Awful Tom Corbett made the call to throw Paterno under the bus

Did politics play a part in the ouster of Joe Paterno as Penn State coach.

Nah. YES!

ESPN filed this dispatch from the trenches:

A 62-year-old Republican, Corbett is a blunt-spoken former prosecutor whose political career has been built pursuing powerful people who, he has said, "believe they are beyond the law." And his role in the Penn State scandal, fraught with potential conflicts, placed him in a remarkable position. As Pennsylvania's attorney general, he investigated Sandusky for nearly two years but failed to make an arrest. But then, as governor, he blamed the university's leaders for not doing more. One was Paterno, who some board members believed wielded too much power. The other was university president Graham B. Spanier, a 16-year veteran and Corbett rival who had become a vocal opponent of the governor's efforts to slash higher education funding.

To some, Corbett relished the opportunity and had even planned to play a role in managing the crisis. Eight days before the Sandusky grand jury presentment was released this past November, Corbett's staff booked hotel rooms in State College. Becoming governor had made Corbett a trustee, and he had decided to attend his first board meeting, after missing the first four. During those days of crisis in State College, he lobbied for the ouster of Paterno and Spanier, ending with that conference call on Nov. 9. And when he was on campus the next day, after Spanier's resignation and Paterno's firing, he celebrated the leadership changes. "Throughout this whole process, I felt he had some ulterior motive," a trustee says of Corbett. "Most trustees felt uncomfortable with his role. It was odd for him to be there and participate the way he did. Very odd."...

One senior member of the Penn State faculty recalls seeing Corbett, surrounded by his security detail and friends, at the American Ale House & Grill in State College on Thursday evening, Nov. 10, the night before the regularly scheduled board meeting. "He was just effusive," the faculty member says. "It was like a victory celebration. I remember thinking at the time that it just seemed a strange thing … a kind of gratuitous political piling on." The faculty member, who was sitting near Corbett and overheard much of his conversation, added that the governor "left the impression that he was much more engaged, and really influential, in the board's discussions up to that point."

On the Saturday morning of the Nov. 12 Nebraska game -- the first Penn State game without Paterno on the staff since 1949 -- Bob Capretto, a 65-year-old former Penn State player who admittedly "loves Joe Paterno," had a conversation with Corbett, whom he considers a friend. Capretto says he asked Corbett, "Who told the board to fire Joe and fire Spanier?"

"And the governor said, 'I told them to do it,'" Capretto says. "He was proud of it. I told him, 'You don't realize what you have created here. The damage to Penn State is enormous.'"

Of course, the whole investigation festered under Corbett's watch as attorney general, when as the article notes, he had one investigator investigating Jerry Sandusky while 14 were piling on in a probe of Bill DeWeese, a political enemy.

Wilson builds 1,000-seat stadium for events that draw 100-150, but may not be able to use it because they didn't put in toilets

The Wilson School District is the bee's knees of Berks County athletics, so why shouldn't sports-mad taxpayers foot the bill for a new 1,000-seat stadium at West Middle School, even if the events held there typically draw 100-150 people, counting the athletes.

And why should the district need to bother with building codes that cover such luxuries as bathooms? Just put up some stinky porta-potties, or let the patrons piss on the grass.

The grumps at Lower Heidelberg Township say that's a lot of crap. The inspectors are demanding that Wilson construct a field house with toilets and sinks that would cost, according to the district's math, $500,000 to $750,000.

Wilson has several options:

1. Charge parents $100 a ticket to watch the track meets or lacrosse.
2. Mothball the facility.
3. Hit up Kerry Collins.
4. Raise tax...wait, huh, WAAA! Sorry, Mr. Norquist. I'll never mention that again.
   

Anal editor deftly corrects coach's misuse of cliche

As if anyone could care less.

And the Grammy goes to...

Kermit Cintron sucks. Again.

Via ESPN:

Poor Cintron, the former welterweight titlist who had lost three of his past four fights (some in almost comical fashion), desperately needed to at least put up a fight against [Saul] Canelo on Saturday. Instead, he fired up the way-back machine for a solid 15 seconds before the plug was pulled.

