Ending The Nittany Nightmare: Penn State Pre-Game Plea, An Open Letter To President Rodney Erickson
An Open Letter to Penn State University President Rodney Erickson
With much respect -Do what I say, and do it today.
Hire the best Public Relations firm in the country for PSU’s needs. I am redacting that recommendation for the publication of this open letter, but it is included in my email to you. Don’t spend the time or manpower to run through the approved vendor lists and bid it out- not that kind of gig. The Board of Trustees can WebEx if necessary and this is the kind of emergency proxy was invented for.
Once retained, have the agency facilitate meetings through their agents with Bill Parcells and Bill Cowher immediately. Specify no leaks to the press until after they occur and by mutual agreement. Cowher may be the low hanging fruit on this one, he is returning to CBS next year.
If neither is interested in a head coach commitment of an 8-1 Big Ten team, follow their recommendations about who to contact next and ask them; beg if necessary, if they would be willing to consider a consulting gig for the recruitment process. Urban Myer is a fine coach and leader, but regardless of who PSU ultimately chooses, efforts to rebuild the PSU brand must start with a nationally recognizable face of a trusted and respected winner, like yesterday.
Champions attract champions and without that, it is like asking collegiate coaching candidates to walk into the lion’s den (pun intended) wearing a raw steak necklace. You will not even get one to tour Lasche, trust me on this.
This strategy would likely also include a public facing spokesperson effort, and worth every penny if that is all you can get a commitment for from either coach.
Pay them to sit in the lobby. Pay them to ride the elevator a few times, but get them on grounds. Pay them to have a motivational meeting with the team.
If you have some strong players they could attach to quickly and produce an “I remember when I was a young fig on the tree” memory synapses, it couldn’t hurt.
Instruct all team members never to roll the eyes should the phrase “When I was your age we played ball with pads made of glass and never wore cleats in the snow”; if they told me that I would believe it.
This is the kind of benchmarking that will revitalize wilting spirits of a young athlete, and the parents with the trembling hand over the eject button.
Half the free world is digging old milk cartons out of the recyclables to see if they recognize any kids they may have seen with Sandusky or on the sidelines of a game- they need a new visual association.
As you already know, if you are lucky enough to get this far, they will advise you to release every staffer from the interim athletic director to the water boys that were ever part of Paterno’s camp or rolled up his pants before the game. Do it.
This might be a good time to allow a try before they buy scenario if either are willing, as “guest coaches” to finish the season.
While I am at it, I might suggest a reality miniseries of the process- I know some folks from HBO familiar with the Hard Knocks of football, I would be glad to make a connection.
Donate those proceeds to Coach Parcells or Coach Cowher’s disadvantaged children’s charity of choice which is vetted in advance by a specially appointed member chosen by the new Ethics officer.
Point is, you need immediate public support and that will require immediate damage control or your Titanic does not even have the measly lifeboat option.
The public perception is that there is more to this horror movie after the commercial, and the commercials are disappearing as well.
Your job is to employ the resources that can change the channel when the public is not looking, and forget what they were watching in favor of the new programming, which includes sponsors aligned with that audience.
It is about as transparent of a plan as I can offer- with hope and promise to the innocent victims of this tragedy.
Related Posts
Related Posts:
873 Comments
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI
@ A Texas Grandfather says:
December 31, 2011 at 5:54 pm
You are so thoughtful!!!! Absolutely not my friend. I know you heart <3. I thought more about what you said after I posted and realized it's certainly not impossible.
I always value your insight ATG.
Happy 2012! I think I brought in the New Year 5 lbs heavier
I have a membership to ancestry.com. I’ll give it a go and see if there are any census records of some kind, available. Anyone know Arthur and (can’t think of her name) his mother’s middle names?
Thanks for the offer Lizzy. I have never eaten homemade crackers. I’ll bet they are a lot better than those purchased in a store.
