Lack of leadership cost JoPa his job

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP) — Penn State trustees, faced with con­tin­ued alumni and stu­dent crit­i­cism for fir­ing foot­ball coach Joe Paterno, released a state­ment Mon­day intended to under­score their ratio­nale for his ouster: “fail­ure of lead­er­ship” for his actions fol­low­ing a reported sex assault involv­ing for­mer assis­tant Jerry Sandusky.

The board found that while Paterno ful­filled a legal oblig­a­tion to tell his supe­ri­ors that an employee claimed San­dusky abused a young boy in a shower, it said Paterno should have done more.

“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,” the trustees wrote.

The trustees report comes after months of crit­i­cism from Penn State alumni over Paterno’s fir­ing in November.

The Hall of Fame coach died in Jan­u­ary after a brief bout with lung cancer.

In their state­ment, the trustees said they had been asked by the Penn State com­mu­nity to “state clearly” the rea­sons for Paterno’s dis­missal and the removal of the uni­ver­sity president.

The board had pre­vi­ously offered its ratio­nale for remov­ing Paterno and Pres­i­dent Gra­ham Spanier.

But Trustee Keith Eckel said Mon­day the board decided to issue another state­ment now because alumni had con­tin­ued to ask questions.

“Many peo­ple have indi­cated that they did not under­stand, and this is our last attempt to try to make it as clear as pos­si­ble,” Eckel told The Asso­ci­ated Press. “And peo­ple are wel­come to agree or dis­agree with us.”

San­dusky is accused of sex­u­ally abus­ing 10 boys over a 15-year span. He has denied the allegations.

Then-graduate assis­tant Mike McQueary’s claim that he saw San­dusky sex­u­ally abus­ing a young boy inside a foot­ball build­ing on the uni­ver­sity cam­pus is one of 10 such alle­ga­tions brought by the state attor­ney general’s office.

The first round of charges against San­dusky was filed Nov. 5, four days before Paterno was fired and Spanier was forced to resign.

The board also apol­o­gized for the deci­sion to fire Paterno by phone late that night — a deci­sion that drew the ire of many of the coach’s supporters.

“We saw no bet­ter alter­na­tive,” the trustees wrote. “Because Coach Paterno’s home was sur­rounded by media rep­re­sen­ta­tives, pho­tog­ra­phers and oth­ers, we did not believe there was a dig­ni­fied, pri­vate and secure way to send Board rep­re­sen­ta­tives to meet with him there.”

The trustees said they planned to apol­o­gize to Paterno for the way he was being dis­missed but the coach ended the call before the mes­sage could be delivered.

Phone mes­sages left for Spanier and the Paterno fam­ily were not imme­di­ately returned.

The board also said it decided not to wait until the next morn­ing, say­ing it feared leaks would have Paterno learn­ing his fate before an offi­cial announcement.

The coach missed the team’s final three reg­u­lar sea­son games.

Bit­ter­ness over Paterno’s removal has turned up in many forms, from online post­ings to a note placed next to Paterno’s statue at the foot­ball sta­dium blam­ing the trustees for his death.

A news­pa­per head­line that read “FIRED” was crossed out and made to read, “Killed by Trustees.”

The trustees said they had intended to name Paterno head coach emer­i­tus in honor of his con­tri­bu­tions to the university.

The board said addi­tional options are under review but no deci­sions will be reached until after inde­pen­dent coun­sel and for­mer FBI direc­tor Louis Freeh issues a final report on a spe­cial inves­ti­ga­tion into the school’s han­dling of the allegations.

The board said the removal of Spanier was also a result of a “fail­ure of lead­er­ship” that included insuf­fi­ciently inform­ing the board of his knowl­edge of the 2002 alle­ga­tion. Spanier also made pub­lic state­ments that were not autho­rized or con­trary to the board’s instruc­tions, the trustees said.

In one state­ment fol­low­ing the charges against San­dusky, Spanier ex-pressed his “com­plete con­fi­dence” in a pair of uni­ver­sity admin­is­tra­tors, ath­letic direc­tor Tim Cur­ley and senior vice pres­i­dent Gary Schultz, who were charged with per­jury and fail­ure to report sus­pected abuse.

Spanier requested a vote of con­fi­dence from the board on Nov. 9 but was fired that night.

Cur­ley is on admin­is­tra­tive leave and Schultz retired after being charged. Both main­tain their innocence.

Also Mon­day, a judge heard argu­ments but opted not to rule imme­di­ately on how much infor­ma­tion San­dusky should get in advance of his trial on child sex abuse charges.

Judge John Cle­land gave no indi­ca­tion when he’d rule on the argu­ments con­cern­ing the “bill of par­tic­u­lars” about the 10 pur­ported vic­tims that the attor­ney general’s office pro­vided Sandusky’s attor­ney two weeks ago.

Defense attor­ney Joe Amen­dola requested more spe­cific infor­ma­tion about where and when alleged crimes occurred and the names of peo­ple who were present or nearby. He has said that infor­ma­tion may help him develop his defense.

The attor­ney general’s office says Amen­dola is over­stat­ing the lack of speci­ficity in the mate­ri­als already pro­vided to him.

San­dusky did not attend the hearing.

Posted by Jon Kleinknecht on Mar 13 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.