BYU and Penn State

What do Penn State and BYU have in common? Only two schools to win a football National Championship without NCAA sanctions.



What else do they have in common? Some unsavory/illegal sexual practices that the NCAA (at least in BYU's case) chose not to touch. No major recruiting violations, yes, but what is worse?



However, Penn State's scandal takes the cake by a mile.....many many miles. I think Paterno and everyone associated with the athletic department while Sandusky was doing this needs to be white-washed, as well as current administrators who tried to sweep in under the rug. If SMU got the death penalty for paying athletes, what does an athletic department get for turning a blind eye to sexual abuse of 10 year olds by a coach on the staff? For rewarding someone for keeping their mouth shut by giving them a full-time job for 12+ years? As a fan, I'm flabbergasted, as a father I'm lighting my torch and sharpening my pitchfork.

I had always been a fan of Penn St. and their similarities to BYU are too many to ignore (colors, mascots, Happy Valley, Legendary old coaches, etc.). But this thing has really soured me on them. I understand how colleges can justify and look the other way when athletes get paid and other benefits that they shouldn't (though I don't agree with it), but something like this is inexcusable.

are you referring to the Crowton scandals? What's with the not-so-veiled swipe at BYU?



one more thing in common: Plenty of unhappy people in Happy Valley right now.

CougarClaw wrote:
are you referring to the Crowton scandals? What's with the not-so-veiled swipe at BYU?

Yes, I was referring to "Rape-Gate." I just find it ironic that BYU got a lot of positive ink earlier this year when all the recruiting scandals were going down for being one of two schools that won a national championship without ever being sanctioned for recruiting violations without mention of the Crowton era rape scandal.



The big differences between the BYU sex scandal and the Penn State one? BYU dealt with it upon discovering it, reported it, expelled the offenders, and cooperated with the police. BYU's also involved victims over the age of 16 and the acts were those of student athletes. PSU, on the other hand, involve a university employee, 10 year old victims, and cover-ups by the coaches and administrators.



Again, I was just pointing out the irony of the props BYU and PSU got for keeping their noses clean in recruiting.

Words can't express how sad this is. I really can't muster up any anger at it, just bewilderment and sadness.



I hope nothing to this magnitude ever happens at BYU. I'd like to think it couldn't, but I never would have thought it would've happened at Penn State. I've seen some wards have to deal with sex abuse scandals; some dealt with it the right way, others did what Penn State's administration did. Stuff like this can happen anywhere, it seems.



I hope someday I understand what causes otherwise-decent men and women to quietly look the other way when they know their negligence is going to completely ruin peoples' lives. Especially when the secrets always end up getting revealed, and end up doing more damage to the institutions these people were trying to protect.

Spell it out. What did BYU do that the NCAA did not touch?



For Paterno, from everything I have read, based on what he was and was not told, he did the right thing. He reported it to the people responsible to investigate it and deal with it. Sandusky wasn't even on his staff at the time the incident was reported without specific details to him by the grad assistant. Sandusky had already retired.



There are HR laws and privacy issues that basically require you to report and butt out and trust appropriate authorities to handle it. From what I read, that is what Joe Paterno and the grad assistant did. They are not the villains, unless new information comes to light.



The guys it was reported to, who did not follow through, are and should resign or be fired all the way to the top of who knew about it and did not report it to the police. That is where the decision to not report it was made and where decisions to continue to give Sandusky access to PSU facilities per his previous retirement arrangement were made.



From what I read, Joe Pa was never told the specifics of what was observed, but higher ups were told and Sandusky did not even work for Paterno at the time.



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Except in the Crowton era stuff, BYU learned of it, and acted EXTREMELY quickly. They did not just kick it up the chain of command then ignore it. The kids acted before school started and were gone before they ever attended class.



So yeah, stuff has happened at BYU. Stuff with continue to happen at BYU. And BYU will deal with it quickly, even if unpopular, rather than let it mushroom and fester to be revealed at a later date. And therein lies the difference.

Cougarbib2 wrote:
Spell it out. What did BYU do that the NCAA did not touch?



For Paterno, from everything I have read, based on what he was and was not told, he did the right thing. He reported it to the people responsible to investigate it and deal with it. Sandusky wasn't even on his staff at the time the incident was reported without specific details to him by the grad assistant. Sandusky had already retired.



There are HR laws and privacy issues that basically require you to report and butt out and trust appropriate authorities to handle it. From what I read, that is what Joe Paterno and the grad assistant did. They are not the villains, unless new information comes to light.



