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ESPN’s James Called Tech Coaches During Games

During an appearance on the Paul Finebaum Radio Network Wednesday, an attorney for Mike Leach provided more striking revelations about the behavior of Craig James while directly under the auspices of ESPN.

(Leach lawyer for ESPN suit: James called TT coaches from ESPN booth)

Lead Leach attorney Steve Heninger reported to Finebaum that “well before” James ever lodged a complaint to Texas Tech about Leach’s alleged mistreatment of his son, Red Raider football player Adam James, the former ESPN announcer, “was calling (Texas Tech) coaches from the booth during games and telling them to put Adam in and let him play.”


Excerpt of Heninger’s comments to Finebaum Wednesday:

Heninger:

“He was calling (Texas Tech) coaches from the booth during games and telling them to put Adam in and let him play. Disrupting games. Then at night he was leaving voicemails that he was upset that Adam wasn’t … (Finebaum interrupts)”

Finebaum:

“So Craig James from the ESPN broadcast booth was calling Texas Tech coaches? Is that correct?”

Heninger:

“On some occasions, that’s right. I think he called three or four games that year, that Tech had … the coaches were worried and went to Leach with the problem, (they said) ‘what do we do? This is the ESPN guy telling us that we need to be playing Adam more’

“In fact, Mike met with Adam and said, ‘we’ve got these voicemails Adam (from father Craig), do you want your teammates to hear these voicemails? To hear that your dad is calling the coaching staff trying to get you more playing time? How do you think that’s going to play with your teammates?’

“Adam asked him (Leach) not to play the tapes and he didn’t. And this was all well before the controversy about an electrical closet that never happened. That’s the backdrop of this whole thing.”

During the 2009 college football season, James worked at least three Texas Tech games for ESPN, including Tech’s Sept. 26 game against Houston, Oct. 17 game against Nebraska and Nov. 14 game against Oklahoma State. James was also originally scheduled to work ESPN’s telecast of Texas Tech’s meeting with Michigan State in the Alamo Bowl on New Year’s Eve - but was pulled off the broadcast after his complaint helped create Leach’s ouster at the school.

As reported by SbB on Jan. 16, 2010, Leach’s lawsuit against Texas Tech alleges that Craig James called then-Texas Tech Director of Football Operations Tommy McVay and then-Tech assistant coach Lincoln Riley on the same day in 2009 about his son, “stating, in effect, ‘You don’t know what you’re doing. Adam James is the best player at the wide receiver position. If you’ve got the balls to call me back, and I don’t think you do, call me back.’

In his deposition for the Leach lawsuit against Texas Tech, Craig James testified the following on March 13, 2011:

Paul Dobrowski: Did you call (Tech assistant coach) Lincoln Riley at that time (2009)?
Craig James: Yes.
PD: What did you say?
CJ: Left a message for him to call me.
PD: What did you say on the message?
CJ: “Give me a call. I would like to talk to you.”
PD: Why did you call him?
CJ: The same reason, to find out what Adam had done, what we could do to keep him on track here and not go into the tank.
PD: And did you leave a message to the effect that, “if you have the balls and I don’t think you do, call me back?
CJ: I may have. I may have.
PD: Well, when you say you may have, that indicates to me that that kind of rings a bell or sounds familiar.
CJ: I could have. I could have.
PD: Okay. As you sit here today, do you believe that you left that kind of a message?
CJ: I believe I could have, yes.

Later during the 2009 season in which Craig James made the complaints referred to by Heninger yesterday, the ESPN announcer accused Leach of mistreating his son after an alleged injury. That accusation led to Leach’s firing by Texas Tech.

Heninger also told Finebaum Wednesday that as soon as the Texas Supreme Court renders a verdict in Leach’s appeal for a jury trial against Texas Tech in his wrongful termination lawsuit against the school, he will pursue his defamation lawsuit against ESPN.

