If it seemed that the Penn State board of trustees was stunned into a collective fetal position when charges were filed against Jerry Sandusky and two of the university's administrators this month, there might be a simple answer for that.





View full size

Many of them were blindsided by the whole affair.

The board should have had fair warning that a grand jury probe had been churning away for months in Harrisburg through — at minimum —

in March.

But in the board room at the Nittany Lion Inn, it was apparently not a topic deemed ripe for polite conversation.

Or any conversation, for that matter.

Several trustees reached on the topic last week said the investigation was rarely, if ever, discussed at meetings this year, even after The Patriot-News published a March 24 story outlining much of the developing case against Sandusky, the former football defensive coordinator.

Even after a battery of high-level officials, including then-Penn State President

and then-football coach

, had testified before the grand jury.

“I’m not a good person to ask about this,” said Marianne Alexander, a board member from Maryland. She said she has been so overwhelmed by information in the last two weeks that she is no longer crystal clear on what she learned when.

But, she added, at the most, there might have been a brief, possibly even one-sentence notice from university general counsel Cynthia Baldwin that a grand jury probe was under way at some point this year.

“To my knowledge ... in the board there was no discussion of it,” Alexander said.

“We were told a grand jury investigation was going on. That’s it. That’s all we knew,” said Barron Hetherington, another trustee.

Joe Paterno fired by Penn State University Board of Trustees 37 Gallery: Joe Paterno fired by Penn State University Board of Trustees

Their recollection of events seem to jibe with comments that state Education Secretary Ron Tomalis, a Penn State trustee, made in an interview with Time magazine last week. It indicates that from Spanier’s office, details about the Sandusky probe were something to be discussed on a strict need-to-know basis.

Tomalis, who lives in Camp Hill, did not respond to requests for an interview for this story. But the Time interview contained this exchange:

Q: “Did you see the article in late March in the Harrisburg Patriot-News, where a reporter got ahold of a lot of grand jury details and pretty much laid out the Sandusky case?”

A: “I did see the reports in The Patriot-News.”

Q: “Was there any reaction to those reports?”

A: “Well, they were secret grand jury proceedings, so there wasn’t much that could be done because those were all private grand jury proceedings.”

Q: “But they were publicly discussed in late March.”

A: “Correct.”

Q: “Was there any planning for a course of action in the event that the attorney general would go public with the investigation? Were there any discussions about preparing for the worst?”

A: “Not that I was a part of. I don’t know if it was part of the discussion among [university President Graham] Spanier’s leadership, but not that I was a part of.”

At a news conference in State College on Friday, David Joyner, the acting athletic director who was a Penn State trustee until last week, also said that he learned about the grand jury probe through The Patriot-News’ coverage in March.

But he also said he didn’t know about the specifics of the probe until Nov. 5.

Joyner declined comment on whether he felt the Spanier administration should have discussed the allegations with the board sooner. He said he didn’t have enough information on the details of the earlier cases or the legal obligations the university faced in discussing them.

This month, the attorney general’s office charged Sandusky with sexually assaulting eight boys. Prosecutors said some assaults took place in the Penn State football locker room.

The board of trustees eventually did move decisively, firing Paterno and forcing the resignation of Spanier. The trustees announced the moves in a hastily arranged news conference around 10 p.m. on Nov. 9.

But that followed months without action, preparation or even discussion.

THEY HAD 'TIME TO PREPARE'

The trustees’ lack of preparation has exasperated some outside observers.

In some cases, it raised questions about whether a board that was largely seen as a privileged group of yes men for Spanier can take the steps needed to recover from the scandal.

Consider this blog post from Marc Brownstein, a Penn State alumnus who owns an advertising and public relations firm, the Brownstein Group in Philadelphia.

“The grand jury testimony took place months ago,” Brownstein wrote. “University officials had more than enough time to prepare for a media hailstorm. Yet when the news broke ... no one was in charge of Penn State’s message.

“Rumors swirled for days, whipping America into an angry and judgmental frenzy. That’s what happens when there is no spokesperson.”

Another outside observer said the Penn State case points up a major problem with university governance in general.

Governing boards like the trustees at Penn State have become cheerleaders of the universities instead of actual leaders.

“They are an adornment, they are a cheering section, they are intermediaries in dealing with the worlds of power and wealth, when needed,” said Stephen Balch, chairman of the National Association of Scholars, a group of higher-education professionals that works to improve the quality of colleges.

“They’re really not that important in governance, and presidents of universities usually take great pains to manage the information flow that goes to the boards,” Balch said.

He said one silver lining of the Penn State case could be forcing a fresh look at board/administration relationships.

“Universities do in fact have public responsibilities. ... Insider government, when it becomes complete, is never a good thing, and there’s too much of that in higher education today,” Balch said.

'SELF-DENIAL IS PRETTY EASY'

The board’s inaction during the investigation was no surprise to several observers of the university.

