Court papers allege Joe Pa knew of child sex abuse as far back as 1976

RTR91 said:

Does it matter how far apart the instances were if we believe he was told by multiple people? One thing to have a random kid tell you something. Another thing to have multiple kids over a certain number of years say the same thing without knowing someone else made the same claims.

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No it doesn't matter to me. Multiple instances always mean more likelihood that they are true despite the time frame difference. In the best case scenario for Paterno eventually whatever threshold for believe-ability he had was crossed. Again I refer back to the two possibilities. Again I don't have enough evidence to know which of the two is the case.

RTR91 said:

After multiple kids make the claims, shouldn't he at least ask his longtime friend about them? And then go to the authorities?

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Who says whether he did or didn't ask Sandusky? This is another unknowable that a lot of people act like is known. Paterno is not around to defend himself, and no one is ever going to believe anything Sandusky said. The University administration that he DID report it to eventually obviously dropped the ball too.

mittman said:

Paterno is not around to defend himself, and no one is ever going to believe anything Sandusky said.

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You're right, he's not. So I can say Joe Paterno was part of a child sex ring and guess what? How are you going to prove he isn't? You can't right? But you can use logic and reason to say yeah, I doubt he was actually a part of a child sex ring. But how do you know?

At some point you use some common sense... it's about as plausible that the reason Joe Paterno didn't put a stop to this was because in fact was a pedophile than it is to claim that he somehow had no idea what was going on, despite being repeatedly told what was going on... So, if we want to just out way out on a limb, why not go the other way?

KrAzY3 said:

You're right, he's not. So I can say Joe Paterno was part of a child sex ring and guess what? How are you going to prove he isn't? You can't right? But you can use logic and reason to say yeah, I doubt he was actually a part of a child sex ring. But how do you know?

At some point you use some common sense... it's about as plausible that the reason Joe Paterno didn't put a stop to this was because in fact was a pedophile than it is to claim that he somehow had no idea what was going on, despite being repeatedly told what was going on... So, if we want to just out way out on a limb, why not go the other way?

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As to proving a negative, there is that burden of proof. I do think there are things we know conclusively that makes Paterno culpable of at least willful disregard. But there is a big difference between that and RUNNING a ring, knowingly hooking up young boys with a sex offender. That is a leap you have every right to take, and I have every right not to.

When going out on a limb I TRY to be on the side of giving the benefit of the doubt, and believe the most positive thing that I can still consider plausible. I would hope those that are close to me would give me the same leeway.

Yet Again, I don't feel comfortable in any way defending Paterno, and don't think I am.

I have got my point in, no use in further belaboring the same point. Y'all can take it or leave it.

mittman said:

As to proving a negative, there is that burden of proof. I do think there are things we know conclusively that makes Paterno culpable of at least willful disregard. But there is a big difference between that and RUNNING a ring, knowingly hooking up young boys with a sex offender. That is a leap you have every right to take, and I have every right not to.

When going out on a limb I TRY to be on the side of giving the benefit of the doubt, and believe the most positive thing that I can still consider plausible. I would hope those that are close to me would give me the same leeway.

Yet Again, I don't feel comfortable in any way defending Paterno, and don't think I am.

I have got my point in, no use in further belaboring the same point. Y'all can take it or leave it.

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You're not trying to defend Paterno?

mittman said:

As to proving a negative, there is that burden of proof. I do think there are things we know conclusively that makes Paterno culpable of at least willful disregard. But there is a big difference between that and RUNNING a ring, knowingly hooking up young boys with a sex offender. That is a leap you have every right to take, and I have every right not to.

When going out on a limb I TRY to be on the side of giving the benefit of the doubt, and believe the most positive thing that I can still consider plausible. I would hope those that are close to me would give me the same leeway.

Yet Again, I don't feel comfortable in any way defending Paterno, and don't think I am.

I have got my point in, no use in further belaboring the same point. Y'all can take it or leave it.

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I think you are defending Paterno, and I'll leave it.

RTR91 said:

You're not trying to defend Paterno?

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I believe that he is defending a higher cause and has just picked the wrong guy as an example. I get his argument. At a higher level, he has seen someone lose everything because of a wrongful accusation - think Duke Lacrosse. And folks on this board have generally been on board with that way of thinking - that people deserve to at least have all of the facts presented before being judged.