A lawsuit which prominently documents James’ specific, behind-the-scenes role - which included providing son Adam’s cellphone number to ESPN reporter Joe Schad - in ESPN’s on-air coverage of the coach’s ouster at Texas Tech.

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Gov. Buries Paterno to Distract from Own Inaction

UPDATE: (Jan. 25, 2011, 9:21aPT): Jay Paterno Tweeted the following Wednesday morning:

To clarify: Our family looks forward to welcoming everyone to a celebration of Joe Paterno’s life tomorrow afternoon.

UPDATE (Jan. 24, 2011, 5:13p PT): The HARRISBURG PATRIOT-NEWS reports that Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett, who ordered all state government flags lowered to half-staff following Joe Paterno’s death, will not be attending the Thursday memorial service for Joe Paterno, “at the request of the (Paterno) family.

Gov. Tom Corbett and Joe Paterno

From a report Tuesday evening by Charles Thompson of the Patriot-News:

Corbett’s press secretary, Kevin Harley, said today the governor is “not planning” on attending the service.

Asked why, Harley said, “I am not aware that any members of the (university’s) board of trustees are attending, at the request of the family.”

Corbett, he said, wants to respect that request.

Though reporter Thompson did note that, according to sources, the Paterno family qualified the ban on PSU Trustees:

Other sources said the family was discouraging the trustees from attending as a group. That would leave the way clear for individual members with long ties to the Paternos to attend.

As noted in the original post below, Sara Ganim of the HARRISBURG PATRIOT-NEWS recently reported that Corbett voiced his feelings to the Penn State Board of Trustees at the fateful Nov. 9, 2011, meeting in which Paterno was removed from his position by school officials:

Moments before Penn State’s board of trustees voted to fire Joe Paterno, Gov. Tom Corbett uttered a final thought.

“Remember that little boy in the shower,” Corbett said via speakerphone, acting in his role on the 32-member board.

It was the last thing the board members heard before being asked if anyone objected to relieving Paterno of a coaching job he’d held for 61 years.

With that, Paterno was fired Nov. 9 in a late-night move that led to student riots in State College and boiling animosity toward the board by alumni.

What motivated Corbett to make such a strong statement in the final moment before the Board of Trustees voted to terminate Paterno after 61 years at Penn State?

Keep reading.

Current Pennslyvania Governor Tom Corbett officially learned of allegations of child sexual abuse against Jerry Sandusky in March 2009. As Attorney General of the state at the time, Corbett assigned a single state trooper to investigate the allegations - though that law officer was not authorized to bring charges against Sandusky because Corbett decided not to assign an agent from his office to directly supervise the investigation.

When Corbett became governor two years later the children’s charity Sandusky had founded in 1977, The Second Mile, had not officially been notified by Corbett or anyone in law enforcement that its founder was being investigated on multiple allegations of child rape.

Despite that apparent disconnect, the HARRISBURG PATRIOT-NEWS reported on Dec. 10, 2011, that at the same time Corbett was conducting his two-year investigation of Sandusky as Attorney General, Corbett’s gubernatorial campaign benefited financially from Sandusky’s charity:

Corbett accepted more than $25,000 from state board members of Sandusky’s charity, The Second Mile, during his gubernatorial campaign last year. On top of that, he accepted thousands more from the charity’s regional board members, according to Pennsylvania Department of State campaign contributions website.

His openness to the charity’s board members’ contributions to his campaign didn’t stop there. Corbett also allowed S&A Homes president and CEO Robert Poole, who chaired Second Mile’s board, to hold a small fundraiser for him at Poole’s home in January 2010.

Following Corbett’s election as Governor, he “re-released” a $3 million state grant to The Second Mile as part of the charity’s effort to erect a building meticulously-planned by Sandusky himself - with Poole’s company handling the construction. The release of the state funds came four months before Sandusky was arrested on dozens of child sexual abuse charges stemming from Corbett’s own investigation as then-Attorney General.

After the background of the grant was exposed to the public, Corbett pulled the state funding.

Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett played key role in enabling Jerry Sandusky's child rape to continue

(Corbett gave millions in state funds to Sandusky pet project in July!)

From the month he learned of the Sandusky allegations to the day he took office as Governor, Corbett’s Attorney General office issued 42 press releases touting hundreds of arrests by the Corbett-commissioned “Child Sexual Predator Unit” and “Child Exploitation Task Force.” (March, 2009 to Jan. 18, 2011.)

But Sandusky’s case was never assigned to either detail by Attorney General Corbett, even after Mike McQueary told a Pennsylvania Grand Jury of the alleged shower rape of a child by Sandusky in December, 2010, and the first-hand revelations about Sandusky showering with children from two police detectives contained in a 130-page, 1998 Penn State Police Dept. report.

Two weeks after Corbett left office as Attorney General, in late January, acting Attorney General Bill Ryan assigned four more state troopers to the Sandusky case and three agents from the state’s attorney general office, with the latter empowering investigators to bring charges against Sandusky.

10 months later, Sandusky was in handcuffs and the Penn State Board of Trustees was contemplating the fate of Joe Paterno.

Pa. Governor Tom Corbett and Joe Paterno

Of the November 9, 2011, Penn State Board of Trustees meeting that resulted in Paterno’s ouster, Sara Ganim of the HARRISBURG PATRIOT-NEWS reported it was Governor Corbett who had the last word before a vote was taken to determine the Penn State legend’s fate:

Moments before Penn State’s board of trustees voted to fire Joe Paterno, Gov. Tom Corbett uttered a final thought.

“Remember that little boy in the shower,” Corbett said via speakerphone, acting in his role on the 32-member board.

It was the last thing the board members heard before being asked if anyone objected to relieving Paterno of a coaching job he’d held for 61 years.

With that, Paterno was fired Nov. 9 in a late-night move that led to student riots in State College and boiling animosity toward the board by alumni.

Appearing on FOX News Sunday four days later, Corbett said:

“In my opinion, when you don’t follow through, when you don’t continue on to make sure actions are taken then I lose confidence in your ability to lead.

After learning of Paterno’s death on Sunday, Corbett released a statement which read, in part:

“As both man and coach, Joe Paterno confronted adversities, both past and present, with grace and forbearance.”

“Forbearance” as defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary: “a refraining from the enforcement of something (as a debt, right, or obligation) that is due.

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Online No Longer Honors Print’s Right To Wrong

Sunday night George Schroeder and Adam Jude of the EUGENE (OR) REGISTER-GUARD reported online that “University of Oregon football coach Chip Kelly has reached an agreement to become the head coach of the NFL’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers, a highly placed UO athletic department source told The Register-Guard.

(Unlike Online, where both correct, Print’s getting it right is role of dice)

More from the Eugene newspaper’s online report:

“It’s done,” the source said Sunday night. … Asked if Kelly might change his mind about leaving Oregon, the UO source said: “I can’t even fathom. … I think all the boxes have been checked.”

Earlier SbB had reported that Chip Kelly had accepted an offer to become the next coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and was in the process of assembling his first-ever NFL coaching staff.

Subsequently, Schroeder and Jude reported on the Register-Guard website that Kelly had backed out on his agreement with the Bucs.

From Jude’s story:

University of Oregon football coach Chip Kelly told a highly placed UO source late Sunday night that he has reversed course and decided to turn down an offer from the NFL’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The source told The Register-Guard earlier Sunday night that Kelly had reached an agreement to become Tampa Bay’s head coach. “It’s done,” the source said.

Just before midnight, Kelly changed his mind, telling the source: “I’m staying.”

Why did Kelly back out of his deal with the Bucs after he had accepted a now-documented offer to become Tampa Bay’s head coach? Read more…

Chip Kelly Leaving Oregon For Tampa Bay Bucs

FootballScoop.com was first to report the news Sunday night that Chip Kelly has accepted an offer to become the next head coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Chip Kelly visited USF Coach Skip Holtz in Tampa in early 2011

(Kelly was in Tampa to visit USF Coach Skip Holtz last March)

SbB has since confirmed that Kelly is already assembling a coaching staff - from a source with direct knowledge of the process.

