It's really a shame that Barry, aka StorminNorm, isn't available to chime in on this topic. 
Freeh Resolution
- Thread starter lubrano
- Start date
People can write 20 more books on the subject and no amount of foot stomping and pleadings are going to change what happened 10 years ago. What happened then is done and over with and there are no do overs. We're in the grips of a world wide pandemic, the country is being torn apart over racial issues, people's businesses have been destroyed, our cities are being torched, there are 20M people out of work, we don't know if the university will be open come September or if there will be a football season and one of our Trustees feels the need to resurrect the Freeh report (which by the way was just an opinion)?
Don't you think our Trustees should be focusing more on when and how to reopen and run the university safely, pay the bills, and devise a plan on how to save the football season which supports all other university sports? A trustee and anyone else who thinks Freeh is more important IMO lacks intellectual application and thought.
We're leaving all the heavy lifting to you and handling this. Thanks for your service.
Wow! I didn’t realize that I was in the presence of such an intellectual giant.
BTW, given that I’m not seated until July 1, 2020, I’m not privy to any of the discussions surrounding the fall semester. However, I will note that I did request to participate on the weekly BOT calls so that I could be up to speed when I am seated. Unfortunately, that request, which was made in early May, has fallen on deaf ears.
As for righting the wrongs heaped on the University by Freeh, my fervent belief is that OUR community cannot heal until we address these transgressions. Seems to me all we’ve done is to run away from them. But what do I know, I’m apparently not the intellect that you are.
C’est la vie!
A
anon_xdc8rmuek44eq
Guest
I think there is scant evidence that he is guilty of what he was convicted of. Of the 36 claimants that Penn State made settlements with, I don’t find any of their stories compelling. Since his first trial was patently unfair, I believe he is entitled to the presumption of innocence. I say give him the retrial that he deserves.
I am assuming that you are fine with Freeh’s opinions and you are not interested in what actually happened. As far as I am concerned, you are entitled to your own opinions and we live in a free country.
it seems like we have a difference in opinion over what the priorities of the BOT should be. It seems to me that the BOT power brokers and you don’t want to look behind the curtain and learn what actually happened but would rather just move on.
You may think that the story the OAG and Freeh sold us 10 years ago is set in stone. I have a different opinion and feel that there is still a lot to learn. The fat lady has not sung.
it really isn'tIt's really a shame that Barry, aka StorminNorm, isn't available to chime in on this topic.
Wouldn’t the refund of $60M (and perhaps another $10M bowl proceeds) from NCAA help pay some bills
Of course it would but your'e never going to see it. It's that simple.
You're going to be waiting a long time for the fat lady to sing because she died 10 years ago. Trust me on this. Apparently Anthony and a few others were never informed.
I agree. I’m all for Lubrano taking this on but what he has written is not effective for public digestion. It’s written in a way too complicated manner and needs to be edited down drastically so that it fits into short talking points. No newspaper or tv is going to give it more than 3-4 inches in a printed column or 15 seconds in a TV news show. Anthony needs to rewrite it so it fits. He needs to do the work for the reporter.
Primarily I want redemption for Penn State and Joe Paterno. Joe Paterno did so much good for Penn State .. he deserves to have the record corrected. The fingers need to be pointed at the real bad guys.
The record also needs to be corrected on Penn State as an institution. PSU lost billions in intangible value from this. For PSU, there is no downside to correcting this. There is only upside.
I would also like to see ....
Freeh has a press conference where they admit their work was shoddy and did not support the conclusions put forth in the press conference. [read the f***ing report! He did not prove 1 thing.]
Freeh repays the $8MM in fees to Penn State. PSU indemnified him. This will be all we get from him monetarily. It would still be satisfying.
Why should I trust you? You have shown that either you are ignorant of the basic facts of the case or that you are an old guard BOT/OAG troll or both.
Is this supposed to be funny, hurtful, etc? I’m not getting it other than a weak and immature response. You never come back with facts to any of my posts. Just name calling or weak comments like this. Sad.
And it won’t change anything related to Paterno’s reputation at a national level.
Which brings me around to my main point.... You give wealthy, well connected, and powerful people 6-12 months to strategize a game plan and what they did when the story broke in Nov. 2011 really makes you scratch your head. I know conspiracy theory people are ridiculed for living in their parents basements and wearing tin foil hats. But the people who had 6-12 months notice were not exactly "common" people. The BOT is full of powerful people who have powerful contacts that can make things happen. These are people who have big time legal advice, risk management advice, have political contacts and contacts in every walk of life. .... Yet with 6-12 months for advance planning and being able to get in front of the story, the plan they came up with was one that tied Paterno, Spanier and Penn State to Sandusky, Actually made Paterno complicit with Sandusky's crimes, tarnished the image and legacy of Penn State and sacrificed the school's financial cash-cow football program..... It makes you scratch your head. Like I said before, they are either grossly incompetent or they got the results they ultimately wanted. And then I ask, If these were the results that they ultimately wanted, then who were they really trying to protect??? If they were willing to do all the damage listed above, then the cost of that damage had to be done to save something/someone else from the damage.
