel good about what they were doing, rather than focus on why things got as bad as they did. Football was the meat and potatoes of the community. If you threatened it, you were cut off.

Yep, Saban's wrong.

o5iiawah		2012-07-21 03:29:27 PM

GoldSpider: It's because in this case the players weren't involved with the scandal.

The players at USC werent involved with the payments given to Reggie Bush's family but they got punished with a bowl ban
The Players at Ohio state who werent involved in the Tat-5 scandal wont go to a bowl game next year

The NCAA has a precedent, right or wrong of punishing the institution since most players are only there for 1-3 years anyways. A star player, even if not eligible for the next level is probably only a year away and wont feel the pain. The burden is then placed on the University.

richard_1963		2012-07-21 04:13:06 PM

The Paterno statue should be relocated to one of the stadium's men's washrooms, to serve as the centerpiece of a large community urinal.

born_yesterday		2012-07-21 06:04:20 PM

richard_1963: The Paterno statue should be relocated to one of the stadium's men's washrooms, to serve as the centerpiece of a large community urinal.

Or they could stick it in the shower, so it could stand there in silence, just like JoPa did!

Millennium		2012-07-21 07:20:04 PM

GoldSpider: It's because in this case the players weren't involved with the scandal.

I think something needs to happen to the football program, but they need to be fair to the players who had nothing to do with this. Allow them to transfer to other schools and retain any scholarships they were given. I don't think that's unreasonable.

I agree with you, but apparently that sort of exception is already baked into NCAA's standard implementation of the death penalty. If the program gets shut down, the players will be taken care of.

firefly212		2012-07-22 08:16:53 AM

Melt the farker down and make a statue of one of the kids who was a witness... it isn't erasing history, it's telling people exactly who the courageous people in the story are and honoring *them* appropriately.

zomega		2012-07-22 09:17:21 AM

Well, it looks like they're removing it now, according to CNN's breaking news.

GoldSpider		2012-07-22 11:19:42 AM

born_yesterday: Or they could stick it in the shower, so it could stand there in silence, just like JoPa did!

Heh, someone said yesterday they should keep the statue up, just have it look the other way *snerk*.

But yeah, it's down. It would be hard for us to continue arguing that Penn State was more than just one man without removing that man's most visible symbol after such a grievous mistake.

Glad they're keeping his name on the library though; people need to remember that Paterno contributed to more than just the football program.

nekulor		2012-07-22 01:09:32 PM

sigdiamond2000: doglover: You know what? fark you, and fark Penn State. That whole farking town created a cult of personality that fostered this whole criminal conspiracy. The administrators and JoePa didn't cover up CHILD RAPE in a farking vacuum. The sickening behavior of the Penn State student population only reinforces that fact. They need to be beaten and whipped by the press and the NCAA, and the whole athletic department needs a multi-year ban from NCAA competition. People with athletic scholarships should be allowed to stay at Penn State with their original scholarship intact or be allowed to transfer to another program penalty-free.

Your tact and decorum does wonders to support your logical and informed opinions.

Tact and decorum must be maintained when discussing the systemic cover up of child rape, otherwise it might give drunk, frat douche college football fans a tummy ache.

And, really, haven't they suffered enough?

Hey, you leave us Greeks out of this. Just because we love football doesn't mean we'd come out in support of a coach that covered up child rape. Big difference.

jekostas		2012-07-22 01:41:33 PM

Statue's down, NCAA has announced that it will be enacting "corrective and punitive" measures against PSU.

Hopefully this involves calling out the National Guard to beat the stupid out of the students and residents that still support Paterno.

poot_rootbeer		2012-07-22 02:11:00 PM

Why is this story in the Sports tab, and not the Rape tab?

Fuggin Bizzy		2012-07-22 06:19:18 PM

poot_rootbeer: Why is this story in the Sports tab, and not the Rape tab?

There are two Rape tabs. Which one did you have in mind?

Carousel Beast		2012-07-23 01:06:09 AM

gimmegimme: Carousel Beast: gimmegimme: If Joe Paterno had CALLED THE FARKING COPS 13 years ago, no one would have had a problem with him.

See my previous post. My emotion is up, so please don't take this personally, but take your head out of your ass and recognize that this went far beyond the football program and Paterno.

I don't didn't even like Paterno, but all this is ridiculous.

Oh, I am certainly with you. I usually mention Paterno because the cult of personality surrounded him and not the dude who ordered Post-its for the Penn State cops. The Penn State folks are only trying to defend Penn State football against the death penalty, so that's what I'm focused on.

Fair enough, and I apologize both for my previous comment and for not sticking around, but the mob mentality had me on edge and I needed to breath a bit. Hopefully you find this post, since I was way to busy doing minecraft today to get on before bedtime.

I honestly wouldn't mind a posthumous conviction of Paterno to make a point to people.

protectyourlimbs		2012-07-23 01:26:35 PM

gimmegimme: protectyourlimbs: Being forced by public pressure to make a gesture that would show you can at least see what your university did might have been wrong even if it wasn't all together illegal should be an obvious tag but im guessing the submitter is a troll from PSU.

What part wasn't illegal? Penn State had a legal responsibility to report the on-campus rapes. The "educators" had the legal responsibility to report the rape they knew was happening, right?

The actions of Paterno himself in not taking this farther than his superiors. I am saying best case scenario jopa should still be looked down as someone who could have done more years before and even if he committed no crime himself doesn't deserve a statue in his name.

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