Wow. Outside the Lines is showing the reason why you never heard anything bad coming out of Penn State - Paterno had enough power to make sure nothing ever came out.
In April 2007, as many as two dozen football players forced their way into a party at an off-campus apartment and assaulted several students at the party, including Britt's son, Jack, who was severely beaten. Six players faced criminal charges as a result of the brawl. In the end, many of the charges against the players were dismissed, and two players pleaded guilty to misdemeanor offenses.
In the middle of the school's internal investigation, Triponey said Spanier ordered her to meet with Paterno. Triponey said she had repeatedly refused to discuss cases with Paterno because she didn't want to compromise her impartiality.
"Many times he tried to insist upon a meeting with me, asked others to have meetings with me. Sent his wife (Sue) one time. In the middle of cases. This became a bone of contention.""The coach was literally telling his players that they couldn't cooperate with judicial affairs or they would get kicked off the team. So we were going nowhere in getting to the bottom of things," Triponey said. "I said to the coach, 'This would be so much easier if you would tell your players just to tell the truth.' He was livid, and the message to me was, 'I can't do that. They have to play for me and I can't ask them to rat on each other.' The president also chimed in and said, 'Vicky, the coach is right. We can't expect the players to tell the truth.' So that's the environment that was underlying this whole debate about who's in charge."
Football won. "The sanctions that were issued which were nowhere near being in line what the code required for the severity of the offenses."Paterno would often scream and yell at college officials, etc.