“When you have something that is as earth-shattering as a high official [under investigation], the board should have gone into executive session,” said one former trustee who asked not be identified because of ongoing work relationships with other board members.

“But this is the problem with [Spanier],” the former member said. “He had an executive committee that he did everything through. ... He would have those guys in his stadium box with him every time, and they did whatever he wanted.”

Going further, this ex-board member said the problems Penn State faces are in some ways the ultimate reflection of that leadership style, where too many board members were treated — and acted — like “potted plants.”

“The board’s job is provide guidance, provide feedback and collective judgment,” he said. “When you try to control everything and do everything with a just a few people, it’s a problem. Well, [Spanier’s] attempt to control everything has run out.”

Ronald Smith, a retired Penn State professor, published a book this year titled “Pay for Play,” a history of reform movements in college athletics. Smith said most university boards are comprised of a small power center in regular communication with the administration.

And beyond that core, there’s a general membership that is far less involved but wants to promote the school, Smith said.

At Penn State, until now, Smith said, that power center rested with board chairman Steve Garban, a former Nittany Lions football player who retired as the university’s senior vice president for finance and operations.

Despite the advance publicity given the probe in Harrisburg and State College, it is not hard for Smith to understand how a far-flung, volunteer board might have been lulled to sleep on the Sandusky probe, especially in the absence of routine updates from Spanier and company.

“We have had this Happy Valley image of wonder and purity, and nothing ever goes wrong,” Smith said. “So, to be in self-denial is pretty easy.”

Smith said that when he first learned of the allegations surrounding Sandusky in news reports, “I know I sort of denied that there was anything to this because I knew Jerry Sandusky, and I had a very high regard for him.”

Most Penn State board members refused to return messages for this story, as the university tries to regroup with a unified voice under newly appointed President Rodney Erickson.

Some referred a reporter to Garban or board vice chairman John Surma, saying they had promised to keep internal board deliberations confidential — a policy that even Gov. Tom Corbett has stuck to this month.

But attempts to reach Garban and Surma for this story went unanswered. Attempts to speak with Spanier and Baldwin about the degree to which they had briefed the board about the probe also were unsuccessful.

A CONSENSUS EMERGES

Some familiar with the board’s inner workings, however, contend it has become more proactive as the scandal has grown.

In the days after the charges were filed and the media firestorm began consuming Penn State’s reputation, those sources said board members like Surma, the CEO of U.S. Steel, as well as Corbett and Tomalis, began to fill the leadership vacuum.

Spanier did not help himself when, in keeping with past practice, a few board members appeared to have been notified that charges against then-Athletic Director Tim Curley and Penn State Vice President Gary Schultz were imminent. The vast majority of trustees were left in the dark until the charges were filed.

On Nov. 5, when Attorney General Linda Kelly released the indictments, some board members were told they should wait until Thursday — the regularly scheduled meeting date — to discuss the charges.

That didn’t sit well with everyone.

Others were put off by Spanier’s initial statement vowing his “unconditional support” for Curley and Schultz, who were charged with perjury and failing to report the possible abuse of a child.

A core group of trustees demanded and got an emergency Sunday night meeting within 24 hours, sources said.

It was at that session that the board began to question Garban’s leadership, and a faction began to coalesce around the need to take assertive actions.

It would take three more days to build a consensus.

But by late Nov. 9, a majority was built that could, for the first time in generations, override the express wishes of the beloved Paterno, Penn State’s head football coach since 1966.

Earlier that day, Paterno announced he would retire at the end of the season. He said the trustees shouldn’t waste any time debating his future. The trustees, however, decided that they had to fire Paterno that night. And they forced Spanier’s resignation as well.

Trustee Keith Eckel, in comments to a television station in northeastern Pennsylvania this week, argued the board did what it had to do.

“It’s the most stressful situation I have ever gone through as a board member,” Eckel, a farmer from Clarks Summit, told WNEP-TV. “It was very difficult for the trustees to wrestle with the concerns surrounding the lives of the alleged victims, to wrestle with the careers of individuals.”

Some, looking at the appointment of Rodney Erickson as president, have voiced surprise that the board isn’t doing more immediately to make a clean break from Spanier’s administration. Erickson had been Penn State’s vice president and provost since 1999.

But Eckel said it’s most important now to learn all the facts surrounding the Sandusky case, and the trustees have launched an investigation. The trustees tapped Tomalis and Kenneth Frazier, the CEO of Merck & Co. and a university trustee, to lead a probe of how Penn State handled the allegations of child sex abuse.

Plenty of outside investigations are under way.

In addition to the state attorney general’s criminal probe, the U.S. Department of Education is investigating to see if Penn State violated federal law by failing to report incidents of sexual abuse on campus.

The state Legislature has pledged to form a bipartisan panel to look at Penn State. U.S. Sen. Bob Casey Jr., D-Pa., wants hearings in the Senate.

On Friday, the NCAA announced it had launched an investigation of Penn State.

But this much we know already.

Whatever the Penn State board does in the foreseeable future, the eyes of the world will be watching.