What he may be missing is that, in this specific case Paterno was initially given the benefit of the doubt - until the pile of evidence grew so high that it could no longer ignored. No football fan wanted Paterno to turn out to be this villain. But facts are facts, and this is not a case of a rush to judgment. If anything, it is a case where society ignored warning signs for decades not knowing just how bad things were at PSU. If only society had rushed to judge Paterno and his staff decades ago for some of the other stuff being swept under the rug in Happy Valley. This could have been stopped a long time ago if we had a "TMZ" back in the 70s, 80s, and 90s when his players were regularly getting arrested and released into his custody, then given punishments like cleaning up the stadium.

Placing this man on a pedestal and giving him too much leeway in the court of public opinion allowed this to happen.

The key here is the ability to recognize patterns. Isolated incidents, no matter how terrible are not necessarily cause for greater alarm. For instance, because some guy in Afghanistan goes nuts and kills civilians, it doesn't necessarily mean anyone else around him did anything wrong. Now, if he and a team of guys start doing this over and over? That's a pattern, that's not an isolated incident and it does bring other things into question.

The Sandusky decades long child abuse crime spree was in no way an isolated incident, nor were reports of the abuse. We know how the system works, we've seen some of the cover-up system exposed in Tennessee, we've seen it in action at FSU, so we're operating under fairly reasonable assumptions here, aside from the abundance of actual evidence. We can argue on Paterno's behalf that he could work closely with someone for decades and not know he was abusing children, that's perhaps a bit of a reach but within reason.

What seems to be hard to overlook though is that we know of multiple incidents that Joe Paterno should have, or was made aware of. We have really only one of two pictures to paint here in defense of Joe Paterno. One is that a complete bumbling fool, a dunce, an idiot of the highest order somehow came to elevate a football program to one of the most successful in college football. The other is that Joe Paterno underwent a decades long battle with senility, starting when he was in his 50s and he simply lacked the mental awareness to recall each time he was made aware of Sandusky's abuse, but managed to still coach at a high level. Those both sound ridiculous don't they?

The picture we have before us, not derived from a single isolated incident but a pattern, is of an evil man who put college football and what he wanted above the welfare of children. I would like this to not be true as much as anyone, but we're well past being able to give the benefit of a doubt. If you "accidentally" shoot one person, that's one thing, but if you keep pulling the trigger and shooting more people, sorry that just isn't an accident that's intentional. Recognize the pattern...

In my opinion if Joe Paterno was not himself a pedophile (I believe he may have been), he was something far worse.

CullmanTide said:

In my opinion if Joe Paterno was not himself a pedophile (I believe he may have been), he was something far worse.

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On what do you base your belief that Paterno was a pedophile?

That claim may cut to the heart of what mittman is trying to say. There is PLENTY of circumstantial evidence that might lead someone to conclude that Paterno knew what Sandusky was doing (I firmly believe that he did). There is PLENTY of circumstantial evidence that PSU administrators attempted to cover up what was going on (I firmly believe that they did). But I haven't seen anything to suggest that Paterno was himself a pedophile--other than that he protected a pedophile.

So much of the evidence against the coach and school appears credible. It doesn't need enhancement.

That said, very few things are exactly as they seem.

CrimsonEyeshade said:

So much of the evidence against the coach and school appears credible. It doesn't need enhancement.

That said, very few things are exactly as they seem.

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Says all of the Jerry Sandusy's victims

jthomas666 said:

On what do you base your belief that Paterno was a pedophile?

That claim may cut to the heart of what mittman is trying to say. There is PLENTY of circumstantial evidence that might lead someone to conclude that Paterno knew what Sandusky was doing (I firmly believe that he did). There is PLENTY of circumstantial evidence that PSU administrators attempted to cover up what was going on (I firmly believe that they did). But I haven't seen anything to suggest that Paterno was himself a pedophile--other than that he protected a pedophile.

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Protecting or enabling a pedophile is as bad or evan worse would you not agree? There is a reason he did it beyond just friendship. Perhaps Sandusky had something on Paterno.

CullmanTide said:

Protecting or enabling a pedophile is as bad or evan worse would you not agree? There is a reason he did it beyond just friendship. Perhaps Sandusky had something on Paterno.

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As to your question, it's besides the point. My point had to do with what the evidence supports. For instance, perhaps Sandusky did have something on Paterno. But there's no evidence that he did, just as there's no evidence that Paterno was a pedophile. There is evidence that Paterno protected Sandusky for decades, and IMO that is more than sufficient to condemn the man the the lowest circle of Hell.

I'm not sure that I could think any less of joepa even if he turned out to be a pedophile himself.I just keep thinking of the level of his hypocrisy as he basked in his ill deserved image as "Saint Joe."

He not only basked in it, he reveled in it.