https://news.psu.edu/story/150954/2...ort-board-trustees-concerning-nov-9-decisions is hosted on the official web site of the Pennsylvania State University.
Report of the Board of Trustees concerning Nov. 9 decisions
March 12, 2012
"While Coach Paterno did his legal duty by reporting that information the next day, Sunday, March 3, to his immediate superior, the then Penn State Athletic Director Tim Curley, the Board reasonably inferred that he did not call police. We determined that his decision to do his minimum legal duty and not to do more to follow up constituted a failure of leadership by Coach Paterno.
The Board spent hours on conference calls between Saturday, Nov. 5, and Tuesday, Nov. 8, discussing appropriate action and our fiduciary responsibility as the Trustees. On Wednesday evening, Nov. 9, we met in person in State College. At about 9 pm, we unanimously made the difficult decision that Coach Paterno’s failure of leadership required his removal as football coach."
Note that the Board, as constituted in March 2012, used the phrase "failure of leadership" twice. Here is what Keith Masser, who was a party to the statement shown above, said during his sworn deposition in Corman & McCord versus NCAA and Penn State (Nov. 24 2014)—a very different story told under oath than the one he and his fellow Board members told while not under oath.
From pages 54 and 55 of this deposition (answers are Masser's):
17 Q. Was that decision to remove Coach Paterno a
18 challenging decision for you?
19 A. Personally?
20 Q. Yes.
21 A. It was.
22 Q. Did you ultimately vote in favor of removing
23 Coach Paterno from his duties?
24 A. I did.
25 Q. And on what basis?
MR. SCOTT: I'm not going to let him
2 answer that question. It's so far afield from
3 anything that has anything to do with this case.
4 MS. GRAGERT: Understood. Let me just ask
5 a few more questions about this.
6 BY MS. GRAGERT:
7 Q. At that point there hadn't been any
8 investigation -- the Freeh firm had not yet been
9 hired to conduct investigations, is that right?
10 A. Correct.
11 Q. Do you know if anyone had interviewed Coach
12 Paterno prior to that decision being made?
13 A. The decision to remove Coach Paterno had
14 nothing to do with what he had known, what he hadn't
15 done. It was based upon the distraction of having
16 him on the sidelines would have caused the
17 University and the harm to the current football
18 team. It had nothing to do with what Coach Paterno
19 had done or hadn't done.
20 Q. Did you believe that the Board had enough
21 information at that point in time to make the
22 decision it made?
23 A. Enough information that -- it was 32 members on
24 our board. Our Board is made up of members from
25 various modes of entry. The Board members are a
1 diverse group of individuals, and the decision was
2 made in unanimity.
3 Q. You don't believe that that decision
4 constituted a rush to judgment, do you?
5 MR. SCOTT: Objection.
6 A. I don't like the way you asked the question.
7 You're saying what I believe what --
8 BY MS. GRAGERT:
9 Q. Let me ask it this way.
10 A. We made a decision that we had to make. The
11 University made a decision.
"… the decision was made in unanimity" means that yes, the alumni Trustees who were subsequently voted out by the alumni did indeed support the Board's actions in November 2011 and cannot complain that the alumni did not give them at least the same level of "due process" they gave Paterno—the alumni gave them a lot more because they all had a chance to tell their sides of the story, which Paterno did not receive—but the bottom line is that Masser made it clear that the decision "had nothing to do with what Coach Paterno had done or hadn't done" which means he was fired for public relations reasons and not for "failure of leadership."
Next we have the deposition (Dec 15 2014) of Kenneth Frazier who also was a Board member in March 2012. Starting on page 15, answers are by Frazier
24 Q. Were you in favor of the decision
25 not to allow Coach Paterno to coach out the
1 rest of the season.
2 A. Ultimately, I was in favor of
3 that.
4 Q. Initially, did you have some
5 reservations?
6 A. I did.
7 Q. Just explain your thought process
8 and how you became in favor of that decision.
9 A. Just as I said in the case of
10 Mr. Curly, my initial feeling was, when I
11 first heard about this, that the facts had
12 not been established and we needed to be
13 careful to make sure we understood the facts.
14 As I was in -- in that 48-hour time period
15 read the grand jury presentment, I reached
16 the conclusion that given what had become
17 public about the issues leading up to the
18 presentment and given what was said in the
19 presentment itself about Coach Paterno's
20 testimony and about what the graduate student
21 said to Coach Paterno, I felt that it would
22 not send the right message if Coach Paterno
23 was able to lead the football team out onto
24 the field of play under those circumstances.