The guys it was reported to, who did not follow through, are and should resign or be fired all the way to the top of who knew about it and did not report it to the police. That is where the decision to not report it was made and where decisions to continue to give Sandusky access to PSU facilities per his previous retirement arrangement were made.



From what I read, Joe Pa was never told the specifics of what was observed, but higher ups were told and Sandusky did not even work for Paterno at the time.



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Cop out.



If you find out that a guy is using your teams facilities to have some sort of nebulous/undefined child sex abuse, you don't just report it and move on with your life. Especially if that guy keeps on using your facilities. You call your admin and demand to know whats going on and whats being done.



JoPa did the bare minimum. It's enough to keep him out of jail, but not to deserve our sympathy.

snoscythe wrote:

are you referring to the Crowton scandals? What's with the not-so-veiled swipe at BYU?

Yes, I was referring to "Rape-Gate." I just find it ironic that BYU got a lot of positive ink earlier this year when all the recruiting scandals were going down for being one of two schools that won a national championship without ever being sanctioned for recruiting violations without mention of the Crowton era rape scandal.



The big differences between the BYU sex scandal and the Penn State one? BYU dealt with it upon discovering it, reported it, expelled the offenders, and cooperated with the police. BYU's also involved victims over the age of 16 and the acts were those of student athletes. PSU, on the other hand, involve a university employee, 10 year old victims, and cover-ups by the coaches and administrators.



Again, I was just pointing out the irony of the props BYU and PSU got for keeping their noses clean in recruiting.

So - being thick - what did BYU do wrong? Why would the NCAA have any reason to sanction BYU? Players get arrested for rape, etc., every day seemingly across the country. That is not the school misbehaving - unless there comes a cover-up to avoid player or team or school consequences.



If you think C-Gate was even relevant to the PSU issue - why stop there. A whole bunch of linebackers got kicked off the BYU team just before Gaston Green and Eric Ball and the rest of UCLA shredded our defense in The Freedom Bowl in Anaheim. I forget the specifics of there case. Even under Crowton there are questions about rape Vs consensual according to the girl's friend if we are referring to the same event. Way back in the 70s under Tommy Hudspeth, a bunch of ex-marines or other military branch were recruited and unsavory things were rumored to have happened. Culmination was when a very large number of players were rumored to have been given polygraph tests when a team groupie felt guilty and went to standards about consensual indiscretions with many players. Rumors are that players got some help with dealing with lue detector tests. I have no first-hand kniwledge. Just rumors told to me by a BYU player at the time. I am sure this just scratches the surface of players making bad choices at BYU. They are human.



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hawkwing wrote:

Cop out.



If you find out that a guy is using your teams facilities to have some sort of nebulous/undefined child sex abuse, you don't just report it and move on with your life. Especially if that guy keeps on using your facilities. You call your admin and demand to know whats going on and whats being done.



JoPa did the bare minimum. It's enough to keep him out of jail, but not to deserve our sympathy.

Exactly.



Do the "put yourself in his shoes" test: If a GA comes into your office and tells you he personally saw an old co-worker of yours molesting a kid in the facility's shower room, what would you do? Would you simply report it to your higher-ups and leave it at that? Or would you try to get to the bottom of it? Wouldn't you meet repeatedly with the higher-ups to see if an investigation was ongoing? Wouldn't you, at the very least, want to find out if the kid in question was okay?



Wouldn't you, as the figurehead of the organization and the architect of every good thing it had done over the last 30 years, want to make sure nothing like this happens ever, ever again?



Wouldn't you be terrified at the prospect that all the good you had done, all the moral wisdom you had tried to instill in several generations of young men, would be reduced to hypocrisy because you were unwilling to pursue a serious allegation that happened on your watch?



It's one thing if you hear that a co-worker was stealing company property or looking at porn on company time. Child rape is about as evil as it gets. If all I did was report it and move on, I'm pretty sure I'd feel awful. And I hope most people would too.



I've been reluctant to jump on the "off with JoePa's head" train, and I'm still open to the possibility that there's something that will make his relative inaction a little more understandable. But until then, I can't comfortably say that Joe Paterno did enough, or that I feel all that sorry for him.

hawkwing wrote:

Spell it out. What did BYU do that the NCAA did not touch?



For Paterno, from everything I have read, based on what he was and was not told, he did the right thing. He reported it to the people responsible to investigate it and deal with it. Sandusky wasn't even on his staff at the time the incident was reported without specific details to him by the grad assistant. Sandusky had already retired.



There are HR laws and privacy issues that basically require you to report and butt out and trust appropriate authorities to handle it. From what I read, that is what Joe Paterno and the grad assistant did. They are not the villains, unless new information comes to light.



