COACHES HOT SEAT BLOG

Probably just like the Penn State students in State College, Pennsylvania early on Monday morning a few of us here at Coaches Hot Seat gathered together at CHS Central for some hot coffee and NCAA president Mark Emmert’s press conference on Penn State’s NCAA sanctions and we sat in stunned silence no doubt like many others as NCAA penalties on Penn State were read aloud.

“Wow,” was the first thing any of us said after Mark Emmert had finished talking and it took a few minutes to take in the enormity of what had just happened not only on Monday morning but over the past 9 months which has seen the once proud Penn State football program and Joe Paterno’s long-earned reputation be put into the shredder with now little opportunity for Penn State football to recover anytime soon without some kind of miracle or another coach like Joe Paterno showing up in Happy Valley sometime soon….and we rather doubt that Bill O’Brien is anywhere near as good of a football coach as Joe Paterno was even early in his coaching career.

As with all punishment whether it is our children that are being punished or in this day and age not really being punished but more than likely not having or being able to do something they really enjoy OR with criminals that are sentenced for their crimes it has always been our contention that human beings have deep inside of them in their DNA not only a desire to see wrongdoers punished but also an ability to discern whether the punishment “fits the crime.”

In our opinion the punishment handed down by the NCAA and Mark Emmert most certainly “fits the crime” because also in our opinion the wrongdoing in this case at Penn State is so bad, so deep, so egregious and so completely counter to the kind of behavior that is expected of “leaders” on America’s colleges and universities that almost anything that came out of Emmert’s mouth relative to the punishment of Penn State University and its football team would have “fit the crime.”

On Monday we had set-up a lunch with a good friend of ours who has been an attorney on almost every side of a court case from assistant DA to criminal prosecutor to a defense attorney for both serious crime and civil cases and over this past weekend we asked this neutral observer who cares little about college football or anything beyond what you would imagine Ivy Leaguers would do with their free time…”squash, tennis, wine tasting and we assume playing chess?”…. to read the Louis Freeh report on what happened at Penn State with Jerry Sandusky.

(Here is a link to the Louis Freeh report)

As we were waiting for our good friend of the attorney to arrive there was a loud “thump” on the table as our attorney friend had approached without us knowing tossing the Louis Freeh report onto the table and then sitting down with the very first thing coming out of his mouth being:

Attorney Friend:  “Hey, I know who Joe Paterno was…..great coach….Italian from New York who played football at Brown….but after reading this Freeh report something I cannot understand that maybe you guys can help me with.”

CHS:  “Yes?”

Attorney Friend:  “The report itself is Damning no doubt about that, but as I read through the Exhibits in the back of the report, the emails, the handwritten notes, the memos, the back and forth between people at Penn State something I cannot understand is why going back to 1998 when this Sandusky character was first reported to the police by a mother that said Sandusky had showered with her son and through 1999 when Sandusky was it looked like being forced out by Paterno to negotiating Sandusky’s retirement settlement with the school and on into the 2001 incident where the other assistant…McQueary…..when he witnesses Sandusky in the shower with a young boy the constant is what I would call the triangle of people, the AD Curley, the VP Schultz and the president of the school Spanier were very interested in the activities and future work of this Sandusky character.

CHS:  “Yes….”

Attorney Friend:  “Now can you tell me why the president of a place like Penn State would be so involved as demonstrated in the emails, notes and retirement negotiations in the activities of an assistant coach on the football team in Sandusky?”

CHS:  “No, we cannot tell you why the president of Penn State would be so interested in Sandusky’s activities and retirement package since it seems that a long-time assistant football coach at a state university would have a pretty clear-cut retirement plan in place that would just be activated upon retirement.”

Attorney Friend:  “A few other things here….(picks up Freeh report and turns to the back to Exhibit 3E which was Jerry Sandusky’s “requests” for his Retirement “Package” which when one considers the horrific crimes that Sandusky was convicted of reads very Damn strangely and even prescient for what kind of evil actions by Sandusky were to come):

….isn’t that some of the strangest requests you have ever seen with Sandusky “negotiating” in a sense for both him and the Second Mile to remain actively involved with Penn State and quoting Sandusky…

“Are there ways for me to continue to work with young people through Penn State?”

