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There was totally incredible behavior regarding Penn State’s involvement in the Jerry Sandusky sexual-abuse scandal that has rocked the university and football program (not necessarily in that order of importance). But enough about the Big Ten Network’s failure to cover the unveiling of a Board of Trustees-sponsored internal investigation on Thursday (July 12).
When networks such as CNN and ESPN broke into regular programming to provide the press conference featuring former FBI director Louis Freeh, BTN did not.
Actress Tasha Reign is ready for the Exxxotica event this weekend at Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont. Either that or a Blackhawks convention.
The network’s statement: “While some may be unaware, BTN is not and was never intended to be a news organization. Our focus is to air, discuss and analyze what happens relative to the field of play, which is what our viewers are most interested in.”
So if there’s a plane crash involving the Big Ten, it won’t be newsworthy unless the crash occurs on a field of play?
And if the network didn’t think what happened Thursday won’t have an impact “relative to the field of play,” it might want to rethink that today. And the Big Ten might want to rethink its purpose. So the network did televise (belatedly) Penn State football coach Joe Paterno’s dismissal by the Board of Trustees in November merely because it could have an impact “relative to the field of play.”
When the day comes that the NCAA give Penn State football the “death penalty” (which is something that is not out of the question), maybe BTN will cover that.
OK, any outrage regarding what a cable network decides to televise is nothing compared to the findings of the Freeh investigation.
Paterno and other high-ranking school officials (although who ranked higher than Paterno at Penn State?) covered up Sandusky’s sexual predatory behavior, the report said.
Another perspective regarding Olympic attire for the London Games.
“Our most saddening and sobering finding is the total disregard for the safety and welfare of Sandusky’s child victims by the most senior leaders at Penn State,” Freeh said. “The most powerful men at Penn State failed to take any steps for 14 years to protect the children who Sandusky victimized.”
The result of Freeh’s eight-month investigation was a 267-page report. It said Paterno, school president Graham Spanier, athletic director Tim Curley and vice president Gary Schultz “failed to protect against a child sexual predator harming children for over a decade.”
“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,” the report said.
Freeh said Paterno “was an integral part of this active decision to conceal.”
“The idea that any sane, responsible adult would knowingly cover up for a child predator is impossible to accept,” the Paterno family said in a statement. “The far more realistic conclusion is that many people didn’t fully understand what was happening and underestimated or misinterpreted events. Sandusky was a great deceiver. He fooled everyone.”
Karen Peetz, the school’s board of trustees chairperson, said the board “accepts full responsibility for the failures that occurred.” However, no board members are stepping down.
Nike decided to take Paterno’s name off its child development center at company headquarters in Oregon. Paterno’s statue at Penn State still is standing. Maybe officials there will let it remain. Maybe they should add “predator enabler” to the words describing the once venerated coach.
“I think [our family’s] name means the same thing [today] that it’s always meant,” Jay Paterno told ESPN’s Tom Rinaldi. “In the long term, as history judges Joe Paterno and what the name Paterno means … the things that have happened will not change that over time.”
Blinded by blood? So it would seem. How else would you expect a son to respond? Especially when the possibility of legal liability exists.
“To me, this shows that he was fallible,” ESPN analyst and former Nittany Lions linebacker Matt Millen said. “He made a mistake. … Is [Paterno’s] legacy) spoiled? Yes, absolutely it’s spoiled. But there’s still a lot of good there.”
And fascist Benito Mussolini, the World War II Italian dictator, may have had the trains run on time. Sorry, Paterno loyalists, but sometimes the bad you do does outweigh the good.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Olympic Committee found itself in an unfashionable position: Politicians of all stripes (and presumably plaids) agreed with the outrage over the outfits to be worn at the London Olympic Games Opening Ceremonies. Guess those “Made in China” labels on the Ralph Lauren attire doesn’t go over well. For the USOC to outsource its uniforms seems bad form — no matter how nicely designed they might be.
House Speaker John Boehner and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, seemed equally upset. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said the USOC should “take all the uniforms, put them in a big pile and burn them.”
Speaking of the Olympics, Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant said the London Games’ U.S. men’s basketball team is better than the 1992 American Dream Team that featured Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird and other talented types who captured the gold medal. Presumably Bryant means the 2012 team could beat the 1992 squad players as they are today, 20 years later. The 1992 Dream Team had 11 future Hall of Famers and won six Olympic games by an average of 43-plus points per contest.
“For him to compare those two teams is not one of the smarter things he ever could have done,” Jordan said before a celebrity golf tournament in Charlotte, N.C. “I heard Kobe say we were not athletic. But we were smart. He said we were too old, but I was 29 and in the prime of my career. Pip [Scottie Pippen] was 26 or 27, [Charles] Barkley was 29, Patrick [Ewing]
was 29 and Chris Mullin was 29. Almost everybody was still in their 20s.”
For the record, Bryant will be 34 in August.
Nancy Faust brightened up the studio for the July 12 "Sports & Torts" show.
Once again, it was a wonderful “Sports & Torts” program Thursday on talkzone.com. The guests were golf great Louise Suggs, baseball great Rocky Colavito and former Chicago White Sox organist Nancy Faust (not in that order of appearance or importance to some of us). Nancy was an in-studio guests, while the two others had been taped. Which meant co-hosts David Spada and Elliott Harris had more time to chat with Nancy after her segment while the rest of the show played on.
Because of technical difficulties (honest!), the podcast — which usually is available later Thursday afternoon for the one-hour program — has been delayed. It is available now. You can access it by clicking here.
Speaking of music, how about a brief musical break with the lovely Catrinel Menghia:
Sara Jay will be at Exxxotica. Maybe not in this outfit.
As a public service (always have to double-check the spelling to make certain to include the “l” in “public” — especially for this sort of mention), let the record show that the 2012 Exxxotica Chicago will be held Friday-Sunday (July 13-15) at the Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont. Friday is ladies day/night. Meaning females have free admission. Whether they free their inhibitions presumably is a more personal matter. The show’s promoters figured one way to attract more women to the adult-entertainment event would be free Friday.
There also will be events through the weekend geared toward women. For information about the expo, you can click here.
Among the scheduled performers to attend is Sara Jay. Your correspondent spoke with her at last year’s event about the Miami Heat’s failure to win the NBA title. So we might have to track her down and find out how she feels about the Heat actually winning a championship this season.
In the meantime, here is the video from 2011:
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