Also thanks for the kind words. We have all become a family group that looks for ways to help those who often cannot speak for themselves. Each of us have unique attributes that we share and through them we can help make our world a better place. We are tasked by GOD to learn to love our neighbor. In our modern world the term neighbor has to be extended to all of those that we reach on the internet as well as those that live in our own physical communities.
I have done an extensive amount of work in the state of Pennisylvania. It is a beautiful state. The closest I ever came to State College is the town of Coshocton on the West and traveling down highway 16 from New York on the East.
http://thepanasikreport.wordpress.com/2010/01/26/whats-public-and-private-in-trinity/
Art Sandusky’s mother is Evelyn Mae Lee, daughter of Earl Ray and Blanche A (Espey) Lee, taken from her brother’s obit (previously posted by Beejay) Kenneth E Lee. I have to say it was interesting that Kenneth had a brother named Robert E Lee, but what else I notice is that someone named William E Porter submitted the information.
http://www.pa-roots.org/data/read.php?820,374826,374826#msg-374826
I found these links re: the Lee’s from Ireland that settled in what was Virginia, and later became Washington PA if I understand the history correctly.
Robert Lee, a native of Ireland, immigrated to America and settled in
Cross Creek, Washington Co., Pa.
His children were:
HUGH LEE; b. Ireland; d. ca 1815; bur: old burying ground at Cross Creek;
m. MARY ELLIOTT, Ireland; d. ca 1815; bur: old burying ground at Cross
Creek.
http://newsarch.rootsweb.com/th/read/PAWASHIN/1999-08/0934075118
The first of this branch of the Lee family was Hugh Lee, who came from Ireland to America in 1789, and they first settled in the vicinity of Canonsburg.
http://www.onlinebiographies.info/pa/wash/lee-h-sr.htm
Their oldest daughter, Jane, married Major William Lee, and a son of this union, Hugh Lee, married Marion Stockton, a daughter of the Rev. Mr. John Stockton. This is the only instance the writer knows where the blood of my father’s family married into the blood of my mother’s family.
Hugh Lee, a grandson of Elizabeth Scott-Craig, a sister of my grandmother, Margaret Ann Scott-Smith, married Marion Stockton, a daughter of the Rev. John Stockton, who was a brother of Margaret Stockton-Cotton, my mother’s great grandmother. Many of the Craigs and Lees are still living in Washington County, Pennsylvania.
http://www.artglenn.com/family/Hamilton/HAMILTON.html
This family would seem to be the ancestors of the Lee’s of Washington, PA. The more famous Lee’s seem to come from England, though disputed as to whether it is Shropshire or Worchester.
The Lee family of the United States is a historically significant Virginia and Maryland political family, whose many prominent members are known for their accomplishments in politics and the military. Through the past few hundred years it was believed that Colonel Richard Lee of Virginia descended from the Lee family of Coton Hall, Alveley in the county of Shropshire, England. But in 1987 this ancestral line was challenged by a hypothesis that Richard Lee, son of a Worcester clothier, was the Virginian Colonel.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_family
Anyway, no Blink biscuits, but I’m thinking if the Irish Lee’s and the English Lee’s are related, we might have to go back to the mother country era to find out. FWIW.
I meant to add to my previous post the significance of William Porter is that he is from another Irish family that settled in now Washington County, PA.
Ragdoll
My daughter also has a subscription to ancestry.com. You probably have used the program to reach back to the British isles and Europe to find information. She does this too.
erose may be on to something with her research about the Lee family connections. Cannonsburg is about ten miles North of Washington. Maybe you could do some research with ancestry.com on the Lee family.
Lizzy
I need to correct the name of the town in my post to you. The closest I have been to State College is Du Bois, not Coshocton. Memory isn’t what it used to be. Coshocton is in the State of Ohio.
erose
Many of the old line families like the Lee family in Virginia are of English orgin. The settlement at Jamestown, Virginia was a group sponsored by King James of England. The wife of one of the origial settlers at Jamestown was the daughter of my ancestors on the paternal side of my family. It was almost fifty years later that a male arrived in Virginia.
