Penn State / Jerry Sandusky Pt. II

[Sea Ray]

Originally Posted by paintmered

You think it's a stretch to suggest that the Penn State administration and athletic department didn't want to disrupt the economic machine that is (or at least was) Penn State football? Reporting child rape inside the program even then would have subjected the program to NCAA and Title IX investigations and possible sanctions. It wouldn't have killed the program but it would have been disruptive. Maybe more importantly, reporting the crimes would have been a stake to the heart to the very proud reputation that Penn State was never among the wrongdoers.

All those outside the admin and program are absolutely innocent since they had no direct tie to the events that took place. But many made their livings at the feet of Joe Paterno and the successes of the football team, donated to the school and funded facility improvements (Beaver Stadium expanded from 46,000 to nearly 110,000 during Paterno's tenure). In turn, they saw economic benefit from it all. How could that not create a culture of protecting the program at all costs? Happy Valley isn't like Columbus. It doesn't have state government or banking corporate headquarters as other economic drivers. There's the university, the tourism surrounding the football program and very little else.

It's a stretch to justify the suffering of people just because they make money off of PSU football. They had no idea any of this stuff was going on. The people who donated to the program did so with no knowledge of this stuff.

If the program had reported the McQueary incident to authorities it would have removed the burden from them. All they had to do was cooperate with the investigation and then it would have been up to the DA to get a conviction. If there was no conviction, then it's on the DA, not PSU. At that point Sandusky was already off the staff