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* Make your own Penn State/State Pen joke. *

As those who know me know, I am not a sports fan and tend to think of anyone involved with such as more likely of being guilty of something than the averages of probability would indicate. Note that I am not defending what happened. I am explaining how I think the failure mode worked.

Joe Paterno was, from what I can tell, the guy that all the stuff about "good sportsmanship" was about. He didn't jump to the NFL when offered the chance. He didn't use illegal or even questionable recruiting gimmicks. He followed up on the academics of his players. Oh, and he also managed to build teams that tended to win without having used various shady practices. Sounds like a great guy, right? Overall he likely he is. But he made a couple errors, very critical errors, and they really reduce to one.

One error was that when he found out about the abuse (as I understand it, he did not witness it himself, but was told of it) he went to campus authorities rather than the real police. The other was that he didn't follow up on that, as he did with his players, and make sure that those authorities were really doing their jobs and acting on that information rather than ignoring or suppressing it. Those are really one error: He trusted University authorities to act as adults and do their jobs. For all I know, there might have been a mild followup that was met with, "We're still looking into it, don't worry about it." or such. It would not surprise me if something on the order happened - but that is mere speculation on my part.

But money and prestige were involved, and that's when adults are most likely to play childish (not childlike) games and ignore or suppress things they do not wish to deal with. The price is that now there is a Big Scandal of things going on for some time, involving multiple people, rather than a much smaller scandal that Got Fixed. People keep forgetting or missing a lesson of Watergate (besides "Don't do illegal things"...) which is that a coverup makes things worse[1]. But the big lesson that should be taken away from all this? Do not trust an organization to properly investigate itself. To get results, you must go outside the organization that needs investigation. Sadly, I do not expect this to change and in a while another scandal that could have been averted or corrected sooner will blow up.



[1] I've seen it put, "Nixon didn't resign because of a break-in; he resigned because of a coverup."

Date: 13 Nov 2011 16:02 (UTC)
From: [identity profile] nefaria.livejournal.com
Covering up crimes is standard procedure on college campuses. Each year colleges have to report the number of crimes on campus, and the college admins have a stake in keeping that number as low as possible, to make the college look more attractive. So when a crime happens, they don't notify the police, they make a (sometimes half-hearted) effort to address the crime and then drop the subject.

The reporters should be investigating this, because it affects almost everybody.

Date: 14 Nov 2011 13:47 (UTC)
From: [identity profile] sideband.livejournal.com
If he'd gone to the authorities instead of the college, the police most likely would have ignored it, or, at best, documented it and let it lay. Secondhand accounts don't hold up in court (except in VERY rare occasions) and the police wouldn't have had the evidence needed to convict the offender.

What SHOULD have happened is that the person who actually witnessed the alleged abuse should have gone directly to the police, immediately, and kept the coach out of it until after it was reported to the proper authorities.

Honestly, I don't see what more the coach could have done that would have had any lasting effect.

Date: 14 Nov 2011 14:05 (UTC)
From: [identity profile] vakkotaur.livejournal.com
I quite agree. The original witness made the same screw-up Paterno did, really. Paterno's going to the police might not have resulted in any change to events other than it being the police rather than himself on which much is focused - and the police would truly deserve the focus. As for the original witness... I can only wonder why that person did not go outside the system.

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