SACRAMENTO BEE reporter Joe Davidson also confirmed on Sunday night that with national signing day less than two weeks away, Kelly most recently canceled a Sacramento-area recruiting trip set for today. Justin Hopkins of DuckTerritory.com reported the trip was to include an in-home visit this evening.

Kelly’s departure from Oregon will cost the Bucs $3.5 million because of an applicable buyout clause in the coach’s college contract. Kelly signed a six-year extension with Oregon on Sept. 28, 2010, a deal which made him the second-highest paid coach in the Pac-10 at the time.


Kelly leaves as the school braces for the impending delivery of an NCAA Notice of Allegations, which may implicate the coach in NCAA violations relating to his relationship - as extensively detailed by Yahoo Sports - with Texas-based high school football scout Willie Lyles.

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Penn State: 4 Grand Jury Sandusky Investigations

A member of the Penn State Board of Trustees told the CENTRE (PA) DAILY TIMES Thursday that during an official briefing last May the Trustees were told by a Penn State lawyer that Jerry Sandusky had previously been the subject of four Grand Jury investigations.

(Same day Trustees claim tenured Spanier ‘fired’ he’s enjoying PSU facilities

Penn State Board of Trustees member Mark Dambly told the State College-area newspaper today:

“We were told in May of 2011, by Cynthia Baldwin, this was the fourth grand jury that was convened. The prior three led to no charges.”

Baldwin made the presentation to the Penn State Board of Trustees with then-Penn State President Graham Spanier, who was removed from his position by the board after the Sandusky Grand Jury presentment was released last November.

Tuesday Penn State announced that Baldwin, who has served as the University’s full-time general counsel and chief legal officer since early 2010, was stepping down. The “transition” was attributed to Baldwin having sufficiently staffed the school’s new in-house legal department.

The Daily Times also noted today that, “Penn State University spokesman Bill Mahon said he had heard there were prior grand juries.

The NEW YORK TIMES reported yesterday of the same May meeting in which Baldwin and Spanier briefed the Trustees about the Grand Jury investigation of Sandusky, with the newspaper noting that during the presentation, “No one (Trustee) asked questions.

In the same New York Times story Wednesday, multiple Penn State Trustees reported that the board fired then-PSU President Graham Spanier after the Sandusky Grand Jury presentment was released last November because he failed to keep them properly informed of the Sandusky investigation.

Current Penn State Trustee Ira Lubert, who also helped lead the school’s recent search for a new football coach in the wake of Joe Paterno’s Trustee-led ouster, told the Times yesterday:

“He (Spanier) should have told us a lot more. He should have let us know much more of the background.”

News of the latest Grand Jury investigation of Sandusky was first reported by the HARRISBURG PATRIOT-NEWS in March, two months before Baldwin and Spanier briefed the PSU Board of Trustees on the status of the investigation.

The Patriot-News reported today that by the time the Board was officially informed of the Sandusky Grand Jury investigation by Baldwin and Spanier:

Several front-page stories in The Patriot-News and on PennLive.com had described two alleged sexual assaults of young boys by Sandusky being investigated by the grand jury - at least one of which was said to have taken place in the Penn State locker room while Sandusky was a Nittany Lions coach. All of the stories were also reported in the (State College-area) Centre Daily Times and the first one was fully rewritten and put on the national news wire by the AP.

Adam Smeltz of StateCollege.com also interviewed Penn State Board of Trustees members today, several of whom did not appear in the Wednesday New York Times story that detailed claims made by the leadership of the board regarding the May briefing by Baldwin and Spanier about the the Sandusky Grand Jury investigation.

In their interview with Smeltz today, the PSU Trustees who did not appear in Wednesday’s New York Times story disputed the claim made yesterday by the PSU Board of Trustees leadership to the newspaper that Spanier had deliberately misled them about the status of the Sandusky Grand Jury investigation.

