Backtime Dissects The Freeh Report

When a fishing boat veers off into dangerous waters, it can change course and/or seek help.

When an aircraft carrier finds itself in dangerous waters, it has no turning radius. It is the danger. It keeps charging forward and you'd better get out of the way.

Welcome to the USS Penn State.

Sixteen days ago, Jerry Sandusky was convicted on 45 criminal counts and will spend the rest of his life in prison. That was not the beginning, middle, or end of the story.

The 267-page Freeh Report really begins in earnest on page 11, titled: INDEPENDENCE OF THE INVESTIGATION. And it gets right to the FINDINGS on p. 14:

"The most saddening finding by the Special Investigative Counsel is the total and consistent disregard at Penn State for the safety and welfare of Sandusky's child victims."

"Four of the most powerful people at The Pennsylvania State University (Spanier, Schultz, Curley, Paterno) failed to protect against a child sexual predator harming children for over a decade. These men concealed Sandusky's activities from the Board of Trustees, the University community and authorities."

"These individuals, unchecked by the Board of Trustees that did not perform its oversight duties, empowered Sandusky to attract potential victims to the campus and football events by allowing him to have continued, unrestricted, and unsupervised access..."

On October 29, 2011, Jerry Sandusky sat in his normal club suite at Beaver Stadium and hobnobbed with University officials as Joe Paterno collected his record-setting 409th career victory. It was 7 months after the Harrisburg Patriot-News reported that Sandusky was the subject of a Grand Jury investigation. More importantly, it was 10 years after Assistant Coach Mike McQueary witnessed Sandusky and a young boy in the shower.

It was also two days after Penn State attorney Cynthia Baldwin learned that Sr. VP Gary Schultz and AD Tim Curley would be included in the Grand Jury presentment.

Curley had tried to remove Sandusky from the season ticket list in July 2011 (p.105), but when Mrs. Sandusky inquired about it, the access was reissued.

Steve Garban, then the Chairman of the Board of Trustees, was "astounded" (p.91) by Sandusky's attendance in the Nittany Lion Club, and just assumed that the Attorney General's office didn't have a case.

The Board of Trustees first heard of the investigation on May 12, 2011, when President Graham Spanier "downplayed" (p. 89) the Grand Jury situation, saying that it did not "involve" (p.88) Penn State.

"Some Trustees reported that their meetings felt "scripted" or that they were "rubber stamping" major decisions already made by Spanier." (p.101)

After the Trustees were briefed on the Sandusky investigation at the May meeting, it was not revisited in subsequent meetings in July or September. Spanier may not have known the depths of Sandusky's crimes, but he probably assumed it would just be more water under the deck of the Penn State aircraft carrier.

"There are 76,460 undergraduate students and 9,745 graduate students that currently attend the University. The University's annual operating budget is approximately $4.1 billion..." (p.32)

Insignificant efforts were made in the past. After the 2001 McQueary/shower incident, the Gang Of Four - Spanier, Schultz, Curley, and Paterno - agreed (conspired) on a "humane and reasonable way to proceed." (p.75) This would involve three things: informing the Second Mile (Sandusky's charitable organization), the Department of Welfare, and telling Sandusky himself to stop brining children around Penn State football facilities.

How the information was relayed to the Second Mile is murky since that organization ultimately viewed it as a "non-incident" (p.64). The Dept. of Welfare was not informed. And how would barring Sandusky from the football program be enforced? Especially if Sandusky, a Penn State professor emeritus defied the order (request). Who was going to stop him?

"there is an over-emphasis on "The Penn State Way" as an aprroach to decision-making, a resistance to seeking outside perspective, and an excessive focus on athletics..." (p.129)

Only 4 people knew the plan. There were no legal grounds to keep him away unless the authorities were informed, and that would involve expanding the circle of knowledge, and that would mean exposure. That would mean smearing the pristine Penn State image, tarnishing Paterno's legacy, and bringing down the whole house of cards.

It was considered "very rare" (p.49) for a situation like this not to be reported the the Office of Human Resources.

It's not surprising that The Second Mile didn't act. Several months after "the plan," Penn State sold a tract of land to The Second Mile in September 2001 for $168,500 (p.79).