IMO.... you get this and then you can begin to peel away the onion.
They got the results they colluded with Corbett for. What they didn't see coming was the backlash on Tubby Boy and the fact that they would become pariahs. But hey, a positive was that they got Judas off of unemployment and started him on the road to a pension.
I wonder how all the money......paid for the Freeh Fable, the lawyers, claimants, the NCAA (fine monies diverted but paid none the less) the bowl money, the "integrity monitor," 10 million for the "whistle blower," etc. would go toward PSU's woes today. But hey, it's all about Joe right? I wish I had the intellectual ability to sort thru this.................
At least we no longer have anyone running Penn State who will be or has been behind bars...............oops........and the big one,
200 million smackers and a reputation (PSU) forever sullied......but hey move on. We have bigger issues?????????????????????????????????? But Ira did see to it that CYS and TSM was indemnified with PSU monies..........so there is that! It's hard to see how anyone would be bothered by any of this........
There is value in confirming where the 32 members stand almost a decade later.
I, for one, will never stop desiring that the truth comes to light. It is NEVER too late.
I will also not donate a dime to PSU until the university takes some action to defend it's reputation. Giving money to an organization that is unwilling to stand up for itself is throwing good money after bad. All the good JVP had done. All the good will PSU had for it's culture. Gone. Instantly. Because it was a slow news day and "leadership" was unwilling to defend itself against lazy journalists and the angry mob it incited.
"The Board rejects the conclusions of the Freeh Report and officially repudiates the Freeh Report; and,
The Board hereby authorizes the public release of the Report that the Plaintiff Trustees presented to the Board; and
The Board authorizes General Counsel to engage specialized independent outside litigation counsel to evaluate and recommend claims against Freeh and others, as are appropriate, including but not limited to an action to recover the more than $8.3 million paid by the University to Freeh for the work associated with the Freeh Report."
You need to crawl before you can walk. If you want to see where board members stand with regards to the Freeh Report, stop here. BOT members who think the Freeh Report is garbage will never vote to authorize public release of the report or to engage counsel to potentially sue Freeh and others.
The Board hereby authorizes the public release of the Report that the Plaintiff Trustees presented to the Board; and
The Board authorizes General Counsel to engage specialized independent outside litigation counsel to evaluate and recommend claims against Freeh and others, as are appropriate, including but not limited to an action to recover the more than $8.3 million paid by the University to Freeh for the work associated with the Freeh Report."
You need to crawl before you can walk. If you want to see where board members stand with regards to the Freeh Report, stop here. BOT members who think the Freeh Report is garbage will never vote to authorize public release of the report or to engage counsel to potentially sue Freeh and others.
You lay out the sheer madness and unbelievable outcome from all this with very tactful sarcasm.... Which is why I am doubtful something like Lubrano's latest attempt will have a snowball's chance. These people saw this crap-storm coming. They had the power and the connections to set in motion all the damages that you so cynically detail. The only logical conclusion was to deflect attention and damage away from others. So, if they had the power & abilities to do what they did back in 2011/12, then they will definitely have the ability to crush and silence any resolution presented by Lubrano. I applaud Lubrano for his dedication and his loyalty, but if these people can damage Paterno, sign off on Penn State paying hundreds of millions in damages, indemnify other entities, and basically right the script that they wanted to be narrated back in 2011/12, then squashing a resolution presented by a rogue BOT Member is easy pickings.
Unfortunately, finding out the 'who' and the 'why' and the depths that it reached back in 2011 has become a 10-year old cold case and getting those answers will be almost impossible.
Why not "in addition to", instead of "rather than"?
It's short sighted to say that future students would not benefit from the restoration of the institution's honor and reputation. Any meaningful progress in those areas would likely bring about a complete restructuring of the BOT
@lubrano
Anthony, I appreciate your effort in pursuing this fight. I graduated from Penn State in 1986 and my son is entering his sophomore year at PSU.
For 3-4 years after Nov 2011, I read everything I could about the scandal. In my opinion, the BOT could not have handled the situation any worse. At the time, I thought they modeled their response after the BP oil spill and how BP claimed responsibility immediately. The university fired its two strongest leaders within a few days of the news breaking. The situation gave the media a chance to write a story about an institution with a squeaky clean image to get torn down. After 4 years or so, I lost hope that the truth would be revealed and the university's reputation would be restored along with Joe, Spanier, Curley, and Shultz.