Did a branch of the same Lee family also migrate to Western Pennsylvania? Very possible. One would need to trace the Lee family from England to the colonies and to the locations where they settled. The US census records are not too helpful from the early 19th century, so they may not contain anything of value.
One more thing we need to consider. If the Lee family that settled at Cannonsburg came from Ireland, there is the possibility that they arrived as indentured servants sponsored by someone in Pennsylvania. Indentured servants usually had a contract for a period of seven years to pay for their transportation to America.
In a nutshell, this is what Gricar was up against. I’m going to guess that Gricar agreed with Schreffler but as Schreffler states, Gricar’s hands were tied due to the results of the state welfare investigation.
Madeira worked in the DA’s office under Gricar, and was elected DA after Gricar was set to retire. Madeira’s wife was related to one of the adopted Sandusky children. I would think Sandusky’s crimes were discussed by these two men, but maybe because of the familial relationship Gricar kept his information to himself.
The other thing is the position the state welfare agency took on all of this. Were they incompetent, or were they complicit, because Sandusky aka TSM was such a help to them, or was there something more sinister than that?
Retired detective describes 1998 Sandusky investigation
Believed charges warranted in case
Mr. Schreffler speculates that the district attorney declined to press charges because the state Department of Public Welfare didn’t indicate a charge of abuse, which would have made the prosecution’s case even more difficult.
“It’d be a little hard for them to prosecute, when you have the state saying there wasn’t any abuse.”
Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11352/1197680-454.stm#ixzz1iHUkMJTR
erose-
Madeira did not work for Gricar. He worked for the AG office as a prosecutor, and was working with Gricar et al as a local agency in the Trujillo drug case, iirc, those indictments and arrests came late Fall 2004 and into January 2005. Corbett’s office was actually prosecuting those cases.
In fact, the current Centre County DA, Stacey Miller Parks, who beat Madeira in the last election, was a defense atty for one of the suspects in that case.
Madeira was put in place as the acting Centre County DA when Gricar disappeared, which I did not understand as Smith was second in command, but whatevs.
Madeira appeared in the recent Dateline about a possible connection, and he was emphatic there was none, and that if Gricar felt there was probable cause to indict Sandusky he would have. He did not disclose his relation to Sandusky which struck me as odd.
Did you know Madeira also gave Lee ARD for the charges involving juveniles?
As usual, you hit on a topic worthy of exploration, imo.
B
Why does Nittany Insurance Co., the guys on the hook for the Penn State denial and enabling of Sandusky, have a Vermont law firm as agent of record? Schultz and Anderson are listed as directors.
snip>
Penn State may face unlimited liability in civil litigation because it may not be able to invoke sovereign immunity, which protects state entities and employees from tort claims and imposes limits on liabilities, experts say.
Penn State has a captive insurer, Nittany Insurance Co., that it formed in Vermont in 1993. Coverage provided by the captive includes general and professional liability, according to Penn State’s website.
http://www.businessinsurance.com/article/20120101/NEWS06/301019984?tags=%7C338%7C75%7C302
Nittany Insurance Company Corporate Search
Directors are Gary Schultz and Allan Anderson
We know Schultz, and Anderson is the VP and CEO of the Hershey Medical Center
http://cgi3.sec.state.vt.us/cgi-shl/nhayer.exe?corpbrow?form_id=corpname?corpnumb=V525200
HARRISBURG, Pa., Nov. 2 /PRNewswire/ — Capital Blue Cross and Penn State’s Milton S. Hershey Medical Center have announced an agreement to jointly provide administrative support and managed care consulting services to primary care practices.
These services will be provided through a new organization called Pennsylvania Medical Management, Inc. that is jointly owned by Penn State and Capital Blue Cross. The new entity will lease space for its first client, a physician practice site in State College, but will consider ownership of practice facilities in the future. It is envisioned that the new company will provide facilities and services for other physician practices in central Pennsylvania and the Lehigh Valley, including some independently practicing physicians.