So please excuse the awful analogy, but Penn State University, Penn State Football, and The Second Mile were all in bed together. Could we say that they were all married to one another? A spouse can't be compelled to testify against another. If corporations are people, can they marry? How does this polygamous situation fall under the Defense Of Marriage Act?

It's like how the American economy is intertwined with the big banks. We may be furious with them but without them the whole system crumbles, and thus they are untouchable. And nobody has yet been held criminally accountable for the 2008 financial crisis.

What exactly Joe Paterno knew died with him. He was an old-school football coach who never touched a cell phone or used e-mail. He is referred to as "Joe" or "Coach" in various Tim Curley e-mails, but his level of complicity can only be assumed.

The transfer of Paterno's home in the summer of 2011 to his wife in exchange for $1 is thought to be a protection of his family should he ever have been a target in a civil suit.

The discussion now is whether Penn State should suffer the NCAA "death penalty," whether the Paterno statue should be removed, and what should happen to the three remaining obstructors of justice.   People call for NCAA sanctions based on a "lack of institutional control," when it was more akin to TOTAL institutional control.

I have no idea. I merely followed the case and read the report. I have faith in the system, especially having seen the swift and exact punishment that was handed down to Sandusky once authorities were able to investigate. (Though DA Ray Gricar failed to do so in 1998 - he later disappeared and is presumed dead in another twist to this case)

The Freeh Report recommends sweeping changes in Penn State policy and hierarchy.

I know that universities are beholden to their athletic programs. Especially football, and especially when icons are involved. This situation could have taken place in previous eras at Nebraska or Alabama.

Today, the University of Alabama's NCAA Compliance coordinator makes approximately $45,000 while Nick Saban makes more than $6 Million. There is no way to reasonably keep college football programs in line when the universities and entire states involved are so co-dependant.

The only way to try to reign it in is to make it all transparent. Each school needs independent auditors to have unlimited access to paper trails, phone records, travel logs, etc. But how is that to be implemented? By the school itself? By the NCAA? By the Federal Government? And what happens if they encounter obstruction? What's the recourse?

Backtime's ultimate diagnosis: College Football is too big to fail.

Backtime Returns: Let Your Garden Grow

Please forgive me for I have sinned. It has been 601 days since my last blog post.

What was I waiting for? Some big rollout for Backtime 2.0? Something of the utmost significance to occur? 

Well many opportunities came and went, and I realized I'm no web designer. I don't know the first thing about graphic layouts and I don't know the second thing about HTML. I'm not a marketer either. All I do is write content - which is the only real requirement for this.

I sat next to a quasi-celebrity on a plane once. He had a hit TV show once, and has written several books. He had some simple and novel advice for me: Feed your blog and it will grow, leave it untended and it will shrivel up and die.

So today I symbolically went to The Home Depot and spent about $60 planting seeds for the future. I have a few weeks before I hit the road again and I will make sure I tend to my garden. Metaphorically speaking, I hope to do the same with this web log. Water the plants and Backtime every day. 

You never know what will happen. I hadn't posted in almost a year and on Monday November 7, 2011, Joe Frazier died. People around the world searched his name and came upon my link, and by the end of the week my dormant blog received nearly 10,000 hits.

So Backtime is back. And there's no rollout, no new message. Just perspective on all things.

Tomorrow: Backtime's editorial department consumed the entire Freeh Report and deconstructs the Penn State debacle.

An Alma Mater Hit and Run

I lived in the Northeast from when I was born until 2002. During that time I graduated from Syracuse University in 1991, and returned several times to cover college football and basketball games.

But since moving all over the country, I hadn't been back in 5 years and my 42 hours in town felt very familiar.

First, our group stayed at the Genesee Grande Hotel, which was the first hotel my Dad took me to when I first visited the campus in 1986. It was the Genesee Inn at the time, and a little more spartan than the boardroom suite I commanded on this trip.

We were there long enough to hit an excellent dinner at Phoebe's. And before heading to the Dome, I got my dome shorn up at a barber shop that was open at 7 AM on a Saturday.

I walked through campus to work, picked up some Orange gear for the kids, and remembered the 44-degree weather wouldn't be so cold without the 20 MPH winds, an observation I made many times in my 4-year (no summer classes, no 5th year) tenure.