Spanier, who was photographed playing racquetball in a Penn State athletic facility on Wednesday, is now on a Penn State-paid “sabbatical” while maintaining his status as a tenured member of the Penn State faculty.

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Media Sentences Paterno To Dept Of Corrections

After co-opting the WASHINGTON POST with his own personal crisis communications manager and high-priced criminal defense lawyer last weekend, somehow Joe Paterno still ended up in the RALEIGH NEWS & OBSERVER’s department of corrections on Sunday:

Joe Paterno misidentified as Jerry Sandusky in Raleigh News & Observer

That’ll come as no surprise to Penn Staters, who haven’t been shy in decrying the injustices they claim have been perpetrated on their hero by the media in recent weeks.

Yes, we’re talking about the same Penn Staters incited to riot on worldwide television by their hero after Paterno provided the media a personal statement expressly designed to marginalize the same Penn State leadership he hid behind when called upon to stop a former longtime employee who had raped a child.

Yes, you are. Penn State.

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Video: Senator Breaks Down In Paterno’s Defense

The voice of a Pennsylvania State Senator trembled as he delivered an emotional, sometimes tearful defense of Joe Paterno at Tuesday’s Senate session in Harrisburg.


Jack Corman, an influential Pa. State Senate Republican who chairs the appropriations committee, lost his composure and was forced to pause three times before finishing a half-hour speech in which the Penn State alumnus was repeatedly overcome with emotion.

Corman’s intial remarks scolded the public for allegedly dismissing what he called the “the 60 years of his (Paterno) life’s work” after a Nov. 5, 2011, Pennsylvania Grand Jury presentment revealed that the ex-Penn State football coach failed to report directly to police allegations that former PSU assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky had sexually abused a child in the Penn State locker room in 2002.

“Today I wanted to come to the floor of the Senate and talk about one of my constituents that I thought there was a rush to judgement on. (Paterno) spent the better part of six decades building a community, building an insitution and a building a program that somehow was all lost, sixty years of his life’s work was all lost in a matter of days due to a rush to judge everyone’s actions (involved in the Sandusky case).”

Most of Corman’s comments on the floor of the Pennsylvania Senate Tuesday involved chronicling Paterno’s past accomplishments at Penn State, while the Senator also refused to conclude that the former Penn State football coach was wrong for not reporting directly to police alleged child sexual abuse by a former longtime colleague at Paterno’s then-current workplace.

Corman broke down twice in the final throes of his emotional plea to the people of Pennsylvania to not hold Paterno’s lack of action - in the face of alleged child rape - against the former coach:

“When you look at the life of Joe Paterno and what he’s meant, the biggest compliment I could say my community where I live, my alma mater where I went to school, the commonwealth which I raised my family is a better place. (pause) It’s a better place because Joe Paterno chose to live here.”

With his voice trembling, Corman closed with the following:

“He’s (Paterno) in the biggest battle of his life now but when you view his history he will win. Our prayers are with him and I can only hope my community, my institution are worthy of his efforts to make us grow.”

Corman, who represents the Penn State area in the Senate, currently serves on the Board of Directors of The Second Mile, the charity Sandusky founded to allegedly facilitate his sexual abuse of children.

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Paterno Pitched Sandusky as Head Coach in 1999

On January 12, 2011, then-Penn State Senior VP of Operations Gary Schultz testified under oath to a State College-area Grand Jury.

Joe Paterno pitched Jerry Sandusky as head football coach in 1999, proposing Penn State Altoona start a football program

(”Idea” during months between ‘98 Sandusky PSU Police report & ‘retirement’)

During the testimony by Schultz, the man who was running the day-to-day operations of Penn State at the time, he characterized what led to Jerry Sandusky’s departure from Penn State:

“I candidly have recollections that Coach Paterno and Jerry had reached a point where Coach Paterno felt it would be best that he make a coaching change.”