25 So I didn't change my mind on the
1 question of whether we had established all
2 the key facts that related to Coach Paterno's
3 involvement and/or responsibility. But I had
4 reached the conclusion that, from the
5 standpoint of what the University's values
6 would be interpreted to be by the broader
7 public, that what was known was sufficiently
8 serious as it relates to child sexual abuse
9 that it would send the wrong message about
10 our values as a University if Coach Paterno
11 were allowed to coach as though none of this
12 had ever happened.
Nothing here about "failure of leadership," is there? This comes across as "We fired Paterno solely for public relations reasons."
As shown by the minutes of the March 16 2012 Board meeting, the following Trustees were active members of the Board at the time and were therefore parties to the statement that Paterno had been fired for "failure of leadership."
Peetz (chairman), Masser (vice chairman), Alexander, Allan, Dambly, Deviney, DiBerardinis, Eckel, Erickson, Garban, Greig, Hayes, Hetherington, Hintz, Huber, Jones, Khoury, Myers, Riley, Shaffer, Silvis, Strumpf, Suhey, Surma and Tomalis. While most of these Trustees did not actually author the dishonest statement[1] "…we unanimously made the difficult decision that Coach Paterno’s failure of leadership required his removal as football coach," they tolerated it by failing to contradict it when it was published. The name of the honorable exception who, by subsequently resigning and making his reasons known, did not "tolerate those who do," has been removed from the list.
In addition, the minutes of the November 11 2011 meeting show that the statement "…we unanimously made the difficult decision that Coach Paterno’s failure of leadership required his removal as football coach" was made on behalf of the following active Board members (and others who were absent from this meeting): Garban (chairman), Surma (vice chairman), Alexander, Allan, Arnelle, Broadhurst, Corbett, Dambly, Deviney, DiBerardinis, Eckel, Erickson, Frazier, Greig, Hayes, Hetherington, Hintz, Jones, Joyner, Khoury, Lubert, Masser, Myers, Peetz, Riley, Shaffer, Silvis, Strumpf, Suhey, Surma, and Tomalis; Governor's Representative Branstetter. The name of the sole honorable exception who distanced himself from the Board's actions by resigning, and then joining the lawsuit against the NCAA's sanctions on Penn State, has been omitted from this list.
As shown by https://trustees.psu.edu/selection.html#current, Masser, Dambly, and Lubert are current (September 2019) members of the Board which has so far taken no action on repudiating the Freeh Report, apologizing for the circumstances of Paterno's dismissal, or returning the Paterno statue to campus.
[1] The identity or identities of the actual author(s) is unknown.
Report of the Board of Trustees concerning Nov. 9 decisions
March 12, 2012
"While Coach Paterno did his legal duty by reporting that information the next day, Sunday, March 3, to his immediate superior, the then Penn State Athletic Director Tim Curley, the Board reasonably inferred that he did not call police. We determined that his decision to do his minimum legal duty and not to do more to follow up constituted a failure of leadership by Coach Paterno.
The Board spent hours on conference calls between Saturday, Nov. 5, and Tuesday, Nov. 8, discussing appropriate action and our fiduciary responsibility as the Trustees. On Wednesday evening, Nov. 9, we met in person in State College. At about 9 pm, we unanimously made the difficult decision that Coach Paterno’s failure of leadership required his removal as football coach."
Note that the Board, as constituted in March 2012, used the phrase "failure of leadership" twice. Here is what Keith Masser, who was a party to the statement shown above, said during his sworn deposition in Corman & McCord versus NCAA and Penn State (Nov. 24 2014)—a very different story told under oath than the one he and his fellow Board members told while not under oath.
From pages 54 and 55 of this deposition (answers are Masser's):
17 Q. Was that decision to remove Coach Paterno a
18 challenging decision for you?
19 A. Personally?
20 Q. Yes.
21 A. It was.
22 Q. Did you ultimately vote in favor of removing
23 Coach Paterno from his duties?
24 A. I did.
25 Q. And on what basis?
MR. SCOTT: I'm not going to let him
2 answer that question. It's so far afield from
3 anything that has anything to do with this case.
4 MS. GRAGERT: Understood. Let me just ask
5 a few more questions about this.
6 BY MS. GRAGERT:
7 Q. At that point there hadn't been any
8 investigation -- the Freeh firm had not yet been
9 hired to conduct investigations, is that right?
10 A. Correct.
11 Q. Do you know if anyone had interviewed Coach
12 Paterno prior to that decision being made?
13 A. The decision to remove Coach Paterno had
14 nothing to do with what he had known, what he hadn't
15 done. It was based upon the distraction of having
16 him on the sidelines would have caused the
17 University and the harm to the current football
18 team. It had nothing to do with what Coach Paterno
19 had done or hadn't done.
20 Q. Did you believe that the Board had enough
21 information at that point in time to make the
22 decision it made?