The guys it was reported to, who did not follow through, are and should resign or be fired all the way to the top of who knew about it and did not report it to the police. That is where the decision to not report it was made and where decisions to continue to give Sandusky access to PSU facilities per his previous retirement arrangement were made.



From what I read, Joe Pa was never told the specifics of what was observed, but higher ups were told and Sandusky did not even work for Paterno at the time.



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Cop out.



If you find out that a guy is using your teams facilities to have some sort of nebulous/undefined child sex abuse, you don't just report it and move on with your life. Especially if that guy keeps on using your facilities. You call your admin and demand to know whats going on and whats being done.



JoPa did the bare minimum. It's enough to keep him out of jail, but not to deserve our sympathy.

I don't think that's a Cop out.



JoPa didn't see what happened. He probably didn't know if it was true or not. So he reported it to his superiors.

mormonrasta wrote:

Cougarbib2 wrote:
Spell it out. What did BYU do that the NCAA did not touch?



For Paterno, from everything I have read, based on what he was and was not told, he did the right thing. He reported it to the people responsible to investigate it and deal with it. Sandusky wasn't even on his staff at the time the incident was reported without specific details to him by the grad assistant. Sandusky had already retired.



There are HR laws and privacy issues that basically require you to report and butt out and trust appropriate authorities to handle it. From what I read, that is what Joe Paterno and the grad assistant did. They are not the villains, unless new information comes to light.



The guys it was reported to, who did not follow through, are and should resign or be fired all the way to the top of who knew about it and did not report it to the police. That is where the decision to not report it was made and where decisions to continue to give Sandusky access to PSU facilities per his previous retirement arrangement were made.



From what I read, Joe Pa was never told the specifics of what was observed, but higher ups were told and Sandusky did not even work for Paterno at the time.



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Cop out.



If you find out that a guy is using your teams facilities to have some sort of nebulous/undefined child sex abuse, you don't just report it and move on with your life. Especially if that guy keeps on using your facilities. You call your admin and demand to know whats going on and whats being done.



JoPa did the bare minimum. It's enough to keep him out of jail, but not to deserve our sympathy.

I don't think that's a Cop out.



JoPa didn't see what happened. He probably didn't know if it was true or not. So he reported it to his superiors.

Yes, he reported it to his superiors, but it doesn't appear that he followed up. It just seems like he told the AD and then washed his hands of the thing and I just don't understand how you don't follow up to make sure everything was taken care of.

Actually, if the guy no longer was on the PSU staff and no longer employed by the university, then going to the university was the wrong move. Going to the police would have been.



I think it's pretty clear why there wasn't much follow up. Sandusky played at Penn St from 1963-1965. He was on the Penn State staff in 1966 and then from 1969 to 1999. When Paterno was notified in 2002 of the allegations he had known the man for probably close to 40 years. He was probably doing what he could to help him by essentially doing as little as necessary.



The police should have been notified immediately by Joe Pa. No, actually by the GA who caught him in the shower.

hawkwing wrote:

Spell it out. What did BYU do that the NCAA did not touch?



For Paterno, from everything I have read, based on what he was and was not told, he did the right thing. He reported it to the people responsible to investigate it and deal with it. Sandusky wasn't even on his staff at the time the incident was reported without specific details to him by the grad assistant. Sandusky had already retired.



There are HR laws and privacy issues that basically require you to report and butt out and trust appropriate authorities to handle it. From what I read, that is what Joe Paterno and the grad assistant did. They are not the villains, unless new information comes to light.



The guys it was reported to, who did not follow through, are and should resign or be fired all the way to the top of who knew about it and did not report it to the police. That is where the decision to not report it was made and where decisions to continue to give Sandusky access to

PSU facilities per his previous retirement arrangement were made.



From what I read, Joe Pa was never told the specifics of what was observed, but higher ups were told and Sandusky did not even work for Paterno at the time.



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Cop out.



If you find out that a guy is using your teams facilities to have some sort of nebulous/undefined child sex abuse, you don't just report it and move on with your life. Especially if that guy keeps on using your facilities. You call your admin and demand to know whats going on and whats being done.



JoPa did the bare minimum. It's enough to keep him out of jail, but not to deserve our sympathy.

Having been through compliance and ethics training at several large corporations, I am just telling you what processes are generally in place and what employees are directed to do in handling these.



He would be expected to not dig into details personally, but make sure the person who observed the incident got to the person responsible to handle the incident. If he had followed up later and asked what exactly was alleged or what exactly was done, he most likely would have been told that HR privacy policies would not allow sharing of those details with him because it was not his employee and he had no need to know.



