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samhouston23's review against another edition
5.0
Bill Moushey and Bob Dvorchak, authors of Game Over: Jerry Sandusky, Penn State, and the Culture of Silence, have definitely struck a nerve with thousands of Penn State alumni and Happy Valley residents. It appears, based entirely on the “reviews” of the book I see posted on Amazon, that the pair faces a vicious backlash based more on emotion than on reason – and that almost all of the negative “reviews” posted there have been written by people who did not bother reading the book before damning it. It seems that it will be left to those without ties to Penn State, and a minority of Penn-Staters themselves, to gauge the objectivity and effectiveness of the book.
On one level, Game Over is an excellent recap of the news that starting leaking out of Happy Valley, PA, in early November 2011. Those that may have come to the story a little late will find the chronology presented to be especially helpful. Others are likely to focus more on the additional details attached to the original revelations, disgusting as some of those details are. Readers should, in fact, be forewarned that several descriptions of Jerry Sandusky’s alleged assaults of the young boys under his sponsorship and care are disgustingly graphic in nature and leave little to the imagination.
On a second level, what Game Over reveals about the culture espoused by Penn State administrators, its athletic coaches, its students, and the community that supports and benefits from the school’s presence, is almost as disturbing and horrifying as the crimes Sandusky is alleged to have committed against his young victims. That there was, and to a lesser degree still is, a “culture of silence” surrounding Penn State that allowed this kind of criminal behavior to continue for decades, cannot be disputed. Moushey and Dvorchak present their case in detail, naming names and shaming those who deserve it, in the process. Only the court system can determine the guilt or innocence of the various parties involved in all of this, but Jerry Sandusky should not be the only one facing a judge and jury of his peers before this is over.
From what the Game Over authors have to say, it appears that the second worst “crime” committed during this whole period, may lay at the feet of Coach Joe Paterno, the man who really ran Penn State while all of this was happening. If true, Paterno helped bring shame to the university and forever sullied his own reputation and famous catchphrase: “Success with Honor.” Paterno’s silence seems to have been the signal to Penn State’s coaches, administrators, and others that the entire Sandusky matter should be kept within the confines of the Penn State “family,” and that outsiders were not to be trusted with this information. Joe Paterno had just that much clout in Happy Valley – he had, in fact, almost been granted sainthood by the locals, making a cover-up of this magnitude a relatively easy thing for the school to pull off.
Much remains for the courts to determine, including: the culpability of two principal university administrators in the cover-up; the part in the cover-up of some inside The Second Mile (Sandusky’s charity for poverty stricken boys); how much Sandusky’s wife knew of crimes said to have taken place in her home; and whether Sandusky remained at Penn State (even after resigning from its coaching staff in 1999 while at the top of his game) simply because his charity provided him with a ready supply of victims of just the right age.
As James Murtha, a 1977 Penn State graduate, put it, “…in retrospect, you could almost predict how this would turn out because of the way Penn State does business. Isolation is one of its charms, but it’s also part of the problem. They all drink the Kool-Aid up there. They lost all focus. The only way to solve a problem is to admit that you have one. It’s crisis management 101. When I saw the way they handled it, I wanted to projectile vomit.”
So did I.
On one level, Game Over is an excellent recap of the news that starting leaking out of Happy Valley, PA, in early November 2011. Those that may have come to the story a little late will find the chronology presented to be especially helpful. Others are likely to focus more on the additional details attached to the original revelations, disgusting as some of those details are. Readers should, in fact, be forewarned that several descriptions of Jerry Sandusky’s alleged assaults of the young boys under his sponsorship and care are disgustingly graphic in nature and leave little to the imagination.
On a second level, what Game Over reveals about the culture espoused by Penn State administrators, its athletic coaches, its students, and the community that supports and benefits from the school’s presence, is almost as disturbing and horrifying as the crimes Sandusky is alleged to have committed against his young victims. That there was, and to a lesser degree still is, a “culture of silence” surrounding Penn State that allowed this kind of criminal behavior to continue for decades, cannot be disputed. Moushey and Dvorchak present their case in detail, naming names and shaming those who deserve it, in the process. Only the court system can determine the guilt or innocence of the various parties involved in all of this, but Jerry Sandusky should not be the only one facing a judge and jury of his peers before this is over.