CHS:  “That is very strange.”

Attorney Friend:  Check out what Penn State gave Sandusky in his Retirement Package and note the lump sum of money that Sandusky was given and points 5 and 6 where the relationship between Sandusky, Second Mile and Penn State is agreed to moving forward and that Sandusky is to be given…

“…an office and phone in the East Area locker room complex for purposes of the collaborative arrangements referenced in No. 5 above.”

…with “No. 5” being the Sandusky, Second Mile and Penn State relationship.”

CHS:  “Now that is just very Damn odd.”

Attorney Friend:  “Yes, it is odd that the president of Penn State took such an interest going back to the late 1990s in the activities of an assistant coach on the football team and Sandusky’s retirement package that seemed to involve a lot of negotiation and why in the Hell would the administration and president at Penn State be negotiating the retirement package of an assistant football coach?”

CHS:  “You tell us….you are the lawyer.”

Attorney Friend:  “Look at this email from the AD Curley to the president Spanier with VP Curley being copied and tell me why Sandusky who had to have a pension with the state…right?….is asking for an annuity from the school and why the president of the school is who the email is addressed to?”

CHS (Looking over the email from Curley to Spanier):  You are right…Curley, Schultz and Spanier turn up time and time again discussing among themselves the activities and the retirement package for an assistant football coach in Jerry Sandusky. Yes, why in the Hell would Jerry Sandusky need some kind of “special” retirement package that is “negotiated” and it seems approved by the president of the school?”

Attorney Friend:  “I don’t have a clue but I want to tell you I have seen and read a lot of things in my life but this is the oddest Damn report I have ever read because as many conclusions it draws and recommendations it makes it leaves a lot of unanswered questions that a good DA might be able to find the answers to.”

CHS:  “Did you draw any personal opinions or conclusions from reading the Freeh report”

Attorney Friend:  “Yes, that big-time college sports is out-of-control and that winning football games is more important than anything else.”

CHS:  “I guess you didn’t see Mark Emmert and Ed Ray this morning?”

Attorney Friend:  “Who?”

And so we finished lunch talking about politics, Syria, Iran and if our Attorney Friend was going to run for political office in 2014 and who he could raise money from for his campaign.

Getting back to the idea if the punishment that the NCAA handed down for Penn State….

“Fit the Crime”

….or not if one looks at the Timeline of Significant Events in the Freeh Report beginning on page 19 one finds that…

Damn, again we have FOUR men….

Jerry Sandusky, Graham Spanier, Tim Curley and Gary Schultz ALL tied together and having a BIG interest in our opinion of the activities of Jerry Sandusky and his future retirement plans which would be normal for Sandusky to be interested and concerned about his future….but please, could someone tell us why Spanier, Curley and Schultz spent so much time on Sandusky’s retirement package which in our opinion looks like that Spanier, Curley and Schultz wanted to keep Sandusky around campus, at the Second Mile, a close relationship between Penn State and Second Mile and also in our opinion….keep Jerry Sandusky a happy and satisfied man.

Yes, the above is Very Damn Strange to us and when we had a couple of our wives who were high-powered corporate execs before becoming stay-at-home mothers who can smell Horseshit from a mile away read through a few segments of the Freeh Report that were discussed above they both looked at us and said something like:

“I wouldn’t trust these Bastards with a No. 2 pencil forget about my children!”

YES….in conclusion….there is no doubt in our minds that Penn State University and the Penn State football deserved the harsh penalty that the NCAA sanctioned them with and now we patiently wait to see if the state of Pennsylvania, the local DA there in Central Pennsylvania and even the US Justice Department are going to do their jobs and investigate fully the Second Mile Charity with a focus on talking to as many of children as possible that went through the Second Mile Charity over the past 20 plus years and find out just what in the Hell that the people running that charity were up to, what Jerry Sandusky was up to…..well, we know that…., and what other people that were involved with both Penn State and the Second Mile were up to because if Jerry Sandusky was involved then in our opinion almost anything is possible including some incredibly EVIL acts and arrangements.

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