These things get interesting. I once had a police officer talking to his office on the phone, IMHO, purposely say something loud enough to ensure that I would overhear it, because he could not legally tell me about it. On top of that, now I had heard information about an employee that I was not legally allowed to use in hiring and firing decisions. What to do? Who to further share that information with? How to not act upon it? Big questions.



I have had another situation where a person convicted of a felony cannot work for a company without a govt waiver. Someone anonymously reports a conviction of this person when they were in the military under military rules - technically not a felony because under military rules it was not, but under civil law it would be. I knew only what I just said, but company policy did not allow me to know specifics. I knew someone who did. Would have been a problem for both of us if I probed and he divulged. So I was left to wonder but TRUST that the persons responsible to deal with compliance, ethics, HR, and Privacy handled it appropriately within the law.



In both cases I mentioned above - I made sure the people responsible to handle it knew about it and knew everything I knew about it.



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bostoncoug wrote:

hawkwing wrote:

Spell it out. What did BYU do that the NCAA did not touch?



For Paterno, from everything I have read, based on what he was and was not told, he did the right thing. He reported it to the people responsible to investigate it and deal with it. Sandusky wasn't even on his staff at the time the incident was reported without specific details to him by the grad assistant. Sandusky had already retired.



There are HR laws and privacy issues that basically require you to report and butt out and trust appropriate authorities to handle it. From what I read, that is what Joe Paterno and the grad assistant did. They are not the villains, unless new information comes to light.



The guys it was reported to, who did not follow through, are and should resign or be fired all the way to the top of who knew about it and did not report it to the police. That is where the decision to not report it was made and where decisions to continue to give Sandusky access to PSU facilities per his previous retirement arrangement were made.



From what I read, Joe Pa was never told the specifics of what was observed, but higher ups were told and Sandusky did not even work for Paterno at the time.



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Cop out.



If you find out that a guy is using your teams facilities to have some sort of nebulous/undefined child sex abuse, you don't just report it and move on with your life. Especially if that guy keeps on using your facilities. You call your admin and demand to know whats going on and whats being done.



JoPa did the bare minimum. It's enough to keep him out of jail, but not to deserve our sympathy.

I don't think that's a Cop out.



JoPa didn't see what happened. He probably didn't know if it was true or not. So he reported it to his superiors.

Yes, he reported it to his superiors, but it doesn't appear that he followed up. It just seems like he told the AD and then washed his hands of the thing and I just don't understand how you don't follow up to make sure everything was taken care of.

No. He told the person who was in charge of the UNIVERSITY POLICE. That's different than just telling the AD.



Further, action was taken fairly quickly. Sandusky was banned from using Penn State facilities with any children. Sandusky himself was allowed to have access to the Penn State athletic facilities as part of his retirement agreement. I don't doubt Paterno knew this.



He reported the incident. Action was taken. I would assume Paterno thought that the issue was a closed matter and that additional follow up wasn't necessary.

Cougarbib2 wrote:
For Paterno, from everything I have read, based on what he was and was not told, he did the right thing. He reported it to the people responsible to investigate it and deal with it. Sandusky wasn't even on his staff at the time the incident was reported without specific details to him by the grad assistant. Sandusky had already retired.



There are HR laws and privacy issues that basically require you to report and butt out and trust appropriate authorities to handle it. From what I read, that is what Joe Paterno and the grad assistant did. They are not the villains, unless new information comes to light.



The guys it was reported to, who did not follow through, are and should resign or be fired all the way to the top of who knew about it and did not report it to the police. That is where the decision to not report it was made and where decisions to continue to give Sandusky access to PSU facilities per his previous retirement arrangement were made.



From what I read, Joe Pa was never told the specifics of what was observed, but higher ups were told and Sandusky did not even work for Paterno at the time.



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There is no HR policy that will prohibit you from reporting criminal acts to the authorities. There is no "privacy" law that prevents you from reporting job-site child-rape by co-worker or employee. To the contrary, there are powerful whistle-blower laws that do the opposite and encourage you to report these things and that render any such HR policies invalid.



JoePa admitted to the grand jury that the grad assistant told him Sandusky was "fondling or doing something of a sexual nature to a young boy" in the showers. It was reported to JoePa. He was the most powerful figure on campus. He just passed the buck and let the guy keep working for him and working with 10 year olds and never reported it to authorities. It was reported to JoePa, and JoePa did not follow through. This is not a case of someone stealing sugar packets from the break room, this is a guy raping 10 year old boys in the showers. Anyone who had any idea this was going on and didn't tell the police needs to be fired, if not drawn-and-quartered.

