[NU Sports] McQueary remains on staff

Thu Nov 10 23:28:58 CST 2011

Super-interesting front-page story in tomorrow's editions of the New York
Times - I have cut and pasted the first few paragraphs for those who don't
have access to the NYT ...

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/11/sports/ncaafootball/tom-corbett-pennsylvania-governor-couldnt-discuss-inquiry.html?hp

For months, Gov. Tom Corbett of Pennsylvania had reason to suspect a sexual
abuse scandal was going to explode at Penn
State<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/p/pennsylvania_state_university/index.html?inline=nyt-org>
University.
He also had no way to talk about it, or to prepare for it.

Mr. Corbett, as state attorney general, had begun an investigation in 2009
into allegations that a former Penn State assistant football coach had
abused young boys, and that university officials might have covered up the
scandal. He had convened a grand jury, and his prosecutors had taken
testimony. But when he ran for governor, and even after he took office, he
was obligated to keep the investigation secret, even as he saw the
university officials at the center of the investigation doing little to
address the substance of the inquiry.

“He was upset about the inaction,” said Kevin Harley, who worked with Mr.
Corbett in the attorney general’s office and is now his press secretary.
“He knew what witnesses were going to the grand jury even though he was
running for governor. So then he became governor, and he knew at some point
that this day would be coming. He just didn’t know when it would be.”

That day came last Friday, when the charges became public against the
former coach, Jerry Sandusky, and two senior university officials.
Suddenly, though, Mr. Corbett faced a new challenge: as governor, he was
effectively a member of Penn State’s board of
trustees<http://www.psu.edu/trustees/>,
the body that would decide how to handle the crisis, when to act and who,
if anyone, to fire. But he also knew information about the investigation
that he could not share with anyone, including other trustees, and was
still bound by rules prohibiting prosecutors from making possibly
prejudicial statements.

Over the next four days, then, Mr. Corbett, a Republican, kept his public
statements spare, calling on trustees to act quickly and aggressively. But
privately, he worked to move the board in what he believed was the right
direction. He called multiple members, including Vice Chairman John P.
Surma, the chief executive of U.S. Steel, and told them that the country
was watching, that a change at the top was needed and that the issue was
about more than a football program, according to a person with knowledge of
his efforts.

Mr. Corbett eventually decided to send a public signal: he formally
announced he would attend the scheduled meeting of the trustees on Friday,
something he had never done before ...

On Thu, Nov 10, 2011 at 9:20 PM, SjT (Stephen J. Truog)
<sjtruog at yahoo.com>wrote:

> In regards to the whistleblower part, I have absolutely no knowledge if
> that is the case or not -- I was just saying that it was an interesting
> possibility when someone else raised it. He may have made a deal with the
> prosecuting attorney.
>
> And in regards to him going to the police, apparently they were the ones
> who made Sandusky promise not to take any more showers with children in
> 1998 -- so again, look at this from his shoes. The cops know and apparently
> did nothing but have a talk with him three years earlier and no one in the
> district attorney's office did anything. McQueary told his boss, Paterno,
> and nothing happened. And this guy apparently has friends high enough in
> the university framework to have an office and full access after retirement.
>
> State College is a small place and as we've seen the last couple days, it
> appears a lot of the leaders and authority figures in town and on campus
> were aware of this and nothing had been done. You're a grad assistant and
> (as we're seeing now) will probably see as much blame/threats as a
> whistleblower than anything else.
>
> As others have said, he could have just left town -- but again, that could
> be viewed as a cowardly act that left this to happen to more children. And
> if, as reported, he was recognized by Sandusky in the locker room, the
> protection of an anonymous report would not be there either.
>
> Like I said, I'm not excusing this at all and he's had to live with this
> for a decade. But it's easy to say what we would have done in hindsight --
> I would hope I would have done the right thing, but looking back at my
> first job out of college, had I seen a powerful figure in a small town
> doing something illegal and reported it to my boss and nothing was done,
> I'm not sure how far I'd push it either if it looked like the cops,
> lawyers, university officials and everyone else were in on the cover-up.
>
> In any case, I think the anger and media frenzy is directed in the wrong
> place with the talk about McQueary and the team canceling games (which
> thankfully saw a voice of reason in the media today from NU alum Wilbon who
> called it absolutely absurd) -- the angry mob has gotten Paterno's head and
> put McQueary under death threats. Let's shine the spotlight at Spanier and
> Sandusky for a change.
>
> Stephen
>
> * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
> STEPHEN J. TRUOG
> sjtruog at yahoo.com
> GO CATS!!! GEAUX SAINTS!!!
> Super Bowl XLIV Champions!
> ________________________________
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Jim Leonard <jleonard518 at yahoo.com>
> To:
> Cc: Northwestern Wildcats <nwu-sports at tssi.com>
> Sent: Thursday, November 10, 2011 8:13 PM
> Subject: Re: [NU Sports] McQueary remains on staff
>
> Stephen,
>
> My gripe with McQueary isn't really about him getting a paycheck. It has
> to do with the University saying "you can represent us" so he may be a
> small fish but what the University stands for is a BIG FISH.
>
> Regardless, there is one flaw in your 'whistleblower' excuse. In the
> traditional sense a whistleblower (say someone working in a baby food
> factor) has to be an insider and give the inside information that makes or
> breaks the case. That is not true with a child rape case. The police would
> be obligated to investigate even an anonymous claim if it was credible. So
> McQueary could have made an anonymous phone call naming Sandusky and the
> specific shower location and that would have triggered a police inquiry.
> When the police showed up he could have played dumb and told them what he
> saw.
>
> I think I'm even more angry at his pathetic father who could have easily
> bailed his son out of that pickle by making an anonymous call.
>
> These two men (Jr. & Sr. McQueary) sold out good judgement. It's shameful.
>
> Jim
>
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Stephen Truog <sjtruog at yahoo.com>
> To: Michael Vance <michael.vance at att.net>
> Cc: Northwestern Wildcats <nwu-sports at tssi.com>
> Sent: Thursday, November 10, 2011 6:28 PM
> Subject: Re: [NU Sports] McQueary remains on staff
>
> Good point - I can understand that. Also a good point that mc query may
> have whistleblower protection.
>
> In any case, bigger fish to fry and I do mean dry when it comes to spaniel
> and Sandusky.
>
> STEPHEN J. TRUOG
> sjtruog at yahoo.com
>
>
> On Nov 10, 2011, at 3:58 PM, Michael Vance <michael.vance at att.net> wrote:
>
> > Stephen-
> >
> > My only problem with that is that he stuck around. If you are correct in
> your proposition that McQueary was simply too intimidated to say anything,
> he could have left the program any time in the last nine years. He could
> have told Paterno that he thought it was the right thing for his career to
> get some experience outside of the PSU system, gotten a letter of
> recommendation, and with that, gotten a job anywhere. But instead, he chose
> to stay among those who hid what he saw. Sorry, I don't have much sympathy
> for him.
> >
> > -Michael
> > Sent from my mobile device...
> >
> > On Nov 10, 2011, at 5:40 PM, "SjT \(Stephen J. Truog\)" <
> sjtruog at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> >> McQueary is not innocent in all this like the players, so I won't
> defend him with the voracity I used against the absurd suggestion to give
> the student athletes on the team the "death penalty" ... BUT ...
> >>
> >> He's a grad assistant and sees a living legend on campus committing a
> crime - someone with powerful friends in high places and he is recognized
> as a witness. He reports it to an even bigger living legend on campus and
> never hears anything back.
> >>
> >> What is he to assume? Either JoePa didn't take it up the ladder or the
> people up the ladder rejected it -- in either case, the guy is being
> protected by someone at PSU and who is he? Just some graduate assistant. If
> he presses the issue, he can assume he will be fired, blacklisted or worse.
> >>
> >> It's something he'll have to live with and it's inexcusible, but he had
> to decide whether he wanted to accept what the powers that be had
> apparently decided or push the issue and become a whistleblower, which
> takes great risk and usually comes with attacks and questions of its own
> (just ask anyone who's brought up sexual misconduct charges against a
> powerful political figure, or an employee trying to expose corruption in
> corporate America).
> >>
> >> It's easy to say what we would do in his shoes - but hopefully we'll
> never have to be faced with that decision for real.
> >>
> >> In any case, he's not the person the media mob of madness should be
> swarming right now in their search for unquenchable headlines and justice.
> They need to be on the lawns of Spanier, Sandusky and the AD ... dig into
> the files of the university and local police, judges and district attorneys
> who knew of this ... heck, they should be looking into the board of
> trustees themselves and what type of environment they fostered and the type
> of people they hired (and why they said they were shocked).
> >>
> >> McQueary is not the iconic coach who had nothing to fear from blowing
> the whistle, nor the people in power who knew more and did less -- he's the
> low man on the totem poll who was too weak to follow up on a report of a
> crime (though he did at least report it, which a lot of witnesses do not
> even do) because he saw all of the people in power around him wanting to
> look the other way.
> >>
> >> Not a profile in courage to be sure, but also not someone I want to
> focus the spotlight on in the search for justice.
> >>
> >> - Stephen
> >>
> >> * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
> >> STEPHEN J. TRUOG
> >> sjtruog at yahoo.com
> >> GO CATS!!! GEAUX SAINTS!!!
> >> Super Bowl XLIV Champions!
> >>
> >>
> >> ________________________________
> >> From: Jim Leonard <jleonard518 at yahoo.com>
> >> To: Northwestern Wildcats <nwu-sports at tssi.com>
> >> Sent: Thursday, November 10, 2011 1:46 PM
> >> Subject: [NU Sports] McQueary remains on staff
> >>
> >> NU Friends,
> >>
> >> I am at a loss to understand how Mike McQueary remains on the payroll
> at Penn State. By his own sworn grand jury testimony he saw a young boy
> being abused. His only actions were to call his father and later tell Joe
> Paterno. For years after that he must have seen Sandusky on campus and bowl
> trips with more young children. I don't know how he can live with himself.
> >>
> >> A) He could have intervened in the shower room.
> >> B) He could have pulled the fire alarm and then run to a phone.
> >> C) He could have made an anonymous call to the police (his father could
> have too, what's wrong with that guy?)
> >> D) He could have made follow-up inquiries to several different people.
> >>
> >> Since 1993 Penn State has been my second favorite Big Ten team. If they
> allow him to remain on the payroll and represent the school on Saturday,
> that is over.
> >>
> >> To be clear, my issue with him has NOTHING to do with the law or legal
> obligations. It had everything to do with being a person of clear
> conscience and good character. Sadly, I think the reason that he has been
> kept on staff is that if he is fired he's free to talk and he'll have A LOT
> more to say.
> >>
> >> Success with Honor - what a joke.
> >>
> >> Jim
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> nwu-sports site list
> >> nwu-sports at tssi.com
> >> http://romaine.tssi.com/mailman/listinfo/nwu-sports
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> ________________________________
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> nwu-sports site list
> >> nwu-sports at tssi.com
> >> http://romaine.tssi.com/mailman/listinfo/nwu-sports
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > nwu-sports site list
> > nwu-sports at tssi.com
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>
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