“We are pleased to enter into this joint ownership agreement with Capital Blue Cross,” said Allan C. Anderson, vice president and chief operating officer for Hershey Medical Center.
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/CAPITAL+BLUE+CROSS+AND+HERSHEY+MEDICAL+CENTER+ENTER+INTO+JOINT+VENTURE-a015883579
erose got a blink biscuit for this one. Sorry I had to hold until further research and confirmations,
but when I am about to pose a legit question about a person’s intentions, I have to be sure.
I am sure that I want to know if the reason Schultz came back to PSU after his gj testimony was to get his legal bills paid, and avoid civil judgement- that is flat out fraud folks, if it can be proven.
http://blinkoncrime.com/2012/01/02/the-nittany-nightmare-continues-more-financial-incest-at-psu-accused-perjuror-gary-schultz-head-of-nittany-insurance-pays-first-victim-payout-and-his-lawyers/
B
Correction: Anderson was then CEO of Hershey Medical Center
Harold L Paz is the current CEO
http://pennstatehershey.org/web/guest/home/aboutus/leadership/paz
GAADS another correction, Art Sandusky’s wife, Jerry Sandusky’s mother.
erose says:
January 1, 2012 at 5:57 pm
Art Sandusky’s mother is Evelyn Mae Lee
I don’t know if we’re going to actually explore this, talk about directly or not. So I was trying to disguise the persons in question. But my language got all convoluted. So, here it is straight-up:
I do believe that Jer could have the facial features of Arthur, but Arthur’s father (Jer’s paternal grandfather–was he alive in Jan, 1944?) could actually be Jer’s bio-dad. (Not that he is, you understand).
Furthermore, if think Jer could have the facial features of Arthur, but one of his paternal uncles could, alternatively, be his bio-dad.
In addition, though statistically very improbable, we know that there are “look-alikes” who share no known genetic material.
We need a geneticist’s help. Preferably, 3 of them. So we can choose the expert opinion we like best!
You can google “genetic transmission of facial features” for study.
beejay- without a verifiable birth cert, no way to know-
I personally do not believe in any facial characteristic study that cannot be confirmed via DNA, lol, I am a give me the science only gal when it comes to that.
I am ok at the posturing of the questions, but I do wish to tread lightly on any theories or conclusions one cannot verify. Fact is, I have had experience with a close friend whose parents chose not to tell him he was adopted until he had a medical reason for them to. I could see that very situation, even more so, taking place in the 40′s.
I do not recommend that, btw, if anyone were ever to contemplate such a thing.
A study of Art’s military service record and stationing would be most valuable.
B
erose- I had to read that 3x to grasp, sorry, kids home for two straight weeks ends with Mom’s wicked cold as is tradition, lol.
I/we need to drill that down a bit further, you see the obvious conflict there?
B
It’s me, not you. I’ve had family coming and going for two straight weeks, and yesterday was nothing but sloppy posting for me, sorry. Thanks for setting me straight on Madeira. I get it now.
Blink says:
January 2, 2012 at 12:30 pm
Nope, I have never seen a sloppy post from you.
B
Blink is correct about her take on adoptions being kept secret during the 1940′s. Adopted children of that era often did not learn of their adoption until they were adults. Families who adopted did not want the children to know that the parents were not their biological parents.
Oye vey
http://blinkoncrime.com/2012/01/02/the-nittany-nightmare-continues-more-financial-incest-at-psu-accused-perjuror-gary-schultz-head-of-nittany-insurance-pays-first-victim-payout-and-his-lawyers/
The Corporation for Penn State
Included are the three for profit subsidiaries and affiliates including The Nittany Insurance Company. The purpose of which is to provide access to the reinsurance market.
The corporation has two principal purposes, the second of which is equally interesting as the first, as would be a report on the status of the 2011 board of directors.
http://www.psu.edu/trustees/pdf/march2011agendaappendix3.pdf
Gonna copy this here erose:
http://blinkoncrime.com/2012/01/02/the-nittany-nightmare-continues-more-financial-incest-at-psu-accused-perjuror-gary-schultz-head-of-nittany-insurance-pays-first-victim-payout-and-his-lawyers/
B
Suppose there is any New Business on the URMIA’s agenda? I know this is a dry read, but it’s all going to come down to insurance and maybe prison time.
