Tom Corbett and The Second Mile
Mom: "It's really not fair to the kids, everyone involved is either dead or in jail."
Dad: "Or Governor."
Even though the NCAA is a joke, even though I kind of think the Freeh Report is a conspiracy on par with the JFK assassination, even though I had a very deep affection for Joe Paterno's curmudgeoness, despite all of those things I think the sanctions that the NCAA handed down were fine. They certainly weren't fair, every Division 3 college has 20 different conspiracies that someone is withholding to save face. I have worked for two different colleges and I have heard some shit that if Joe Paterno was involved would blow up the University System as we know it. But whatever it's like Kima said in The Wire "It's your turn." Any argument that Penn Staters could have made (and there are legitimate ones) went out the window the second that the new school president signed off on the penalties. Some things are bigger than bowl games.
No bowls for Penn State for 4 years? Why punish the Outback Bowl so harshly?
— SportsPickle (@sportspickle) July 23, 2012
OK, put all that to bed now, there is nothing I could do about it even if I wanted to and I don't. But this fucking Tom Corbett guy what the fuck is his problem? (I have tried writing intelligently about this but I can't, it's impossible, I have Tom Corbett is the worst OCD. Come on--Please, stop talking about Joe Paterno and start talking about this guy.)
1977: Jerry Sandusky helps to found The Second Mile, a children's charity.
1995: Tom Corbett was appointed by Gov. Tom Ridge as acting Attorney General for the State of Pennsylvania. A condition of his appointment was that he could not run for reelection in 1996 which is weird but apparently fairly common (wiki'd). This is important because, to be fair, he could not have been in office for the 1998 charge on Sandusky.
1998: Jerry Sandusky is accused of child molestation for the first time and it is investigated by University Police but no charges were filed despite Sandusky admitting he bear-hugged a boy in the shower.
1999: Sandusky "retires" as Defensive Coordinator of Penn State. (Note: I remember how confused everyone was by this decision as it was common knowledge that Sandusky was next in line for Joe's job.) He maintains his University Status and is allowed on campus with The Second Mile kids.
2004: Tom Corbett is now elected as the Pennsylvania DA
2008: Corbett begins the 2nd investigation of Sandusky, Sandusky informs the Second Mile that he is being investigated.
2009: The Sandusky Grand Jury begins hearing testimony.
2010: Tom Corbett begins his gubernatorial campaign. This is the fucked up part. Corbett accepts a $25,000 dollar donation from The Second Mile. Corbett accepts thousands of dollars of donations from Second Mile board members. The Second Mile board chairman throws a fund raiser for Tom Corbett at his house.
Dramatization of what happened when someone found this out:
That Person: "So Tom, wasn't it a little dicked up that you took money from the organization that you were investigating at the time?"
Tom Corbett: "UH, NO. Because...no."
That Person: "Could you expand on that?"
Tom Corbett: "They would have figured it out"
That Person: "The people who already knew that you were investigating them would have found out that they were being investigated? "
Tom Corbett: "Yeah."
2011: Now Governor Corbett releases 3 Million dollars (which again, to be fair, was initially approved by Rendell) to the charity to begin construction of The Second Mile Center for Excellence, basically a gymnasium/dormitory/possible rape dungeon. From what I have read Corbett was completely within his rights to withhold this money and actually did for a short period of time.
For a fiscal conservative this guy seems to be pretty bad with money. He had a sure fire way out of spending 3 million dollars so he could look at it or whatever people do with their money and he didn't take it (25,000 reasons this makes sense). Instead he gave the money to an organization with an obvious lack of institutional control who enabled a sexual predator just like a certain state-run university.
In retrospect it is surreal what the wrongdoings of one man can do to a community, a college, a state. If one year ago someone could have predicted the downfall of Joe Paterno, the most powerful man in the state of Pennsylvania, that person would have been Tom Corbett. Maybe it is time we brought down the 2nd most powerful man in the state.
