by Helen Tansey ©
Penn State must immediately suspend their football program, if for no other reason than to save their players from public ridicule and humiliation when in fact such vitriol must be directed at the university’s Board of Directors, Administration and once stellar leadership of the football team.
The kids who trusted Penn State’s leadership should not be made to pay the price for the Board’s decision who intentionally, deliberately and with malice gave cover to Sandsuky, a known child predator, for 13 years. The kids deserve better. The public flogging should be directed at these empty suits and uniforms only!
When this story first broke, I thought it had something to do with rigging the game. I don’t do football. It’s one of those sports that baffles someone like me who considers the whole idea of grown men pummeling each other over a ball an utterly meaningless and rather barbaric exercise. But boys will be boys and damn if they don’t do the stupidest things.
But the gravity of the Penn State story has absolutely nothing to do with the game of football, but rather everything to do with power. Whether on Wall Street, the halls of Congress, a basketball court or football field men who attain power and influence who then use it to prey on children are the most despicable of creatures known to womankind.
This is what happened at Penn State that is a former coach, Jerry Sandusky, took extreme advantage of his position of power and authority by thoroughly betraying the little ones he pretended to serve.
This is what predators do no matter their position in life. They reel the innocent in by pretending they care and once they believe they’ve gained their trust, they test the child’s vulnerable boundaries…first a bap on the shoulder, then some horsing around, then rubbing the back, the hand on the leg…
Jerry Sandusky’s modus operandi is no different than any other pedophile. Remove all of the noise, the family, the resume and what you have is a very sick and demented individual.
As with any individual who preys on innocent children, he needs a system of enablers who know, instinctually, and in Sandusky’s case, eyewitness accounts, to serve as unwitting gatekeepers duped into providing cover to his predatory lifestyle.
The first cover up took place in 1998 when the mother of Victim 6 along with detectives recorded Sandusky saying aloud “I understand. I was wrong. I wish I could get forgiveness. I know I won’t get it from you. I wish I were dead.” Don’t think for a minute Penn State management wasn’t made aware of this admission. They were. What other reason could possibly point to Sandusky’s removal from the football team staff and their banning him from bringing children to the football locker rooms.
Sandusky was 55 years old and in the prime of his professional life with Coach Paterno as his boss when he retired.
Yet Penn State, along w/Coach Paterno, wants you and me to believe that they were first made aware of Sandusky’s callous and sick behavior in 2002 when a 28 year old assistant happened upon Sandusky raping a ten year old child in the football shower facility. Who do they think they are fooling?
It is difficult for me to fathom how Coach McQueary, then THE 28 year old graduate assistant, has, in all sincerity, lived all of these years with the image of a grown man sodomizing a 10 year old child. That is not an image you shake from your mind. This man has lived with that vision with no justice for all of these years.
Worse, he has lived with the fact that he did nothing to “physically” STOP the rape of Victim 2. Instead, because of what he saw was so out of his norm, fight or flight kicked in, he chose flight by immediately reaching out to the people he most trusted to give him counsel, his parents, and he got his dad. Had he reached his mom, she would have told her son to get back to that shower to make sure that child was okay, but he didn’t talk to his mom. Rather, he talked to his dad whose only counsel was to have his son immediately inform the chain of command. McQuery did immediately inform Coach Paterno, and the moment he did was the very moment Penn State went into covering the rape up and damage control.
McQueary’s fatal error was listening to the counsel of his father. You see, the men of McQuery’s fathers generation, not all men mind you, learned that when one demonstrates respect for the chain of command one gets results. His father had no way of knowing such a rule didn’t apply to Penn State’s management, and folks, it didn’t.
Rather, the management of Penn State looked out for the reputation of the university and to hell with the child. Obviously their code of silence kicked in, protect the institutions reputation at all costs and manage the damage.
Unfortunately for the management of Penn State, their success in snuffing out this monstrously horrible abuse of a child, actually eight victims so far and counting, was successfully swept under the rug for eight years by those who chose loyalty to an institution over one of their own raping a child in the prestigious football locker room.
But as all things that are swept under the rug, it comes back to bite ya, as in the ass where it should and HARD.
Coach Paterno and President Spanier were shown the door by Penn State’s Board of Directors and many of the kids on campus have been out in full force protesting the decision to fire the coach, but I have news for them. They are wrong. They are defending a man who knew as early as 1998 and as late as 2002 that one of his guys, remember Sandusky played and worked for Paterno, was as dirty, as despicable, as sick, as demented as any human could possibly be.