From what the Game Over authors have to say, it appears that the second worst “crime” committed during this whole period, may lay at the feet of Coach Joe Paterno, the man who really ran Penn State while all of this was happening. If true, Paterno helped bring shame to the university and forever sullied his own reputation and famous catchphrase: “Success with Honor.” Paterno’s silence seems to have been the signal to Penn State’s coaches, administrators, and others that the entire Sandusky matter should be kept within the confines of the Penn State “family,” and that outsiders were not to be trusted with this information. Joe Paterno had just that much clout in Happy Valley – he had, in fact, almost been granted sainthood by the locals, making a cover-up of this magnitude a relatively easy thing for the school to pull off.
Much remains for the courts to determine, including: the culpability of two principal university administrators in the cover-up; the part in the cover-up of some inside The Second Mile (Sandusky’s charity for poverty stricken boys); how much Sandusky’s wife knew of crimes said to have taken place in her home; and whether Sandusky remained at Penn State (even after resigning from its coaching staff in 1999 while at the top of his game) simply because his charity provided him with a ready supply of victims of just the right age.
As James Murtha, a 1977 Penn State graduate, put it, “…in retrospect, you could almost predict how this would turn out because of the way Penn State does business. Isolation is one of its charms, but it’s also part of the problem. They all drink the Kool-Aid up there. They lost all focus. The only way to solve a problem is to admit that you have one. It’s crisis management 101. When I saw the way they handled it, I wanted to projectile vomit.”
So did I.
iceangel32's review against another edition
4.0
So I was going to get on my soap box and voice my opinion. But I think I will at least start with the book. I did find the book a bit repetitive, you where told the same thing the same way in a few different areas in the book. However I did learn more then I knew and I think that Moushey presents as much of the story as he could. I did find that it tried to shed a short of positive light on JoePa. However I left the book thinking he probably knew more than he let on...however was he okay once he reported it. It is such a complex situation with who knew and when they knew and who they told and what the authorities were or were not told and there is even missing people involved. I would like to end this review with a quote before I get on a soap box. "It's the act of one person. you can't condemn an entire university for it" (78). I will say I believe it is more that one person, but the acts of a group of people is punishing a whole university and everyone is letting it happen. I hope this review don't know make it sound like I don't care about what happened I think what occurred there is was disgusting and I can not put into words what I think should be done to Sandusky, but why punish more?
ltsakmann's review against another edition
3.0
An interesting book, however I was a little weary about some of the statements made by the authors. I wasn't bowled over by the amount of research. Then again it is a very difficult topic. I would not recommend reading only this book and assuming that you know everything about what happen.
colls's review against another edition
2.0
I'm not sure how to take the lack of notations, so I'm going to assume this is highly editorialized. It's also not particularly well written, either. Seems rushed to print maybe?
It's a shame that someone seems to have capitalized on the tragedy of such a scandal and spends more time talking about the "glory" that is Penn State and it's "tragic downfall" then on the rot in an environment where such a thing can go unnoticed and unreported for so long. Hopefully stories like this help break the code of silence for institutions like Penn State, the Catholic Church, et al.
It's a shame that someone seems to have capitalized on the tragedy of such a scandal and spends more time talking about the "glory" that is Penn State and it's "tragic downfall" then on the rot in an environment where such a thing can go unnoticed and unreported for so long. Hopefully stories like this help break the code of silence for institutions like Penn State, the Catholic Church, et al.
taraddonai's review against another edition
5.0
I gave this 5 stars because it was well written and full of facts and information.. I am still a little sickened by the whole story and dont know if I can ever think about PSU in a good way again. I am/was a huge fan of the university, parents and other family went there and I truly loved JoePa.. I dont know about now.. I want to believe JoePa did everything he could but I just dont know.
hekate24's review against another edition
2.0
Two books in one weekend!
