The No-Paterno Statue

Since Penn State's Trustees (11/9/2011 holdovers and their supporters) do not want a Joe Paterno Statue to symbolize academic and athletic excellence (in that order), here is a No-Paterno Statue for them instead.

Would Keith Masser kindly keep his lies straight? (re: his recent social networking post)

Even though Keith Masser admitted in his deposition in the Corman-NCAA lawsuit, “The decision to remove Coach Paterno had nothing to do with what he had known, what he hadn’t done. It was based upon the distraction of having him on the sidelines would have caused the university and the current football team harm. It had nothing to do with what Coach Paterno had don’t, or hadn’t done,” he nonetheless posted to Facebook a link to an article (http://www.dailylocal.com/sports/20150622/joe-paterno-had-two-legacies-and-his-followers-need-to-accept-it) that suggested that Joe Paterno enabled Jerry Sandusky’s abuse of children.

This link was then circulated by the wife of Emeritus Trustee Carl Shaffer (https://www.facebook.com/linda.shaffer.7773/posts/438124939700836), who apparently has no problem with propagating the following material:

There shouldn’t have been one tear shed or one chant cheered for Paterno that night. His ousting was completely justified. It wasn’t a rash decision. It was the only decision.

I also recall a reporter during the press conference that same night — to announce the coach’s firing — who asked the vice president of the board, John Surma Jr., to explain why the trustees couldn’t allow Paterno to leave with some dignity?

Wow, really?

Where is the “dignity” for those young boys who were raped, molested and sodomized by Paterno’s assistant? Where was the rally for Sandusky’s prey? They were the real victims — not Paterno, not the university and certainly not the protesting students.

Masser subsequently deleted his own Facebook posting of this link, but the fact that he posted it in the first place says plenty.

Mr. Masser and Mr. Shaffer were both parties to the Board’s March 2012 statement, “We determined that his decision to do his minimum legal duty and not to do more to follow up constituted a failure of leadership by Coach Paterno.” Obviously, if Paterno was fired not for anything he had or had not done, he was not fired for failure of leadership. This makes every Trustee who was a party to the latter statement, including Mr. Masser and Mr. Shaffer as well as the likes of Surma, Peetz, Frazier, and Eckel, liars.

The bottom line is, however, as follows. In March 2012, Mr. Masser was a party to the statement, “We determined that his decision to do his minimum legal duty and not to do more to follow up constituted a failure of leadership by Coach Paterno.” In January 2015, he testified in a court proceeding, “The decision to remove Coach Paterno had nothing to do with what he had known, what he hadn’t done. It was based upon the distraction of having him on the sidelines would have caused the university and the current football team harm. It had nothing to do with what Coach Paterno had don’t, or hadn’t done.” After delivering the latter testimony, however, he circulated on a social networking site an article that suggests that Paterno enabled Jerry Sandusky’s abuse of children.

It comes as no surprise that State Senator John Yudichak, and probably most of the Legislature, now regard Penn State’s governance as a sick joke. Would it be too much to ask that the Chairman of Penn State’s Board of Trustees respect the intelligence of Penn State-educated alumni by picking one story and then sticking to it?

In addition, I know how much Mr. Masser would like to put the events of the past four years behind him. (So did Karen Peetz, but Penn State fortunately put her behind it instead.) The fact that he posted and circulated yet another attack on Coach Paterno’s reputation and legacy proves clearly that he wants nothing but an ongoing conflict with the Penn State community, a conflict in which he has already lost about half his colleagues in terms of being voted out in disgrace (Myers, Riley, Suhey), encouraged to self-deport by not running for reappointment (Deviney, Frazier, Alexander, Arnelle, and others), or forced to resign (Peetz).