In most states learning of sexual child abuse requires you to advise the police, not some administrator. Joe Pa maybe did the right thing at first, but then not following up and acting when it became clear the university was not going to do anything is a failure of unfathomable moral dimensinos. The graduate coach saw Sandusky raping a ten year old boy in the men's shower and tells Joe Pa this. And he thinks all he needs to do is let his superior know? Unbeleivably wrong. These are ten year old boys being raped! Joe Pa's inaction led to more children being raped and that is that. As for Penn State's upper echelon's decision to tell this perverted man to simply not come on to the campus is a total abdication of duty--I guess what they are saying is go ahead and keep raping little boys just don't do it on our campus. And then cover it all up. This coach was and is a menace to children and Penn State let him keep menacing and harming children. Penn State has shamed itself far beyond anything remotely close to what Ohio State did even what the Miami booster did...If Penn State will not stand up for the children, who will?

First, BYU's scandal isn't even on the same level. Yes, some players did some horrific things away from school. But, as far as I know there was no effort on BYU's part to cover the behavior up. Players were delt with swiftly and appropriately. A distinction has to be made between the school and the athletes/coaches' behavior. That's what is so messed up with Penn State.



Penn State essentially enabled the criminal and thus isn't even in the same ballpark as BYU's scandal. At Penn State, you have a conspiracy to protect the school's image that extends all the way down to the GA that decided to take the matter to Paterno instead of the cops. Clearly, even the mindset of the GA was to preserve Penn's image.



If I were to see such a thing happen, I make three phone calls. First and foremost, to the police. Second, to the guardian of the child. Third, to the school and that's only after the criminal has been hauled off and the child is safe at home. Epic fail on the GA's part, Paterno's part and the rest of Penn State. They should all be fired.

Gunk wrote:
First, BYU's scandal isn't even on the same level. Yes, some players did some horrific things away from school. But, as far as I know there was no effort on BYU's part to cover the behavior up. Players were delt with swiftly and appropriately. A distinction has to be made between the school and the athletes/coaches' behavior. That's what is so messed up with Penn State.



Penn State essentially enabled the criminal and thus isn't even in the same ballpark as BYU's scandal. At Penn State, you have a conspiracy to protect the school's image that extends all the way down to the GA that decided to take the matter to Paterno instead of the cops. Clearly, even the mindset of the GA was to preserve Penn's image.



If I were to see such a thing happen, I make three phone calls. First and foremost, to the police. Second, to the guardian of the child. Third, to the school and that's only after the criminal has been hauled off and the child is safe at home. Epic fail on the GA's part, Paterno's part and the rest of Penn State. They should all be fired.

100 percent agree. Kudos to the State AG who is taking on Penn State and Joe Paterno. It takes some courage to do that....

snoscythe wrote:

For Paterno, from everything I have read, based on what he was and was not told, he did the right thing. He reported it to the people responsible to investigate it and deal with it. Sandusky wasn't even on his staff at the time the incident was reported without specific details to him by the grad assistant. Sandusky had already retired.



There are HR laws and privacy issues that basically require you to report and butt out and trust appropriate authorities to handle it. From what I read, that is what Joe Paterno and the grad assistant did. They are not the villains, unless new information comes to light.



The guys it was reported to, who did not follow through, are and should resign or be fired all the way to the top of who knew about it and did not report it to the police. That is where the decision to not report it was made and where decisions to continue to give Sandusky access to PSU facilities per his previous retirement arrangement were made.



From what I read, Joe Pa was never told the specifics of what was observed, but higher ups were

told and Sandusky did not even work for Paterno at the time.



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There is no HR policy that will prohibit you from reporting criminal acts to the authorities. There is no "privacy" law that prevents you from reporting job-site child-rape by co-worker or employee. To the contrary, there are powerful whistle-blower laws that do the opposite and encourage you to report these things and that render any such HR policies invalid.



JoePa admitted to the grand jury that the grad assistant told him Sandusky was "fondling or doing something of a sexual nature to a young boy" in the showers. It was reported to JoePa. He was

the most powerful figure on campus. He just passed the buck and let the guy keep working for him and working with 10 year olds and never reported it to authorities. It was reported to JoePa, and JoePa did not follow through. This is not a case of someone stealing sugar packets from the break room, this is a guy raping 10 year old boys in the showers. Anyone who had any idea this was going on and didn't tell the police needs to be fired, if not drawn-and-quartered.

He reported it to the person responsible for campus police. Further Joe Pa did not witness it and did not get told the details if it and would be the wrong person as an amateur and a long relationship with the accused to investigate it. The guy in charge of the University police should be and will be prosecuted.



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