Anyway, I'm giving this a lackluster score. There's nothing wrong with this book. Well... it gets repetitive in some cases, and sometimes the writing is very blatant. But I've given other books four stars before despite having these same faults, because they've offered things to make up for them.
Not so in this case. I suspect this will be a good primer for people who are new to this incident. But, well, State College was my home town and I was glued to coverage of this event. This book ultimate boils down to a paraphrasing of the Freeh report, news articles, and wikipedia pages on the main players involved. The only part that was new to me was how an investigator tracked down victims by using Sandusky's memoir.
Honestly, I just think that overviews of huge true crime events need to wait for at least a decade. And the Sandusky case spans decades and has tons of moving parts. This book tries to cover all the things it mentions in the title (plus Paterno) and it tries to do it in a rather small number of pages. Speaking of Paterno, the book's attitude towards him seems endemic of the problems inherent in writing a true crime overview months after the fact. Some chapters laud him. Others excoriate him. Sometimes both things happen in the same chapter; I basically give no fucks about Penn State football (in fact, State College's sports obsession made me miserable many times as a kid) but is it really any surprise that his funeral service made no mention of the Sandusky case? This kind of back and forth feels like the representation of the conflicting moods a lot of us felt in the months after the charges came to light. It lends it an odd quality of emotional verisimilitude, but it's still kind of... eh.
I would much rather have read the author's take on what the hell happened in that game of telephone between Patern and Schultz and Curley. But the book is silent on that, save saying that it happened. Actually, that's probably the BIGGEST fault of this book; lots of facts thrown at the reader, with very little analysis. Compare this to something like [b:Columbine|5632446|Columbine|Dave Cullen|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1402151576s/5632446.jpg|5803859] which has gotten critiqued, sure, but the author takes on massive amounts of primary evidence and brings his own hypotheses to the table. But that's probably easier to do once the dust has settled.
I can tell you right now that Penn State is fascinatingly weird place, with a lot of good and bad things about it. Someday we'll see a book or documentary that is as incisive as this topic deserves. But I think we'll need to wait a while for it.
Anyway, I'm giving this a lackluster score. There's nothing wrong with this book. Well... it gets repetitive in some cases, and sometimes the writing is very blatant. But I've given other books four stars before despite having these same faults, because they've offered things to make up for them.
Not so in this case. I suspect this will be a good primer for people who are new to this incident. But, well, State College was my home town and I was glued to coverage of this event. This book ultimate boils down to a paraphrasing of the Freeh report, news articles, and wikipedia pages on the main players involved. The only part that was new to me was how an investigator tracked down victims by using Sandusky's memoir.
Honestly, I just think that overviews of huge true crime events need to wait for at least a decade. And the Sandusky case spans decades and has tons of moving parts. This book tries to cover all the things it mentions in the title (plus Paterno) and it tries to do it in a rather small number of pages. Speaking of Paterno, the book's attitude towards him seems endemic of the problems inherent in writing a true crime overview months after the fact. Some chapters laud him. Others excoriate him. Sometimes both things happen in the same chapter; I basically give no fucks about Penn State football (in fact, State College's sports obsession made me miserable many times as a kid) but is it really any surprise that his funeral service made no mention of the Sandusky case? This kind of back and forth feels like the representation of the conflicting moods a lot of us felt in the months after the charges came to light. It lends it an odd quality of emotional verisimilitude, but it's still kind of... eh.
I would much rather have read the author's take on what the hell happened in that game of telephone between Patern and Schultz and Curley. But the book is silent on that, save saying that it happened. Actually, that's probably the BIGGEST fault of this book; lots of facts thrown at the reader, with very little analysis. Compare this to something like [b:Columbine|5632446|Columbine|Dave Cullen|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1402151576s/5632446.jpg|5803859] which has gotten critiqued, sure, but the author takes on massive amounts of primary evidence and brings his own hypotheses to the table. But that's probably easier to do once the dust has settled.
I can tell you right now that Penn State is fascinatingly weird place, with a lot of good and bad things about it. Someday we'll see a book or documentary that is as incisive as this topic deserves. But I think we'll need to wait a while for it.