Syracuse football is back on the map this year, with 7 wins and their first guaranteed winning season since 2001. And I was there to cover it - and in the press notes to prove it.

I'm sure my parents, who paid 6 figures in tuition, would've felt some sense of payoff for their investment. But as for the emotional investment in the football team, it was an uninspiring 23-6 loss to surging Connecticut.

There's always next year. Besides I never made it to Cosmo's - my first trip back to M Street without a signature tuna bomber.

Turmoil in Washington

I picked an apropos headline since were are upon a historic midterm Election Day. But the people who actually live in DC are probably much more concerned with the quarterback situation.

Mike Shanahan had the guts this past weekend to pull potential Hall-of-Fame QB Donovan McNabb, saying he was poorly conditioned and lacked the "cardiovascular endurance" to run the 2-minute drill in a comeback situation in Detroit.

Personally, I have loved McNabb since he set foot on the Syracuse campus. He is the most prolific quarterback in Syracuse history, and Philadelphia Eagles history as well. But Shanahan is right, highlighting McNabb's lack of fitness.

It was something that Andy Reid didn't address until trading the face of the franchise within the division. So maybe he said it without saying it.

And I don't believe that McNabb is poorly conditioned, per se. But I think he has a condition. I remember him burning clock in a big comeback spot against Miami so he could catch his breath in the huddle. Syracuse came up short in that game 38-31 and the game ended on the 1-yard line.

I remember another game where he suffered in the same situation, and actually threw up on the field minutes before throwing the winning TD pass against Virginia Tech.

And what Eagle fan can forget the Super Bowl loss to the Patriots, when the Eagles could not rally fast enough down the stretch because McNabb couldn't keep up?

McNabb's accomplishments in the NFL speak for themselves, but now Shanahan knows his limitations as well. And unlike Andy Reid, he won't have an invested fan base to piss off if he yanks McNabb in a similar circumstance.

And Washington will have to prepare for a change in its leadership structure.

Predictions for the Mad Men Season Finale: Go Fish

Some of my friends who enjoy Mad Men don't like the Sally Draper story arc. I find it to be one of the most enjoyable parts of the series. Her reaction to her parents' breakup, combined with growing up as a young lady in the mid 1960s, is fascinating.

But that only leads into Backtime's Mad Men fishing expedition into the season finale:

1. Sally Draper will do something more defiant and outrageous than anything she's pulled to this point. Her Mom's plan to move to get her away from Glenn down the street will be the next tipping point in her volatile state in the "Francis" residence.

2. There will be some sort of confrontation between Don Draper's most recent steady, Dr. Faye Miller, and his new secretary Megan.

3. Roger Sterling will be marginalized. Now John Slattery has become a bona fide TV star so I don't expect him to be gone from the series, but he will become a glorified consultant a la the role that Bert Cooper has take on this season.

4. As a result, Pete Campbell gets to be the agency's top dog. And SCDP won't have to change their logo as Campbell slides right into Sterling Campbell Draper Pryce.

5. Don Draper's New York Times ad that renounces Big Tobacco catches the eye of some big fish, and even prompts the return of Conrad Hilton, who signs with SCDP and saves them from economic free fall.

6. But ultimately, it will be an episode that ends the season with closure instead of an open-ended cliffhanger and tons of unanswered questions (a la AMC's other show, Breaking Bad).

Open Mike: Putting the MV in MVP

We at Backtime smelt this comeback coming even while #7 was still serving 2-to-3.

There was too much ability and too much game to count him out. His time as a guest of the federal government gave him pay his debt to society, and emerge like so many others, with a second chance...to play the game that he redefined.

And the other thing that nobody talks about - he didn't take a hit in 3 years. He's still only 30 years old with a football age of 27. And now we see a new piece to the Vicksaw puzzle: poise.

Not only has he become a pass-first Quarterback, but he's playing now with a serenity to go with his sizzle. And you can make the argument that he's playing with the type of speedy skill players that Donovan McNabb never had (the Eagles ironically take on McNabb and the Skins this weekend).

With LeSean McCoy, DeSean Jackson, and Jeremy Maclin to complement him, Vick doesn't have to do things on his own the way he did his early days in Atlanta (or McNabb throughout his career in Philly). Vick can trust the guys around him, and if he can trust himself, he may just have a season for the ages.

