emails in sandusky case are real bad

[AJ Dual]

The whole story disgusts me, but I don't think you should blow up the swimming pool because it had a few turds floating, one of them for 50 years. Drain it, clean turd residue off, bleach it, refill it, continually monitor it.  The clean up should be a thorough and painful muti-year task though.  There are too many positive aspects of athletics to let a few turds spoil it.

Punishing just the "turds" does not teach the "pool" that tolerated the "turds" for so long anything.

I agree, blowing up the pool is too much, but draining the pool for as many years as the turds were covered up will teach the pool, and by extension all other pools, to raise holy hell as soon as a turd is sighted forever more.

[Harold Tuttle]

The early unidentified victims could be continuing the pool turding.

Lack of oversight due to greed.

[lee n. field]

Without some backup, I don't believe the 10 percent number.  That is extremely high.  That link has no data whatsoever, just a couple quotes.  I assume there was mathematical gymnastics used to get to that number.  

That said, "Protestant" covers a lot of ground and a whole lot of churches and people in this country so it would not surprise me the number of reports would be higher.  I would also say that Protestants don't normally revere the "Church" as infallible or anything like that and might be less likely to let the "Church" take care of it.  However, I know I have experience only with a couple denominations.

I suspect differences in polity, and sheer size, make it easier to hide in the RCC.  Rome is world wide, many layers deep, and tries to be all things to all Christians.  The typical Protestant denomination is a few hundred or thousand congregations, an annual general assembly or synod, and a few institutions it supports, and makes no claim to be itself the one and only true church.  

That number does seem high.  But, it does happen.

It becomes more problematic when cover ups and perjury come into play.

Mmmmm. Yes.

Church we were at for a long, long time* had a scandal a couple years back.  It seems the wife of one of the youth pastors was carrying on with a boy "13 to 16", from the junior high group.  Boy's mom got wind (divorced from Dad, and not usually present), did some confronting, and things blew up.

Form the legal side, she (YPW) ended up admitting guilt, doing 60 days in the county jail, and getting 30 months probation.  (One wonders, if the genders were other than what they were, if the sentence would have been different.)

Internally, I guess you could say there was not a whole lot of transparency in the way it was dealt with.  Word I got from someone in a position to know leads me to think it didn't all come as a complete surprise.

There're too many questions that really can't be answered.

*We're not there now, mostly for other reasons.

[MechAg94]

A brief detour back to the OP....kinda....

As bad as the e-mails are, I don't think punishing the student body & Penn in general by  killing the athletic program is the right answer. If anything, fire the athletic dept. to the last trainer & mark them "Do Not Hire". Then hire some good ones who pass extensive background checks. Seems much fairer....

Getting rid of every single employee and volunteer in and around the football program was my first thought.  However, it needs to go up as high as the University President and the Board of Regents as well.  I really doubt they would go that high if they did do this plan.  I think a voluntary suspension of the entire football program for 2 to 5 years would go a long way to satisfying a lot of outside observers.  It might also give them a bit more credibility when it comes to the eventual lawsuits. 

[RocketMan]

The Penn State football program should end.  Permanently.  And at some time interval linked to the number 14, everyone attending or working at Penn State should be reminded in a formal fashion just what occurred to cause the end of the program.  Every fourteen weeks, months, whatever works.  Ongoing, permanent penance.
Too harsh?  I don't think so.

[RoadKingLarry]

How about the 14th of every month?

[Hawkmoon]

When the Sandusky story first broke, I believed (probably because I wanted to believe) that Joe Paterno had done what he was supposed to do, and that his superiors had betrayed him.

Today I read an article about the woman who was, for a few years, the VP for Student Affairs at Penn State. This isn't the article I read, but it's similar and if you Google her name I'm sure you'll find more now that she has "come out of the closet."

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/football/bigten/story/2011-11-22/11-22-11-Paterno-Discipline/51346682/1

It seems Joe wasn't quite as out-of-the-loop as had been portrayed. In fact, it appears that he was very much IN the loop, and in fact that he was the vaquero who was wielding the loop. I am disappointed, but I guess not entirely surprised. This is what happens when colleges and universities forget that their role is supposed to be education, and that the sports programs are supposed to be just formalized exercise for the students. Intercollegiate sports are (or "were") not supposed to be the primary function and purpose of a university.

[EDIT]Here's the article I read: http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/15/us/triponey-paterno-penn-state/index.html

[RevDisk]

Again, I live here. I'm not surprised that anyone that attempted to punish wrongdoing by football players was run out of town on a rail by both the brass and the mob. 

No, Paterno was never out of the loop. Trust me, he ran Penn State. Spanier's primary job, according to the Board, was to keep Paterno happy and focus on fundraising. Why he didn't quietly deal with the issue instead of enabling, who knows. What a lot of folks here don't understand, Sundusky could be burning children and puppies live on TV, and folks would still be saying any criticism would be unfair towards Penn State's athletic program. This is understatement, not overstatement.

Penn State is an alright but not awesome school. It however has LOTS of students that are known for networking. The social aspects are probably more important than the education, in the minds of the alumni and students. It's centered around football. To a lot (most?) PSU students, alumni and fans, holding football responsible for their actions is akin to asking MIT to deny evolution and teach creationism.

[Lee]

To draw another comparison to the RC church, nuking the program would be like closing the doors of a church off to members, rather than punishing those directly involved. The administration was very effective in hiding the evil...I'm not surprised that the community supported Joe...who would have dreamed this was all true...it is too bizzare. But it's not a sports issue, or a religious issue; it is an organizational morality issue. Its the whole organization, and not the institution that needs to be nuked.