Cover up?

It's a sad day in "Happy Valley" and for the rest of white hat nation. So now we know that Penn State's venerable coach knew as far back as 1999 that his former defensive coordinator might have been acting in an  inappropriate manner with little boys.

We also know that in 2002, then grad assistant, Mike McQueary, actually saw the same former defensive coordinator engaged in a sexual act with a ten year old child in a PSU locker room and reported it to Joe Paterno after calling his father.

Paterno reported the incident to his handpicked Athletic Director, (another one of his myrmidons who surrounds the campus) and they told the alleged pedophile to stop using the university's facilities.

I read the grand jury report today, and the charges are absolutely disgusting. The folks at Penn State should be ashamed of themselves if children were allowed to be raped in order to protect the legacy of Joe Paterno and his football program.

The fact that the Centre County District Attorney sat on this case for a couple of of weeks,---- allowing Paterno to pass Eddie Robinson to become the all time winning coach in Division 1 football, also makes me wonder.

But this is bigger than football. We are talking about the alleged rape of children by a man who could have been stopped years ago, but who was allowed to allegedly continue because a great institution and football program had to be protected at all cost. And what about those hypocrites at the NCAA? We sanction a school and fire its coach for allowing football players to get free tattoos. So what do we do with a football program that possibly covers up sexual assaults on children?

We will be watching.

Now Penn State is thinking about letting Paterno go, because, as the saying goes; the s*&^ has hit the fan.

We all can't help but wonder how long this would have gone on if the Centre County District Attorney's office didn't decide to press charges against the alleged pedophile and school officials.

Joe Paterno was to give a press conference today, but the university canceled it because they didn't want Joe talking right now. Too much is at stake. There are assets to protect. Folks are talking about civil suits against Pennsylvania's flag ship university. So, just like the Catholic Church, they are "circling the wagons". And clearly they care more about protecting Penn State University and not the lives of innocent children.

"Hundreds of fans staged a raucous rally outside Paterno's home Tuesday evening. He appeared briefly, along with some family members, and thanked the crowd for coming.

"I've lived for this place. I've lived for people like you guys and girls," Paterno said.

"It's hard for me to say how much this means," the 84-year-old coach said.

"As you know, the kids that were the victims, I think we ought to say a prayer for them."

No Joe, I think that we should say a prayer for you. Right after the University fires you and everyone who had anything to do with this terrible affair.  

Finally, let me talk about another Joe.

Today as I sat in my office looking at an autographed picture of "Smokin Joe", I thought about the fact that he was the first Philly icon that I met after moving here some 19 years ago. He was friendly, down to earth, and accessible to everyone.

I remember telling him that I actually cheered for Ali in their first fight and he threw a shadow jab at me. I also told him that it was a disgrace that Philly didn't have a statue of him but had one of Rocky, a fictional fighter. I remember him laughing about it and saying that maybe one day the city would come around.  

Well, now that he is gone, let's hope that we honor him with a statue sooner rather than later. He would have liked that. 

  





     

White hats, Smokin Joe, and a few other things.

Oh ohhh, this is not good news for "white hat" nation:

"A former defensive coordinator who was integral for decades to Penn State's success in football was accused Saturday of sexually abusing eight boys, and the school's athletic director and an administrator were charged with perjury and failing to report what they knew about the allegations in a case that prosecutors said uncovered a years-long trail of a predator and those who protected him.

Former coach Jerry Sandusky, 67, of State College, was arrested Saturday and released on $100,000 bail after being arraigned on 40 criminal counts, the state attorney general's office said. Athletic director Tim Curley, 57, and Penn State vice president for finance and business Gary Schultz, 62, both of Boalsburg, were expected to turn themselves in Monday in Harrisburg. Schultz's position includes oversight of the university's police department.

Longtime head coach Joe Paterno, who has more victories than any coach in the history of Division I football, was not charged, authorities said, and the grand jury report did not appear to implicate him in wrongdoing. It said that when Paterno first learned of one report of abuse, he immediately reported it to Curley, but Sandusky was no longer coaching at the time and it's not clear whether Paterno followed up with Curley." [Story]

Oh well, I guess you just never know about folks. It seems that one of the last clean programs in A-merry-ca wasn't so clean after all.  

Staying with the sports theme, I just found out that my man Joe Frazier has liver cancer and is very ill. Philly's real Rocky is cool people, and he deserved so much more from the city he loves so much. Seriously, where the f&^% is his statue?!

I just hope that "Smokin Joe" can hang in there for a few more rounds.

A couple of other things:

Andy Rooney is dead at 92.

I bet most of you reading this have never heard of Jahessye Shockley.

And, once again, the folks over at the Innocence Project have helped people who were wrongfully convicted go free.  

"Chicago, November 3, 2011) After DNA testing linked a rapist to the 1991 rape and murder of a 14-year-old southwest suburban girl, a Cook County Circuit Court judge today set aside the convictions of three men who were convicted of the crime by confessions now known to be false. Robert Taylor, James Harden and Jonathan Barr, all of whom were teenagers when arrested, are represented by the University of Chicago’s Exoneration Project, the Center on Wrongful Convictions of Youth with private attorney Jennifer Blagg and the Innocence Project.

In court today, the State’s Attorney’s Office noted that it would be filing papers soon to vacate the convictions of Robert Lee Veal and Shainne Sharp who were also wrongfully convicted of the crime.

“This is one of the most tragic miscarriages of justice that we’ve seen in this state and perhaps the nation. Even before they were convicted, the state had DNA evidence proving that the confessions were false, yet it chose to go forward with the prosecutions in spite of this evidence and over the objections of a juvenile court judge,” said Tara Thompson of the UChicago Law School Exoneration Project. “This destroyed the lives of these young men while the real perpetrator was allowed to go free, destroying even more lives during a 20-year crime spree.”

On November 19, 1991, Cateresa Matthews, a 14-year-old student at Rosa Parks Middle School in Dixmoor, IL, went missing. Her body was discovered 19 days later on a footpath in a residential neighborhood near Interstate 57 in Dixmoor. She had been raped and shot in the mouth. Nearly a year after the murder, the Illinois State Police interrogated Veal, a 15-year-old student from the same school. After 5 hours in police custody, Veal signed a written statement implicating himself, Taylor (15), Barr (15), Harden (17) and Sharp (17). After 4 hours in custody, Taylor also signed a written confession. Two days later, after 21 hours in custody, Sharp did the same.

In June 1994, before any of the teenagers were tried, the Illinois State Police crime lab identified a lone male DNA profile from sperm recovered from the victim’s body. Even though all 5 defendants were excluded as the source of the semen, the prosecution pushed forward rather than seeking the source of the semen recovered from this young victim. Based on doubts about the truthfulness of the confessions, a juvenile court judge refused to charge Barr and Taylor in adult criminal court, a decision later reversed by an appellate court. Veal and Sharp pled guilty to first-degree murder and received a 20-year sentence (they were eligible for release just 7 years from the date of their pleas) in exchange for agreeing to testify against Harden, Barr and Taylor. Over the next 2 years, all 3 were convicted, and each was sentenced to at least 80 years in prison. All subsequent appeals were denied, including a post-conviction request for DNA testing." [Source] 

Just another reason not to have the death penalty in this country.