Just as we forecast over a year ago.

July 27, 2009 - The Trick for Vick: Gotta be like "Mike"

"There's a lion in my pocket, and baby he is ready to roar."

Prince, 1999

It was 10 years ago when I did a shoot with Michael Vick on the Virginia Tech campus. He was a phenom as a redshirt frosh, but he just seemed polite, friendly, and very unassuming.

When he introduced himself as "Mike," I didn't know who he was right away. There wasn't an entourage, there wasn't bravado, it was just Mike.

But there was plenty of bravado in my script and he didn't carry it like that. He was shy. The piece was average and didn't air because Vick got beat up by the Clemson "D" - though the other man on the shoot, Corey Moore, was the dominant defensive star in a Hokie home win.

I'm not trying to extol the virtues of Mike Vick, the seemingly mature 19-year old. This sick subculture was obviously ingrained in him from a very early age. And somewhere deep inside him was a Ron Mexico with middle fingers extended to his home crowd.

But we had truly never seen anyone like him. A black, left-handed whirlwind who probably could have been the best player on the field at a half-dozen positions. He did it with such confidence and class. His play screamed "look at me" so he never had to do anything arrogant to call attention to himself.

In Mike's freshman year, he led Virginia Tech to an undefeated regular season in spectacular fashion. And he left his guts on the Superdome field erasing a 3-TD deficit to Florida State before falling in the 4th quarter. Head Coach Frank Beamer is still his biggest advocate.

Two years later, Mike was drafted #1 overall. Three years after that and one broken leg later, he finished 2nd in the MVP voting, and led the Falcons to the NFC Championship game.

Then came the contract. The sense of entitlement. The rules didn't apply to him. He could spread herpes around, or bankroll dogfighting, or smoke pot on his MySpace page. He thought the authorities and the media, much like your average NFL defender, couldn't catch Michael Vick.

"Tryin' to run from my destruction, you know I didn't even care."

He was wrong and paid the heavy price. This isn't some run-of-the-mill NFL suspension he has to come back from. He was incarcerated. Every day is a blessing for this man.

This time around, I think we're going to see a lot less Michael and a lot more Mike. And maybe one team's fans will party like it's 1999.

The State I'm Min

I packed the autumn hues for highs in the low 60s in Minneapolis.

Even though there were no flight delays, the travel snafus continued. First an over-officious gate agent at the home airport told me my new suitcase was too big to carry on, so she said she had to check it.

She shrugged her shoulders, "Don't worry, you're in first class and won't have to pay." I just shook my head, "It's not about money, it's about time."

And naturally I waited 45 minutes at baggage claim in Minneapolis. And then I got to the hotel and was assigned to a Westin "Grand" Suite. Cool. Except I had to return to the desk three different times because my key didn't work. Ultimately they decided it was the lock that was broken and my room wasn't going to be ready for a couple hours.

In the meantime I got an e-mail that I needed to set up my travel for a couple of October gigs. So I got on the phone with our travel department.

TRAVEL: What position will you be on these shows?

ME: Producer

TRAVEL: I thought so, I was just checking.

ME: That's OK, I like saying it.

Always remember no matter how important you (think you) are or how upgraded your travel day is, it's still just rife with speed bumps. Fortunately Suite 432 lived up to it's billing.

And that was just the living room portion.

The highlight of the Minnesota trip (certainly wasn't the game) was the two meals at Hell's Kitchen.

Thursday night dinner - Lobster Tacos - a "10"

Saturday morning breakfast - Poached Eggs over Venison Chili with a side of Cornmeal Waffles topped with Homemade Peanut Butter - a "12" - one of the best breakfasts I've ever head.

Other highlights of the trip (that didn't involve food) were USC-related. Let's forget for a moment that the USC Song Girls practiced their routine right outside our truck.

After a fairly generic USC victory over the Golden Gophers, we went out to Smalley's sports bar in downtown Minneapolis. And watching 50 Trojan fans in USC colors sing "Fight On" in unison in the center of enemy territory was actually very cool.

Then it was the 3:45 AM wakeup call for the 5:20 AM flight Sunday morning, all so I could be home before Noon and spend the afternoon with the kids.

And maybe, just maybe, I'll get to watch some of the Jets-Patriots game.

Fight On Mark Sanchez!