Cintron lasted into the fifth round only because Canelo allowed him the courtesy. The young champion took his time measuring up his target, and Cintron responded by throwing tentative, utterly unthreatening jabs -- mostly at air. After suffering a knockdown in the fourth and ending the round all but dangling from the ropes, Cintron, finally, decided to go all-in. He was aggressive -- salty, even -- coming out of his corner for the fifth, and landed several hard shots that stymied, perhaps even stunned Alvarez.

And that was it. Canelo then responded in kind and Cintron instantly appeared spent and, for all intents and purposes, unwilling to engage. The challenger made a passing effort to hang on -- really, a microcosm for Cintron's career since his infamous spill against Paul Williams last year -- but seemed to have rethought his brief offensive and packed it in. If the 32-year-old Puerto Rican isn't a shot fighter, he certainly can no longer be called a contender.

Sad ending for a fighter who coulda, shoulda been great.

Local fans continue to gobble up Jerry Sandusky bobbleheads like hotcakes

Just when you think Penn State fans have grown a sense of shame comes this report in the morning newspaper that sales of PSU gear are selling here unabated.

One example:

Schuylkill Valley Sports, based in Pottstown, is holding out judgment on sales through the college football season.

Director of marketing Phil Baumgartner said at first they were a little cautious.

He added that sales have slowed a bit, but he believes it is a temporary thing.

"We'll see how the next month and a half go," Baumgartner said.

There must be an algorithm for this. Two more child-sex charges against Jerry Sandusky equals a 2% drop in sales times one bowl loss by the Lions equals...

It's a good thing Joe Paterno won't remember any of this very soon.

Maybe we were never meant to read the Penn State indictment

The New York Times details the moral and ethical labyrinth Tom Corbett needed to navigate in the Penn State child-rape scandal, starting as the Pennsylvania attorney general who launched the investigation in 2009, then as governor and member of the university board of trustees, bound by grand jury secrecy laws that bar him from discussing the investigation with outsiders, even trustees he had appointed.

The next-to-last paragraph is the money graf:

On Friday, the governor finally got the word. The grand jury indictment had been filed under seal, but because of a computer glitch it had mistakenly been made public. Soon Mr. Corbett’s office was inundated with calls. Mr. (Kevin) Harley (the governor's press secretary) reached the governor in his car.

Think about it.

If the indictment had been kept under seal, the public would know that ex-Nittany Lions defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky was charged with multiple counts of molesting young boys.

But the public would not know the horrible details.

We would not know that graduate assistant Mike McQueary was an eyewitness to Sandusky raping a boy of about 10 in a Penn State shower and that McQueary had not halted the attack, but instead first notified his dad and, a day later, coach Joe Paterno.

We would not know the actions (and inactions) of Paterno, who notified athletic director Tim Curley, but not the police, nor how Curley, university vice president Gary Schultz, and university president Graham Spanier laxly responded to the dreadful allegations.

We would not know what Paterno said McQueary told him, nor how specific Curley and Schultz claimed McQueary was in describing the locker room rape.

We would not know the timeline of Sandusky's path of pedophilia over a decade and a half.

Think about it.

All of this would have been under wraps. A scandal would have enveloped the university, but the extent of the horror would have been maddeningly vague.

And no one mentioned in the indictment -- not Paterno, not Curley, not Schultz, not Spanier -- would say a word to the press. They would have, rightly, said that an investigation was ongoing, and that counsel had advised them not to comment.

The case would chug along through the courts, as it will now, but the reaction, and the outrage, would not have been so instantly intense.

The story would have lost some shock value. There would not have been the immediate clamor from the media for Paterno's ouster. He would be on the sidelines Saturday for Nebraska, possibly a Big Ten title game, and maybe hoisted atop his players' shoulders after a bowl game win.

Paterno could exit with a last hurrah, not forced out in humiliation with a 10 p.m. phone call from the trustees he never viewed as his bosses.

Penn State knew a grand jury was targeting Sandusky. Paterno knew. A scandal was inevitable. Did they also have some assurance that the indictment would be kept under wraps, the foundation of the case a mystery, while the Penn State spin machine went to work?

 And then...a computer glitch...and the kingdom was lost.