Posted on November 10th, 2011
By DERON SNYDER
In the end, Joe Paterno lost his perspective and ignored the big picture.
He thought about himself when he should have thought about the school he’d worked for since 1950. About the hundreds of thousands of Penn State students — past, present and future. About the countless child-abuse victims and the message he could send them.
But Paterno didn’t do the right thing Wednesday as the scandal consumed Penn State and his future was debated in the media. Instead the 84-year-old Paterno stubbornly tried to ride out the storm and dictate the terms of his departure.
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Posted on November 9th, 2011
The President and the Coach
By DERON SNYDER
If Penn State coach Joe Paterno and Penn State president Graham Spanier are employed as you begin reading this column, they shouldn’t be by the time you’re finished. For anyone who disagrees, I suggest some additional reading material — the 23-page indictment against former Penn State assistant coach Jerry Sandusky.
Finding the document isn’t hard, though getting through it without your skin crawling and your blood boiling is impossible. Eight victims are listed, and undoubtedly there are more. A potential ninth victim, a man now in his 20s, came forward over the weekend.
Not that we need further reports to conclude that Sandusky is a monster who was enabled by Paterno, Spanier and two former school officials who have been charged with perjury and failure to report suspected sexual abuse.
Victim 2 and Victim 8 are enough to seal the deal.
They should be the impetus for a new era at Penn State, starting with a new football coach and school president. The current office-holders should have resigned by now, on principle alone if common decency wasn’t enough.
From Page 21, detailing alleged events involving Victim 8: “In the fall of 2000, a janitor named James “Jim” Calhoun observed Sandusky in the showers of the Lasch Building with a young boy pinned up against the wall, performing oral sex on the boy. He immediately made known to other janitorial staff what he had witnessed.”
From Page 6, detailing alleged events from March 1, 2002: “As the graduate assistant put the sneakers in his locker, he looked into the shower. He was a naked boy, Victim 2, whose age he estimated to be ten years old, with his hands up against the wall, being subjected to anal intercourse by a naked Sandusky.”
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Posted on November 9th, 2011
By DERON SNYDER
The disgust generated by Penn State’s swirling child-abuse scandal rose another level Tuesday night when Joe Paterno — smiling and laughing — emerged from his house to address a raucous crowd that was chanting his name.
“We want Joe! We want Joe! We want Joe!”
How about wanting justice for the alleged victims of Paterno’s longtime assistant, Jerry Sandusky? How about wanting Paterno to explain why he never followed up on a 2002 report that Sandusky raped a 10-year-old boy in the football team’s showers? How about wanting the Board of Trustees to hold Paterno and school President Graham Spanier accountable for their failure to act and protect future victims?
If that crowd chooses to believe that Paterno did no wrong, swell. If it believes that Spanier and other school officials acted appropriately, fine. If it believes that Sandusky is innocent until proven guilty, OK.
But a grand jury indictment lists eight victims who testified about being abused. A potential ninth victim came forward over the weekend, and there’s a report that the number of victims has swelled to almost 20.
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Posted on November 4th, 2011
By DERON SNYDER
There’s only one fight that every boxing fan wants to see, and it’s not Floyd Mayweather Jr. against fill-in-the-blank. It’s Mayweather versus Manny Pacquiao, a bout that would pit the world’s two top pound-for-pound boxers.
Unfortunately, the Mayweather camp’s recent announcement of a date for his next fight merely intimated that Pacquiao would be the opponent. “We’re looking to make the biggest fight possible, and everyone knows what that fight is: the little fella,” Mayweather adviser Leonard Ellerbe told ESPN.com.
Yes, everyone knows what that fight is. But not everyone believes that Mayweather really wants to make that fight. A few days before the announcement, Pacquiao promoter Bob Arum said that the fight will never happen because Mayweather knows he’d be knocked out. Arum made the comment during media day for Pacquiao’s Nov. 12 bout against Juan Manuel Marquez.
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Posted on November 4th, 2011
By DERON SNYDER
Bobby Mitchell paused and stared ahead for several seconds. Moderator Maury Povich had just posed a loaded question to the NFL Hall of Famer who integrated the Washington Redskins in 1962 and later served as the team’s assistant general manager for 20 years.
How come he never landed a top spot?
Several more seconds passed as Mitchell wrestled with his thoughts before finally giving an answer. “I never accepted the premise that I didn’t get the GM job because I’m black,” he said Wednesday night during the sixth annual Shirley Povich Symposium at the University of Maryland.
