Wounded lions : Joe Paterno, Jerry Sandusky, and the crises in Penn State athletics / Ronald A. Smith.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Smith, Ronald A. (Ronald Austin), 1936- author.

Series:

Sport and society

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Pennsylvania State University--Sports.

Pennsylvania State University.

Pennsylvania State University--Football.

Paterno, Joe, 1926-2012.

Paterno, Joe.

Sandusky, Jerry.

Pennsylvania State University--Sports--Administration.

College sports--Corrupt practices--Pennsylvania--University Park.

College sports.

College sports--Corrupt practices.

Football.

Sports.

Sports administration.

Administration.

Pennsylvania--University Park.

Physical Description:

x, 259 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Urbana : University of Illinois Press, [2016]

Summary:

The Jerry Sandusky child molestation case stunned the nation. Sport historian and longtime Penn State professor Ronald A. Smith heavily draws from university archives to answer the How? and Why? at the heart of the scandal. The Sandusky case was far from the first example of illegal behavior related to the football program or the university's attempts to suppress news of it. Decades of infighting among administrators, alumni, trustees, faculty, and coaches established policies intended to protect the university, and the football team considered synonymous with its name, at all costs. Smith names names to show how abuses of power warped the "Penn State Way" with hires like women's basketball coach Rene Portland, who allegedly practiced sexual bias against players for decades. Smith also details a system that concealed Sandusky's horrific acts just as deftly as it whitewashed years of rules violations, coaching malfeasance, and player crime while sainted coach Joe Paterno set records and raised hundreds of millions of dollars for the university. Book jacket.

Contents:

1 Life in Happy Valley: The Name and the Paterno Impact 1

2 Penn State Presidents: Cheerleading the Teams to Victory 12

3 A Joe Paterno-Jerry Sandusky Connection: A Look at Penn State Football Coaches and Assistant Coaches 24

4 Alumni and Taking Control of Penn State Athletics 35

5 Hugo Bezdek's Saga-Alumni, Trustees, and Presidents 43

6 The Great Experiment That Failed: Alumnus Casey Jones, President Hetzel, and Coach Bob Higgins 53

7 The Ernie McCoy-Rip Engle Era and the Beginning of the Grand Experiment in College Football 64

8 The Joe Paterno, Steve Garban, John Oswald Coup d'État 75

9 President Bryce Jordan and Penn State's Entry into the Big Ten 89

10 The Image of Joe Paterno's Grand Experiment 100

11 Shaping Reality: Saving Joe Paterno's Legacy 112

12 Insularity, The Second Mile, and Sandusky's On-Campus Incidents 127

13 Rene Portland and the Culture of Athletic Silence 140

14 The Board of Trustees, Insularity, and Athletic Administration 150

15 Paterno, Spanier, Schultz, Curley, and the Penn State Pandora's Box 161

16 From the Grand Jury to Beyond the NCAA Consent Decree 173.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780252040016

0252040015

9780252081491

0252081498

OCLC:

922970586

Publisher Number:

40025793067