Joe Paterno dies at 85

**Major Comma** · 01-22-2012, 04:21 PM

As I said,
My heart goes out to his family .
But Enabling the evil is pretty bad in itself .
Epecially when you consider all the kids that would have been pontentially saved if Paterno had not chosen to look the other way.

**DungeonMasterJim** · 01-22-2012, 04:23 PM

Originally Posted by bert

I am happy for his legacy that the scandal broke before he died.

because he was able to address it. . . his legacy would be much more badly tarred if he had passed prior to the scandal breaking. . there would be no way to hear anything from him about it. And NO comment would just make things even worse in people's minds, as far as his involvement went.

Oh, I absolutely agree, the stress probably was detrimental to his health.

but I try to keep in mind, he's not the evil bastard here. Yes, he potentially enabled the evil, but Sandusky is the one that needs to be punished severely.

anyways. .my two cents.

I'm seeing people in different forums seeming to forget this. I'd say the athletic director is ahead of Paterno for being an asshat in the situation. Paterno at least reported it. From what I've seen on it the A.D. did nothing. And likely all in the name of money.

**KalenO** · 01-22-2012, 04:32 PM

Eh, there's a phrase, true evil is when good men stand by and do nothing.

It's not a zero sum game. You can hold Paterno accountable for his actions (or inactions) without giving Sandusky a clean slate. There's more than enough blame to go around.

**Danimal** · 01-22-2012, 07:23 PM

Originally Posted by Corrina

MOre likely, he hated having to retire. Apparently, he was obsessed w/the fact that Bear Bryant also died very soon after leaving coaching.

I do dislike the stories that say "well, he did a bad thing but...look at all the people he helped!"

Yeah, and look at the number of children who will have to live with what Sandusky did with the knowledge that the legendary coach who was supposed to be such a great teacher stood by and did nothing.

You see that a bit with people who have careers as long as Paterno did. Andy Rooney died a month after his retirement.

**Nick Soapdish** · 01-22-2012, 08:27 PM

Originally Posted by DungeonMasterJim

I'm seeing people in different forums seeming to forget this. I'd say the athletic director is ahead of Paterno for being an asshat in the situation. Paterno at least reported it. From what I've seen on it the A.D. did nothing. And likely all in the name of money.

Yeah, he comes in third and maybe fourth (after McQueary) when it comes to complicity, but his response was ridiculously inadequate. Maybe it's a generational thing because that sort of crime may not have been reported on nearly as much when he was growing up (and maybe he was too wrapped up in football to hear about the claims against the Catholic Church in recent years which had picked up shortly prior, but might not have been big enough).

I also find it interesting that a lot of the response (again) seems to be to wonder about the effect it'll have on his legacy.

**Patrick Gerard** · 01-22-2012, 09:24 PM

As someone else online said:

A moment of silence for Joe Paterno. He always did like keeping quiet.

**FanboyStranger** · 01-22-2012, 09:34 PM

This is tough for me. I come from a Penn State family, including two football players, and while I've never done more than shake the man's hand, Joe was like a grandfather to me. I felt betrayed when I learned about the accusations against Sandusky and Joe's role in covering it up, but I couldn't help but feel the positive influence he's had not only on my life but the others who grew up with him as a role model. (And we're honestly talking about four generations of people here.) Of the four children in my family, three of us got into education and two are of us sports coaches (tennis and cross country running) because Joe Paterno , that most unlikely of sports heroes due to his short stature and goofy sense of style, made us believe that anyone could make a difference. When you go beyond my nuclear family, you will find that 3/4s of us have either gone into education or public service because we had someone like Joe Pa to look up to, someone who empahsized education (and reading in particular) over what your last name was or your physical prowness. As much as an iconoclast as I like to feel I am-- I pursued a PhD in Church History almost as a complete reaction to my Catholic upbringing (7 years an altar boy, never touched; 7 years in graduate school, also never touched, but that's more my fault)-- the one icon I could never reject was Joe Paterno. He was beyond a hero to me-- he was a demi-god, a man beyond reproarch, the man who did it right in a world that valued integrity less and less. He failed me, and more importantly, all those kids that Sandusky abused, but I can't help but feel a debt to the man. I'm one of his spiritual children, and as much as I try to intellectualize it, I feel like I've lost a family member.

Two months ago, when the scandal was still raging, I got into a fistfight with a guy who saw me coming out of a Penn State bar in Chicago who called me a child-molester. I beat the living shit out of the guy. I've had a lot of violence in my life, much of which is the result of my own ridiculous temper, and I am always filled with tremendous guilt after I get into a fight. When I got home, I wrote a post in the thread here about the Penn State scandal about my mixed feelings. To everyone's credit, I was treated with respect, but was also challenged as I should have been. (And I especially appreciate those PMs that people sent me that showed understanding towards how I felt, disorganized as I might have presented it, but also explained how outraged they were by the cover-up of molestation, something I shared with them, but wasn't able to articulate because I had felt the rug had been ripped out from under me.) I wanted to, above all, draw attention to the good that Joe had done, from why we chant "We Are!" and how it came about during the civil rights movement to the endowment of the PSU library system to extent that he was giving up more 75% of his income yearly plus millions from his fundraising (again, to the library, not the athletic department), but by no means excuse the negligence that Joe showed in washing his hands of the whole affair. For any other coach, it would have been okay to push it up to his higher-ups and walk away, but Joe Paterno was not any other coach.

At some point, this will all be explored in balance. As Coach K, the winningest coach in college basketball and perhaps the only current figure who really rivals Joe Pa's reputation, there's a lot we can learn from the life of Joe Paterno, both positive and negative. Above all, we have a responsibility not only to our institution and the people who have played for us, but the people who look up to us and expect us to do better, to do the right thing no matter how much it may cost us.

**XXXenophile** · 01-23-2012, 01:46 AM

Westboro plans on going to the funeral.

The only time I can't find a problem with that concept.

I know there's plenty of fans who just can't fathom all this and for them they have my sympathy. But the minute anyone says anything close to "I should have done more" is really enough of an admission of guilt that all their platitudes just can't cover.

**Weeto** · 01-23-2012, 03:04 AM

This abuse thing seems awfully similar to the abuse scandal at Celtic (actually their affiliated boys club) years ago where a coach called Jim Torbett ended up jailed for 30 months for abusing young players. This lead to chants of 'Big Jock knew' from their rival Rangers fans, referring to the Celtic manager of the time Jock Stein, who some people thought had knowledge of what was happening but turned a blind eye.

**Urgur the Gurgur** · 01-23-2012, 03:42 AM

Originally Posted by XXXenophile

Westboro plans on going to the funeral.

The only time I can't find a problem with that concept.

Their agenda remains unchanged. The only reason they're going to be there is to tell everyone that child rape happens and is covered up because God hates fags.