PSU Removes Damning Web Page that Embarrasses BOT
- Thread starter B_Levinson
- Start date
Exactly...a lot of the issues that stemmed from the firing of Joe via late night nationally televised press conference could have been avoided if the BOT simply followed PR 101 and placed Joe as well as all other invovled individuals on admin leave pending further investigation, etc...
But no, the BOT went the route they did for a very specific reason, which Ao outlined above. It was a calculated move designed to get certain results and the BOT got the results they wanted (everyone in the country blamed Joe/admins/football for enabling JS) then paid freeh to further cement that narrative and absolve the BOT from any wrongdoing.
This is a spot-on analysis.
Joe also added fuel to the fire by stating that he would coach through the end of the season and then retire. This gave the perception that he was dictating his terms to the Board. Whomever was advising him during this time was providing extremely poor guidance.
Even if this reasoning is correct, it does not change the proven fact that the Board LATER made up defamatory reasons for firing Joe. This indicates serious character defects that render Masser, Peetz, Frazier, Eckel, Erickson, Surma, and everybody else involved unfit for any position of trust or responsibility, including leadership of U.S. Steel (Surma was eventually removed for some reason or other), BNY Mellon, and the Merck Corporation.
What a load of crap. By the time Joe said what he said (which you are mis-characterizing), someone on the board had ALREADY leaked to the NEW YORK TIMES that they were going to fire him. Without so much as giving him the courtesy of a hearing after 60 years at Penn State.
Also, Paterno had already signed his retirement agreement BEFORE any of this stuff happened. There was absolutely NO GOOD REASON for the trustees to go down the path they chose. It was pure personal malice.
Well, it was clear that the BOT had to do something. The appropriate thing to do was to put Joe on leave of absence pending further investigation.
Regardless that, its been over three years and the BOT still has officially scorned Joe by taking down his stature and not restoring it, not distancing themselves from the Freeh report and stonewalling the Paterno suite.
Thanks for stopping by, and proving that you don't know much about the situation that existed in 2011.
SEPA's views are shared by some, but not all. Some feel JoePa should have been allowed to coach the last 3 games. Some feel he should have been placed on administrative leave. Very few feel he should have been fired. Alas, that's what the BOT did, and then spent months and millions justifying their actions after finding that the alums did not support their actions.
Joe added no "fuel to the fire." There was a signed document between PSU and JoePa that the 2011 season would be his last one as head coach. This was not made public during 2011, because JoePa wanted the focus on his team, and not on him, in his final season.
What JoePa did on Nov. 9, 2011 when he released the statement, was not dictate any terms at all to the BOT. He indicated that the BOT had much bigger issues to address than him, and then publicly announced that this would be his final season as coach. In JoePa's mind, he was simply informing the public what the University administration and BOT already knew.
Alas, there were some on the BOT that did not know of the signed document. What's equally egregious, IMHO, is that the many BOT members that knew of it, did not speak up to explain the full situation to their colleagues. This was caused by a combination of many factors, including:
a. Graham Spanier, the University President, was usually the one that informed the BOT of details, but he had already seen the tea leaves, and had submitted his resignation, though that was not announced
b. the BOT President, Steve Garban, had pretty much stepped aside, as he was in shock. In his various roles in the University over the years (administration and BOT), he had hired Schultz, Curley, and been JoePa's boss (and a former PSU player). He asked Vice Chair, John Surma, to take the lead
c. Surma also knew of the signed document, but had been anti-JoePa for several years. He was not going to let information and truth get in the way of the BOT's opportunity to do what he had wanted
d. many of the lesser members of the BOT (the ones that were, in general, politely ignored in the months/years before Nov. 9, 2011) became the loudest in the discussions/arguments that took place on Nov. 6, 7, 8, and 9.
JoePa's son, Scott Paterno, worked on the statement that JoePa released. He was operating from the same basic set of knowledge as JoePa -- that JoePa had a signed document with PSU that he was done after that season, and it would help the situation if they informed the public of this.
Also keep in mind that President Spanier, on the instructions of BOT Vice Chair John Surma, had canceled JoePa's weekly press conference on Nov. 8th. JoePa was planning to fully tell his side of the story in response to the Grand Jury presentment that had first appeared on the court's web site on Nov. 4, 2011.
Something has the pro-BOT crowd into a pretty big snit these days. It's the only way to understand the recent activity on several of the threads here.