On Nov. 5, 2011, the same Grand Jury reported of Victim 4, one of the children Sandusky allegedly sexually abused:

The Penn State football program relocated to the Lasch Football Building in 1999 and that facility had a sauna. Victim 4 reported that after the move, most of the sexual conduct that did not occur in a hotel room occurred in the sauna, as the area is more secluded.

Victim 4 remembers Sandusky being emotionally upset after having a meeting with Joe Paterno in which Paterno told Sandusky he would not be the next head coach at Penn State and which preceded Sandusky’s retirement. Sandusky told Victim 4 not to tell anyone about the meeting. That meeting occurred in May, 1999.

While Sandusky’s “retirement” from Penn State was announced three months later, Paterno allowed Sandusky to coach the entire 1999 season.

The Grand Jury reported that it was during the 1998 and 1999 Penn State football seasons that Sandusky allegedly, repeatedly sexually abused Victim 4 - a child at the time - while representing Penn State on road trips and during overnight stays by the school’s football team at a local hotel before home games:

Victim 4 was listed, along with Sandusky’s wife, as a member of Sandusky’s family party for the 1998 Outback Bowl and the 1999 Alamo Bowl. He traveled to and from both bowl games with the football team and other Penn State staff, coaches and their families, sharing the same accommodations. Victim 4 would frequently stay overnight at Toftrees with Sandusky and the football team prior to home games; Sandusky’s wife was never present at Toftrees when Victim 4 stayed with Sandusky.

This was where the first indecent assaults of Victim 4 occurred. Victim 4 would attend the pregame banquet and sit with Sandusky at the coaches’ table. Victim 4 also accompanied Sandusky to various charity golf outings and would share a hotel room with him on those occasions.

Less than a year before Paterno told Sandusky in 1999 that, “it would be best that he make a coaching change“, Penn State law enforcement filed an exhaustive 130-page police report in which Sandusky confirmed to detectives that he had showered with two boys in the Penn State locker room. As part of the Penn State Police report, Sandusky admitted to the mother of one of the boys - in the presence of two police detectives - that his behavior “was wrong” and that “I wish I were dead.

Shortly after that report was filed and three months before Paterno reportedly told Sandusky in 1999 that, “it would be best that he make a coaching change“, Neil Rudel of the ALTOONA (PA) MIRROR reported that Paterno had recently proposed that Penn State’s Altoona branch campus start a football program.

With Sandusky as head coach.

In a Jan. 22, 1999, piece titled, “PSU Altoona Explores Football,” school CEO Allen Meadors indicated that the Sandusky-coached football program proposal was Paterno’s idea:

The idea was actually born out of a conversation with Joe Patemo. “He told me it was time for football at Altcona,” Meadors said. “I wouldn’t have even considered it if Joe wasn’t supportive of it.”

“I think it’s a good idea for the community,” Patemo said. “Eventually a lot of our branch campuses will have football, and I think more kids would be willing to stay four years, and it would help applications for admission.

“There are so many kids that really would like to play football and would like to have the Penn State name, and some of these (Division III) schools are so much more expensive than Penn State. It would be an opportunity, and there isn’t a prettier campus in the state than Altoona. The next logical step would be football”

But in a followup story by Rudel in the Mirror on April 9, 2011, then-Penn State Altoona CEO Meadors said he was initially pitched the idea by Sandusky:

“Jerry called me and asked if I would be interested in having a football team at Penn State-Altoona. I said ‘Sure, if we had a way to pay for it.’ He mentioned that he knew a gentleman who might be willing to provide the necessary funds. We visited with the gentleman, but he never committed the money, and a football-team project never got off the ground.”

In Rudel’s 1999 article, Sandusky confirmed that he had “spoken about it” with Paterno and that he would “be interested” in running the startup Penn State-affiliated program if the funds could be raised.

Sandusky has discussed the possibilities of football with Meadors several times and could conceivably envision himself becoming the head coach here.

