Talk:Joe Paterno

Lead

Restoring the lead as it is clearly supported by the citations, e.g., the NYT On 1-19-2012:

"Surma announced that an agreement appeared to have been reached to fire Paterno, too — the trustees having determined that he had failed to take adequate action when he was told that one of his longtime assistants had been seen molesting a 10-year-old boy in Paterno’s football facility. ... The trustees also laid out what they said were three key reasons for firing Paterno: his failure to do more when told about the suspected sexual assault in 2002; what they regarded as his questioning of the board’s authority in the days after Sandusky’s arrest; and what they determined to be his inability to effectively continue coaching in the face of continuing questions surrounding the program."

I'll add this additional citation, but they all say the same thing: Paterno was fired for failing to protect children from sexual abuse by his coaching staff. Histopher Critchens (talk) 09:18, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Retain counsel now

Retain counsel now! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 165.65.136.55 (talk) 15:12, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Please see WP:No legal threats Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 17:00, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Mohamed bin Hammam

Addition that mentions an overturn in Mohamed bin Hammam's ban seems to border on synth. Just because FIFA overturned the ban, doesn't mean that report was flawed and it largely has no bearing on Freeh's report on the Penn State situation. --Jtalledo (talk) 18:30, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Agreed - the source cited in this article made no mention of the Penn State investigation at all. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 20:30, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

I removed it after reviewing the source: the edit was a kind of synthesis that had nothing to do with the Penn State report, and the source made no mention at all of PSU, and only passing reference to Freeh's firm. Acroterion (talk) 20:41, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Not 1998

The Wikipedia article includes the sentence in the introduction -

"An investigation conducted by former FBI director Louis Freeh concluded, in July 2012, that Paterno was complicit in concealing the
activities of Sandusky and dissuading other university officials from reporting him to the authorities in 1998 and 2001"

The Freeh report says nothing about Paterno dissauding the university from reporting Sandusky to authorities in 1998. Paterno and the university found out about 1998 BECAUSE it was reported to authorities. The implication about 1998 is whether Paterno lied about whether he knew of the reported 1998 incident when he learned of the incident in 2001. Srj4000 (talk) 17:35, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

The Freeh report does not say that Paterno dissuaded university officials from reporting the 2001 incident

The Wikipedia article states that the report concluded that Paterno was complicit in concealing the activities of Sandusky and dissuading other university officials from reporting him to the authorities in 1998 and 2001.

(1) The report indicates that Paterno may have known about 1998, but it does not say anything about reporting it. The only question raised about 1998 is whether Paterno knew about 1998 when he learned about the 2001 incident.

(2) The report has no conclusions about whether Paterno dissuaded university officials from reporting the 2001 incident. The report only has a finding that the 2001 incident was not reported to authorities and that Paterno, Spanier, Curley, and Schultz all failed to protect against a child sex predator. There is no finding anywhere in the report that Paterno dissuaded the university from reporting it. Srj4000 (talk) 18:01, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

NYT: "Indeed, Mr. Freeh’s investigation makes clear it was Mr. Paterno, long regarded as the single most powerful official at the university, who persuaded the university president and others not to report Mr. Sandusky to the authorities in 2001 after he had violently assaulted another boy in the football showers." This isn't difficult. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 18:43, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

There is no statement to that effect in the actual report. What part of the REPORT makes that clear? Do you have a page number or a specific email?

All we have is an email on page 74 from Curley on February 27, 2001 that says “After giving it more thought and talking it over with Joe yesterday - - I am uncomfortable with what we agreed were the next steps. I am having trouble going to everyone, but the person involved. I think I would be more comfortable meeting with the person and tell him about the information we received. I would plan to tell him we are aware of the first situation. I would indicate we feel there is a problem and we want to assist the individual to get professional help. Also, we feel a responsibility at some point soon to inform his organization and maybe the other one about the situation." The "organization" is Second Mile and the "other one" was a reference to the Department of Public Welfare (DPW).

The email does not indicate that Paterno dissuaded the university from informing authorities. It says that they feel a responsibility to maybe inform authorities.

On page 70, the report says that Schultz's notes from February 12, before Paterno was even informed of what the university was planning to do, indicate that "Unless he confesses to having a problem, [Curley] will indicate we need to have DPW review the matter." This email shows that the university had already discussed telling Sandusky before telling DPW prior to Paterno being involved in the dicussion.

The only "reasonable conclusions" reached in the Freeh report are on page 75 where it says that Spanier, Schultz and Curley were agreeing not to report Sandusky's activity. (No reference to Paterno.) Then it says that the men decided not to report to a law enforcement or child protection authority because they had agreed to report the incident to Second Mile.

The only "finding" that should be quoted from the report with regard to Paterno is on page 16 where it says "it is reasonable to conclude that, in order to avoid the consequences of bad publicity, the most powerful leaders at the University - Spanier, Schultz, Paterno and Curley - repeatedly concealed critical facts relating to Sandusky's child abuse from authorities, the University's Board of Trustees, the Penn State community, and the public at large."

There is no reason to cite inaccurate media interpretations when we have access to the words of the actual report.

The findings only refer to CONCEALING facts. The Freeh report contains no findings about whether Paterno DISSUADED others from reporting the incident. Srj4000 (talk) 20:47, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

You might want to let the New York Times know. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 20:48, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

"Forfieiting wins"

Given the NCAA penalities handed down this morning, what is the process for handling the 13 years of football victories that have been vacated from his record as a coach? I follow MN athletics, and when penalities were handed down to the Gophers basketball team the affected seasons were left in tact but altered to account for forfeited victories. I also point to Bobby Bowden, who has items in his page indicating 12 vacated victories. I don't commonly edit sports related articles, hence why I started the discussion prior to digging into the article. -- TRTX ^{T / C} 13:25, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Wins vacated

Just a placeholder to remind editors to fix Paterno's win-loss record to reflect vacated wins from 1998-2011 IAW NCAA sanctions.68.34.210.83 (talk) 13:26, 23 July 2012 (UTC)