No coach in this land whether it be Paul Bear Bryant, John Wooden or Joe Paterno was going to survive that. Your kidding yourself if you think most of the people that voted to fire Joe wanted that on their resume. You want me to believe everybody on that board hated Paterno and wanted his head. I don't buy that. Penn State would have forever been cast as putting football before the welfare of kids. The reason you can't see this is because you love the University and coach Joe as do I but where we part company is what path the BOT could have taken concerning Joe's coaching duties. Are you telling me it would have been possible to trot Joe out there against Nebraska? If somebody wants to say they should have placed him on administr
No I don't buy they were out as a whole to embarrass coach Paterno. Joe might have had a few enemies on that board but if you are trying to tell me it was a mob full of guys looking for Joe's head then I firmly disagree. Do you think those guys wanted to forever be ridiculed when walking on the streets of State College as the guys that fired the iconic Joe Paterno? Are you saying Joe could have taken the field against Nebraska? If you think Penn State was perceived as only caring about football when the scandal broke then what do you think they would have said if Joe took the field against Nebraska? It would have been etched in the American publics mind right or wrong that Penn State only cares about football. I know you love Penn State and sometimes I think it might influence what you think went on in this case
Now if somebody wants to argue that they should have put Joe on administrative leave that is another argument but if anybody thinks he could have taken the field against Nebraska they are discounting the power of perception. We would have been stamped forever rightly or wrongly as caring more about football than the kids.
So who was the Rush Chair the years that Surma may have been rushed during those years at Delta Upsilon? Is Sandy Paul a PSU alum? I see he has a LinkedIn page but that could be a ruse.Again.
I don't really care what you think. The fact is that of many options, the Board chose the option that would be most publicly humiliating to Paterno, and they continued straight down that path while he was dying (with their "throw Joe under the bus" press tour) and then after his death (tearing down the statue).
Anyone with a functioning BS meter can see that there was personal malice involved. There was a deliberate, malicious effort to destroy Paterno's legacy at Penn State.
It might be routine but to guys that don't like you it is a license to claim possible wrong doing. I don't know one way or the other but I am not sure the op knows either.
Look I really don't care what you think either but you act as though there was not great pressure on these people. What of anything you say can you actually prove. It's all BS unless you can prove it. From Lewis Freeh on
down many accusations have been made without hard evidence.
It might be routine but to guys that don't like you it is a license to claim possible wrong doing. I don't know one way or the other but I am not sure the op knows either.
It's what happens when people want so bad to believe the worst. Good move to the guys that got the facts straight. The op looks a little embarrassing now. To the guys that jumped on this band wagon it should be a lesson learned.
Some of the data -- specifically the page that lists the costs associated with the Trustees' mishandling of the indictments -- are not on the new website.
So it's completely correct to say that information has been removed.
Yeah alright. A fair guy does not have to be right all the time, just fair. It's good to see a guy like Trey set the record straight. It's not about being right all the time it's about giving somebody the same fair shake that you would expect for yourself.
Trey set a record straight?
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
What are you on SEPA?
Horatio Nelson said one cannot go very wrong if he lays his ship alongside that of the enemy. My corollary is that you cannot go far wrong if you keep firing until you see secondary explosions. We may now be seeing the moral equivalent of the secondary explosions, so let's keep laying into the enemy in all possible media--newspapers, radio, and social media.
Still pretending the bot wasn't actively creating the story and fanning the flames ahead of time?
PRECISELY! Only the most obtuse are unable to understand that this was "dialed in" from the beginning (starting with the leaked GJ Presentment with the inflammatory "anal rape" misquote). The BOT amateurs (as Frank Sheersn refers to them) thought that their work was complete in November 2011. I attended the first of Rodney's public forums in Pittsburgh and he was ABSOLUTELY DUMBFOUNDED by the outrage heaped on him at the event. The amateurs then entered stage 2 of this fraud by engaging Freeh (they heard from many about withholding donations).
I just wonder if SEPA is naturally obtuse or is it intentional? Nonetheless, he is now grasping for straws at this point. The public pressure was there because the BOT (including the Governor) generated the pressure themselves.
You've already been conceded that point. You've also been given a link to says new figures would be posted, but you continue to act as if you haven't seen it.
In the context of the original post, the information that Levinson publicly accused Penn State of removing is still there.
As we have seen, time and time again, just because the administration says that it will do something doesn't mean that it will do it.