Others have brought up the scandals at the other B1G institutions who didn't get drug through the mud like we did in 2011. I have no doubt they learned from our BOT"s handling of our scandal. Despite the current social media intensive environment, I still believe in "innocent until proven guilty." That is where our BOT went wrong. Their handling cost the university untold hundreds of millions. I imagine there a people on the BOT connected to the old guard who want to protect the old guard from getting skewered.
I think if you could paint a picture of how much the scandal has cost the university in terms of potential donations from alumni, you could get their attention. Put the anecdotes of all the alumni who stopped giving because of Joe's treatment into a spreadsheet and show it to the BOT. Of all people, Joe deserved the benefit of doubt. I can't think of anyone who devoted their life to an institution more than he did. His memory should have been celebrated at a whiteout years ago. He was part of the school's brand for years! (And because I think there are people who believe that if you speak highly of Joe, you don't like the current coaching staff - I think James Franklin is outstanding!)
Best wishes on your endeavor and keep us posted!
I'd love to hear what Lanny Davis has to say, after being administered with sodium pentothal.
To be clear......I think Anthony is shrewd enough to know this resolution will not pass. But, it should serve as a reminder, like the worst case of jock rot you ever had........it isn't going away. The OGBOT and Corbett bots need to have their noses rubbed in this hot steamy shit at every turn.
I propose an honor the OGBOT day at Beaver Stadium.......secure a promise from Surma, Frazier, Suhey, Judas, Tsar Ira the Terrible, Clown Prince Dumbly, Karen with the flies on her, Rodney the Meek and the rest of the misanthropes to appear. Let them be introduced (individually) and stroll to the 50 yard line, so that everyone can thank them for their service to PSU. I'd pay 2k for a seat. A great fund raiser.
I agree with this 100%. Don't let them sleep well at night.
You're assuming that the BoT members were fully, or at least meaningfully, engaged with the issue in advance of the shit hitting the fan. Unfortunately, this isn't the way Boards operate. Members have their own companies/organizations to run and participation on these Boards is a diversion. Yes, they want to help their schools, but not if it demands full-time attention.
The dynamic, at corporations as well as universities, is that board members typically follow the lead of the CEO/President of the organization. There are/can be notable exceptions, but this is the rule.
In the case of Sandusky, the record shows that on the infrequent occasions when the topic came up, Spanier dismissed it as a non-event, not a threat to PSU. The Board accepted that. There are no indications to the contrary. The failure is almost entirely Spaniers's (were I to assign numbers, it would be 90/10). Had he conveyed a greater sense of threat/urgency, I believe that, with the Board's assistance, PSU would have been better prepared in November 2011.
So that my words are not misconstrued, this in no way excuses the Board's conduct in the aftermath.
LOL. I actually know multiple people who went to Vanderbilt (good school), but none of them knew they were going to Vanderbilt at age 10.
Keep being delusional.
No chance. In fact it will do the opposite and bring the Paterno was evil news back to the front pages.
It was a "non event", until Jonelle Eshbach fabricated the whole anal intercourse BS!
The university should have stuck by Joe, allowed Spanier to lead it through this and called for due process. That it didn't has to be on Tom Corbett, who had more conflicts of interest here than anyone.
Yep, the BOT get to use the Nuremberg defense for being asleep at the wheel, but Spanier needed to be clairvoyant. Spanier should have known the fix was in, despite the incident involving a non-employee and a non-student that was properly reported to TSM and CYS. Maybe Spanier was clairvoyant and knew that since the fix was in, there is nothing he could have done to stop it? Because there is nothing he could have done to stop the oncoming freight train.
Ironically, for all the people now saying it's a waste of BOT time to try and correct the narrative don't see that at that time (without the benefit of hindsight) it would have been an even bigger waste of time to divert the BOT's attention with a non-event.
So it was a "non-event" that someone closely identified with PSU was being investigated by a grand jury for the sexual abuse of children? That knowledge alone should have caused PSU to prepare for a shit storm. Had it amounted to nothing, it could have counted it's lucky stars that it dodged a bullet. As it turned out, it proved that Spanier should never have been put in charge of running anything more complicated than a newsstand.
There is a difference between "clairvoyance" and preparedness. You live in a hurricane zone. The weather forecasters predict a reasonable chance of a hurricane hitting your area. It's not a sure thing, so do you do nothing because you are not "clairvoyant," or do you prepare?