23 A. Enough information that -- it was 32 members on
24 our board. Our Board is made up of members from
25 various modes of entry. The Board members are a
1 diverse group of individuals, and the decision was
2 made in unanimity.
3 Q. You don't believe that that decision
4 constituted a rush to judgment, do you?
5 MR. SCOTT: Objection.
6 A. I don't like the way you asked the question.
7 You're saying what I believe what --
8 BY MS. GRAGERT:
9 Q. Let me ask it this way.
10 A. We made a decision that we had to make. The
11 University made a decision.
"… the decision was made in unanimity" means that yes, the alumni Trustees who were subsequently voted out by the alumni did indeed support the Board's actions in November 2011 and cannot complain that the alumni did not give them at least the same level of "due process" they gave Paterno—the alumni gave them a lot more because they all had a chance to tell their sides of the story, which Paterno did not receive—but the bottom line is that Masser made it clear that the decision "had nothing to do with what Coach Paterno had done or hadn't done" which means he was fired for public relations reasons and not for "failure of leadership."
Next we have the deposition (Dec 15 2014) of Kenneth Frazier who also was a Board member in March 2012. Starting on page 15, answers are by Frazier
24 Q. Were you in favor of the decision
25 not to allow Coach Paterno to coach out the
1 rest of the season.
2 A. Ultimately, I was in favor of
3 that.
4 Q. Initially, did you have some
5 reservations?
6 A. I did.
7 Q. Just explain your thought process
8 and how you became in favor of that decision.
9 A. Just as I said in the case of
10 Mr. Curly, my initial feeling was, when I
11 first heard about this, that the facts had
12 not been established and we needed to be
13 careful to make sure we understood the facts.
14 As I was in -- in that 48-hour time period
15 read the grand jury presentment, I reached
16 the conclusion that given what had become
17 public about the issues leading up to the
18 presentment and given what was said in the
19 presentment itself about Coach Paterno's
20 testimony and about what the graduate student
21 said to Coach Paterno, I felt that it would
22 not send the right message if Coach Paterno
23 was able to lead the football team out onto
24 the field of play under those circumstances.
25 So I didn't change my mind on the
1 question of whether we had established all
2 the key facts that related to Coach Paterno's
3 involvement and/or responsibility. But I had
4 reached the conclusion that, from the
5 standpoint of what the University's values
6 would be interpreted to be by the broader
7 public, that what was known was sufficiently
8 serious as it relates to child sexual abuse
9 that it would send the wrong message about
10 our values as a University if Coach Paterno
11 were allowed to coach as though none of this
12 had ever happened.
Nothing here about "failure of leadership," is there? This comes across as "We fired Paterno solely for public relations reasons."
As shown by the minutes of the March 16 2012 Board meeting, the following Trustees were active members of the Board at the time and were therefore parties to the statement that Paterno had been fired for "failure of leadership."
Peetz (chairman), Masser (vice chairman), Alexander, Allan, Dambly, Deviney, DiBerardinis, Eckel, Erickson, Garban, Greig, Hayes, Hetherington, Hintz, Huber, Jones, Khoury, Myers, Riley, Shaffer, Silvis, Strumpf, Suhey, Surma and Tomalis. While most of these Trustees did not actually author the dishonest statement[1] "…we unanimously made the difficult decision that Coach Paterno’s failure of leadership required his removal as football coach," they tolerated it by failing to contradict it when it was published. The name of the honorable exception who, by subsequently resigning and making his reasons known, did not "tolerate those who do," has been removed from the list.
In addition, the minutes of the November 11 2011 meeting show that the statement "…we unanimously made the difficult decision that Coach Paterno’s failure of leadership required his removal as football coach" was made on behalf of the following active Board members (and others who were absent from this meeting): Garban (chairman), Surma (vice chairman), Alexander, Allan, Arnelle, Broadhurst, Corbett, Dambly, Deviney, DiBerardinis, Eckel, Erickson, Frazier, Greig, Hayes, Hetherington, Hintz, Jones, Joyner, Khoury, Lubert, Masser, Myers, Peetz, Riley, Shaffer, Silvis, Strumpf, Suhey, Surma, and Tomalis; Governor's Representative Branstetter. The name of the sole honorable exception who distanced himself from the Board's actions by resigning, and then joining the lawsuit against the NCAA's sanctions on Penn State, has been omitted from this list.
As shown by https://trustees.psu.edu/selection.html#current, Masser, Dambly, and Lubert are current (September 2019) members of the Board which has so far taken no action on repudiating the Freeh Report, apologizing for the circumstances of Paterno's dismissal, or returning the Paterno statue to campus.
[1] The identity or identities of the actual author(s) is unknown.