See page 2 for The Nittany Insurance Company and the meaning of “captive.”
http://www.uscpa.org/uploads/Captives_Not_Just_for_Hard_Insurance_Markets_Anymore.pdf
MEET URMIA’S NEW PRESIDENT AND OFFICERS FOR 2011-2012
Bloomington, IN – The University Risk Management and Insurance Association (URMIA), the expert resource for risk management in higher education, has inducted a new president and officers for 2011-2012. Steve Bryant, managing director of risk management at Texas Tech University System, took office as URMIA’s president at the 42nd Annual Conference in Portland, Oregon, on September 13. Gary W. Langsdale, university risk officer at Pennsylvania State University, accepted the position of URMIA president-elect. At the conference, over 570 representatives of higher education institutions and insurance organizations joined to discuss the latest information, skills, and resources available for higher education risk managers and insurance providers.
http://my.urmia.org/events/newsreleases/2011newsreleases/board2011/
The Nittany Lions football team isn’t the only Pennsylvania State University team in Beaver Stadium on game days.
You’ll find Penn State Risk Officer Gary W. Langsdale there as well, and he won’t be there just to watch the game and he won’t be there alone. He’s there with university police, emergency medical services and fire personnel and athletic department personnel, making sure that the game and everything surrounding the game in University Park, Pa., goes off without a hitch. If there is a hitch, they make sure it’s dealt with quickly.
“Everyone is concerned about the university’s reputation and rightly so, because it’s all a matter of public perception,” said Mr. Langsdale. “What is Penn State compared to other universities? It’s important that people do the right thing so we don’t land on the front page of the paper in the wrong way.
http://cbweb.cr.atl.publicus.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=9999100027493
@ A Texas Grandfather says:
January 1, 2012 at 10:44 pm
Copy that ATG. Just renewed my subscripty. It’s completely international now. Just for chits and giggles, I’ll browse around for a paper trail, so to speak. I enjoy the research (will also look into Art’s military docs, if possible).
Awesome new post B and erose. Whodda thunk an insurance company would have umbrella coverage for scandal or criminal acts (child rape to be more specific). PSU et al felt they needed it…..why????? At least that’s how I perceived it. Even sadder….a victim accepted the payout? I need to re-read and will!
The record scratch was perfect detailing.
@ A Texas Grandfather says:
January 1, 2012 at 10:44 pm
Copy that ATG. Just renewed my subscripty. It’s completely international now. Just for chits and giggles, I’ll browse around for a paper trail, so to speak. I enjoy the research (will also look into Art’s military docs, if possible).
Awesome new post B and erose. Whodda thunk an insurance company would have umbrella coverage for scandal or criminal acts (child rape to be more specific). PSU et al felt they needed it…..why????? At least that’s how I perceived it. Even sadder….a victim accepted the payout? I need to re-read and will!
The record scratch was perfect detailing (big LOL)
If the records of the payout have been sealed, we may never know which victim did this and the information may be forever kept from the criminal case.
While I believe the victims should be compensated, the attorneys should not have allowed the sealing of records. Well, on second thought, maybe they didn’t, the judge had to sign the order. He or she may have agreed with the defense. If so, IMO this is exactly how some of the corruption of the legal system occurs.
Ragdoll
You raise a very valid question about the the insurance for scandal and criminal acts. We must remember that this was going on for a period of thirty years or more. The parties involved may have become concerned about the monetary costs if they were discovered and decided to protect themselves with insurance. However, it seems strange that this was extended to other schools. Maybe they wanted to spread the risk and hold down costs.
This also brings up the question of why would other schools be so interested in such insurance? Maybe they have some questionable dirt in their collective closets as well.
I wonder if the University of Virginia has coverage for this with the same insurer?