“From the start, I was handling all five departments in the front office,” Mitchell said. “I don’t know if anyone has ever done that. But this is a business. You have to be liked and you have to be wanted.”
Then he broke the tension with some levity: “I had the greatest job of anyone in football, because GMs get fired!”
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Posted on November 2nd, 2011
By DERON SNYDER
After he was selected with the No. 2 pick in the 2010 NFL draft, Ndamukong Suh didn’t waste time making his mark. Suh — whose full name is pronounced “En-dom-ah-ken Soo” — won multiple Rookie of the Year awards and All-Pro honors and was selected to play in the Pro Bowl.
But he has also gained a reputation for being a “dirty player,” although opinions vary on the label’s accuracy in his case. The issue has grown so fuzzy that Sports Illustrated this year changed the name of its annual poll on the “NFL’s Dirtiest Players” to the “NFL’s Meanest Players,” and Suh came in third. He has been fined three times for rough hits on quarterbacks since last season, and he has been drawn three personal foul penalties in eight games this year.
Suh finally had enough after the Atlanta Falcons accused him of taunting an injured player and the NFL billed Detroit’s next game as “Good vs. Evil,” featuring a picture of Denver’s Tim Tebow and Suh.
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Posted on November 2nd, 2011
By DERON SNYDER
Once again, it’s time to check off some items on my “TIDU List” – Things I Don’t Understand:
• Why the heat on Mike Shanahan has risen since Sunday.
Folks are aghast at the Redskins’ three-game losing streak and butt-ugly shutout against Buffalo. The 3-1 start is a distant memory, but Shanahan has instilled a professional atmosphere and upgraded the roster (though not enough). Coaches on five-year deals deserve an evaluation period longer than 23 games.
But since bad personnel decisions were his undoing in Denver, maybe someone else should handle those duties.
• How Kyle Shanahan can reclaim his label of ‘budding guru.’
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Posted on October 31st, 2011
By DERON SNYDER
Paying college athletes always has seemed wrong to me for a number of reasons. All college athletes aren’t big revenue producers. There’s no way to devise an equitable compensation system. Athletes in nonrevenue sports need the funds generated by big-money sports. A college education, along with training, equipment, travel, etc., has real value that shouldn’t be ignored.
But the past few years have loosened my grip on the position, making it harder and harder to defend. Now the NCAA has come out with major reforms regarding financial aid, academic standards, summer basketball recruiting and scholarship limits.
Yet it feels like a case of too little, too late.
I’ve always contended that scholarships are the fairest, most equitable way to “pay” all athletes across the board — as long as the NCAA avoids crazy rules that prevent them from earning income available to other students. College sports are akin to work-study programs at the very least, and they should provide comparable compensation.
Among the sweeping changes it announced last week, the NCAA will allow conferences to vote on providing up to $2,000 in spending money for athletes — what the NCAA calls the full cost of attendance. A similar stipend existed for college athletes until 1972.
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Posted on October 31st, 2011
By DERON SNYDER
Twice last week the Texas Rangers were one strike away from winning the World Series, as close as a team can possibly come. But they didn’t get that one strike against the St. Louis Cardinals in Game 6 — in neither the ninth inning nor the 10th inning — proceeding to lose on Thursday night and again on Friday night.
But instead of being commended for piloting the Rangers to the World Series for the second consecutive season, manager Ron Washington was subjected to widespread second-guessing for his decisions in Game 6.
His use of relief pitchers and pinch-hitters was called “baffling,” as was his judgment in choice of players and when he chose them. Strategic moves that backfired in Game 7 were dissected, too.
Observers often display the 20-20 vision of hindsight when things don’t work as planned. And Washington was already on record about his managerial style, stating that he uses his instincts more than conventional wisdom.
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Posted on October 28th, 2011
By DERON SNYDER
We don’t like to see superstar hang on too long, stumbling and fumbling through the twilight of their careers. We don’t like to look at their diminished abilities and reflect on the daunting athleticism of yesteryear. We don’t like to watch younger players who aren’t nearly as good, take advantage of old legends past their prime.
But it happens because some great athletes are addicted to the game, money and fame, and can’t imagine anything filling that void. That seems to be the case with Allen Iverson, the former Philadelphia Sixers great. Once a brazen poster child for hip-hop and defiance, Iverson now is humbled and hungry, asking for another shot in the NBA.
“I’ll play for anybody,” he told Yahoo! Sports.
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