Penn State: Child Rape Cool; Buying Clothes for Athletes Not So Much

Dillon Cheverere12 years ago

At 9am eastern time Thursday, the Freeh report was made public. This is a report of in-depth findings of the Jerry Sandusky/Penn State debacle. Louis Freeh is a former director of the FBI, and he left no stone unturned. He revealed many disturbing facts, many of which have already been known and even reported on here. If nothing else is taken away from the report, let it be this direct quote:

…the Special Investigative Counsel finds that it is more reasonable to conclude that, in order to avoid the consequences of bad publicity, the most powerful leaders of the University—Spanier, Schultz, Paterno, and Curley—repeatedly concealed critical facts relating to Sandusky’s child abuse from the authorities, The University Board of Trustees, the Penn State community, and the public at large.

Paterno and Penn State apologists have nothing left to defend. The legacy is gone. Now, I’m just going to point to one particular situation that fully encompasses the backwards moral compass of the leaders of the Penn State athletic department.

According to the Freeh report, in 1998 Spanier took aggressive steps to ensure that a sports agent, who had bought one of Penn State’s football players $400 worth of clothes, was banned from the Penn State campus for life. Spanier claimed that the agent had, “fooled around with the integrity of the university, and I won’t stand for that.” Penn State conducted a thorough investigation of the matter, and on May 13, 1998, Spanier wrote in an email, “The idea is to keep [the sports agent] off campus permanently, to keep him away from current athletes, and to keep him away from current students or graduates whose eligibility has recently expired.”

LESS THAN ONE MONTH LATER, the investigation of Sandusky’s child abuse concluded, and Spanier became aware of the details. Okay, he’s at least going to ban the child rapist from the football facilities, right?

On June 9, 1998, Spanier received his final update from police chief Thomas Harmon about his department’s investigation of Sandusky’s showering with Victim No. 6 on May 3, 1998. Fully updated on the details of the investigation and aware of Sandusky’s actions, Spanier took no steps to limit Sandusky’s access to Penn State facilities.

Obviously, upholding the honorable image of Penn State football and Joe Paterno was not only the number one goal, but the only goal.

• [via Deadspin]