This disgusting story is growing legs with Pennsylvania radio personality Mark Madden, a reporter who has been following this story for some time now stated the following on a radio show yesterday –
‘”Madden stated that two “prominent columnists” are currently investigating a rumor that Jerry Sandusky’s Second Mile Foundation, a non-profit organization aimed to serve underprivileged youths, was “pimping out young boys to rich (Penn State) donors.” Madden went on to say that Jerry Sandusky was told by those running the show at Penn State football that Sandusky had to retire after allegations made in 1998 that the defensive coordinator was guilty of “improper conduct with an underage male.” Sandusky, thought by some to be Joe Paterno’s successor at the time, abruptly and somewhat shockingly retired from coaching in 1999.”
“It actually gets worse. Madden went on to say “When Sandusky quit, everybody knew; not just at Penn State. It was a very poorly kept secret around college football, in general. That is why he never coached in college football again and retired at the relatively young age of 55, young for a coach.” Madden also called the Second Mile Foundation “the perfect cover” for Sandusky’s scheme.” (emphasis added)
The power structure at Penn State knew in 1998 Sandusky was a liability and in 1999 retired him. No other college or university picked him up even though his football record was solid. Why? Because, as Madden states, “it was a very poorly kept secret around college football, in general” meaning ALL of college football management knew! These men knew Sandusky was a child pedophile which means others outside of team management knew too.
And if they knew he was such a sick puppy NONE OF THEM DID A DAMNED THING TO STOP HIM! Madden went onto state Sandusky was “pimping out young boys [who were low income and at risk youth who sought out the Second Mile Foundation for help] to rich (Penn State) donors!” PIMPING OUT TROUBLED YOUTH TO RICH PENN STATE DONORS? HELLO! The entirety of Penn State’s football program is compromised until this sordid story is finished being told. ALL OF IT!
To even think about subjecting the university’s athletes and student body to the public flogging they are certain to receive only compounds the original violation, that is, the administration at Penn State has in effect replaced Sandusky and they themselves have become the abuser! For what? Money? Good God you people are sick!
And to add to Madden’s “legs” let me remind you what investigative journalist Wayne Madsen wrote back on April 10, 2008 –
WMR has learned that Harrisburg is the center of an investigation of the use of male and female prostitutes, including underage teens, by a number of leading state officials. The probe extends through the State Police to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and into the executive departments of Governor Ed Rendell, including Rendell’s own office.
The investigation by Maryland US Attorney Tom DiBiagio of prostitution rings in the Baltimore Police Department and the administration of Maryland Governor Bob Ehrlich also had links to Pennsylvania, according to information received by WMR. Baltimore Police Commissioner and later- Maryland State Police Superintendent Ed Norris was convicted of using police funds to procure prostitutes from the Pamela Martin agency of Deborah Jeane Palfrey. Palfrey went on trial on April 7 in US District Court in Washington, DC. Palfrey’s defense is expected to call Louisiana Republican Senator David Vitter as a witness after he admitted he was a client of the escort service. Palfrey maintains, with a high degree of credibility, that the high-profile and Republican nature of her service’ clients led to her being selectively prosecuted by the Justice Department.
DiBiagio was the first US Attorney fired by George W. Bush’s Justice Department after the November 2004 election. On December 3, 2003, DiBiagio’s Assistant US Attorney, Jonathan Luna, was found in a creek off the Pennsylvania Turnpike in Lancaster, east of Harrisburg, stabbed to death 36 times. Police investigators entertained the theory that Luna stabbed himself with his own pen knife. Luna was reportedly investigating Ehrlich and GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff for being clients of the Pamela Martin escort agency at the time of his death.
Is all of this connected? Was Sandusky’s pedophilia limited only to him and his sick twisted world OR did it permeate outward to other sicko’s like Penn State donors who got their rocks off raping low income and troubled little boys?
Wherever this miserable saga leads, do not think or believe for a moment the power structure at Penn State was not aware of Sandusky’s demented ways, and that very structure starts at the Board of Trustees and filters down to every coach on Penn State’s team including JoePa. And if the Trustee’s had a scintilla of decency they would immediately suspend their college football program and help re locate the members of the team to other universities.
After all, it’s not the kids fault; no, ALL RESPONSIBILITY RESIDES WITH THE ADULTS, AKA THE MANAGEMENT!
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Click HERE to read the Grand Jury report – Warning, it is graphic.