“If it was possible (to have a program in Altoona), I’d be interested,” Sandusky said. “It would be nice. I think it’s a great idea for Penn State Altoona.”

Just three months later Paterno told Sandusky - as related by PSU VP Schultz to the State College Grand Jury - “it would be best that he make a coaching change.”

After that meeting, a Penn State Altoona football program startup was never discussed again publicly by Paterno, Sandusky or PSU Altoona officials.

At the time of the proposal, Penn State Altoona CEO Meadors told the Mirror in the original, Jan. 22, 1999, article that, “I’m concerned their (Paterno and Sandusky) scope is narrow. They’re mainly looking at Altoona, but it would have to be a much broader view than Altoona.

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Report: Sandusky in President’s Box 2 Mos. Ago

Former Penn State linebacker Brandon Short reported on ESPN Wednesday - via “two independent sources” cited by the ex-Nittany Lion linebacker - that Jerry Sandusky watched the Oct. 29, 2011, football game between Penn State and Illinois at Beaver Stadium from the luxury box of then-Penn State President Graham Spanier.

Rodney Erickson was at March 18, 2011 Penn State Board of Trustees Meeting

(Erickson at meeting where Short reported Trustees first told of Sandusky)

Excerpt of Short’s comments from ESPN’s Outside The Lines program today:

“Two independent sources at the (Penn State) university have confirmed to me that Jerry Sandusky watched the Illinois-Penn State game in the President’s suite with multiple members of the (Penn State) Board of Trustees.”

Short later affirmed to ESPN host Bob Ley that the game he was referencing was the Oct. 29, 2011, Penn State-Illinois game at Beaver Stadium. The Attorney General of Pennsylvania released the Grand Jury presentment detailing dozens of allegations against Sandusky involving the sexual abuse of children on Nov. 5, 2011, less than a week after the Penn State-Illinois game.


Further, Short reported that Spanier, who has since stepped down as PSU President, briefed members of the school’s Board of Trustees on the Grand Jury investigation of Sandusky in New York in March, 2011.

Spanier was contacted by the HARRISBURG PATRIOT-NEWS in March before the newspaper first broke the news of the Grand Jury investigation of Sandusky. Spanier, who was interviewed by the Grand Jury as part of the Sandusky investigation, declined comment to the newspaper at the time.

An official meeting of the Penn State Board of Trustees was held in New York City’s Helmsley Hotel on March 18, 2011.

According to the official minutes of that meeting posted on Penn State’s official website, current Penn State President Rodney Erickson was at the March, 18, 2011, meeting of the school’s Board of Trustees in New York - the same meeting Short reported that the Board was informed by Spanier of the Grand Jury investigation of Sandusky.

Last Saturday Erickson told the HARRISBURG PATRIOT-NEWS he was completely unaware of the Grand Jury investigation of Sandusky until the presentment was released to the public last November:

nearly all individuals at the university, including me, were not aware of any this until we read it in the grand jury presentment, so how would we have known?”

Three days later, yesterday, Erickson told the PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE that he first learned of the Grand Jury investigation of Sandusky by reading about it in the CENTRE DAILY TIMES. The newspaper, which serves the State College area, first reported of the Grand Jury investigation of Sandusky on March, 31, 2011.

Yesterday Erickson also told the Post-Gazette that then-Penn State President Graham Spanier briefed the Penn State Board of Trustees about a Grand Jury investigation of Sandusky at a meeting in “May or July.”

Sandusky or anything relating to a Grand Jury investigation involving a person associated with Penn State is not mentioned in the official minutes of the March, May and July official meetings of the Penn State Board of Trustees posted on the school’s official website.

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Video of Random Sideline Guy Frightening Saban

Looks like someone put Tom Al-Betar’s sideline pass to good use.

(A Star is Born)

Sadly though, I’ve been told Alabama football legend Harvey Updyke didn’t see the field last night.

Though if I had Mal Moore fetching me chicken fingers and spiked cheerwine all night, I’d wouldn’t bother to leave President Witt’s suite either.

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