I indicated in my commentary Penn State’s Catholic Church problem that it was only a matter of time before other schools became embroiled in a similar scandal. Sure enough, here comes Syracuse University; and the similarities – in terms of the nature of the allegations and the cover up – are uncanny.
For starters, it’s important to know that basketball is to Syracuse what football is to Penn State: a veritable religion and cash cow to boot. Further that legendary coach Jim Boeheim is to Syracuse basketball what legendary coach Joe Paterno was to Penn State football: a god worshiped like the Golden Calf.
Now consider that the accused Bernie Fine (pictured right) was to Boeheim (left) what the accused Jerry Sandusky was to Paterno; namely, his most trusted friend and assistant coach for the past 35-plus years.
More to the point, just as it was with Sandusky, facts are emerging which indicate that Fine (66) is a serial abuser of little boys: Sandusky used a camp he founded for troubled boys as a veritable harem for his pedophile exploits; whereas, Fine used a continually refreshed squad of ball boys from the men’s basketball team for his.
And, as improbable as it may seem, like Paterno, Boeheim swears that he knew nothing of Fine’s predatory behavior. In fact, he even went so far as to call Fine’s first accuser, Bobby Davis, a “liar” who was just a copycat trying to extort money in the wake of the scandal at Penn State:
So, we are supposed to what? Stop the presses 26 years later? For a false allegation? For what I absolutely believe is a false allegation? I know he’s lying… I know Bobby. He was one of 300 ball boys we’ve had…
The Penn State thing came out and the kid behind this is trying to get money… You know how much money is going to be involved in civil suits? I’d say about $50 million. That’s what this is about. Money.
(The Post-Standard, November 18, 2011)
The coach doth protest too much, methinks; especially since there are now two other former ball boys making similar allegations. And, just as it was with Sandusky, Fine probably has many other victims who are working up the courage to come forward or are still too traumatized to do so.
In any event, there seems to be an unwitting consciousness of guilt (his own and Fine’s) inherent in Boeheim reflexively accusing the victim. At the very least, Boeheim defending Fine in this manner makes him every bit as complicit as a Catholic Bishop defending a pedophile priest.
But what makes this case particularly troubling, if not utterly unconscionable, is that Fine’s own wife Laurie is the one providing damning eye witness accounts of his deviant behavior. Because Bobby – who lived in the basement of the Fines’ home throughout his childhood – was shrewd enough to gather proof of his victimization by secretly recording a phone conversation with her in October 2002 in which she admits that:
I know everything that went on, you know. I know everything that went on with him. Bernie has issues, maybe that he’s not aware of. But he has issues. And you trusted somebody you shouldn’t you have trusted…
Bernie is also in denial. I think that he did the things he did, but he’s somehow, through his own mental telepathy, has erased them out of his mind…
He thinks that, I think, he thinks he’s above the law.
(ESPN’s Outside the Lines, November 27, 2011)
Which of course begs the question: What kind of woman boasts about knowing that her husband molests little boys but does nothing about it – like report him to the police? Especially given her own admission that, like McQueary at Penn State, she even caught him in the act with one of them….
Well, it might be helpful to know that Laurie also admits on tape that, even though she knew her husband began abusing Bobby at age 12, she compounded that abuse by wantonly seducing and having a full-blown sexual relationship with him when he was 18. Frankly, this behavior by Bernie and Laurie Fine smacks of the kind of sick, predatory behavior that has Phillip and Nancy Garrido, the husband and wife who kidnapped and sexually abused Jaycee Lee Dugard for 18 years, now serving 436 years and 36 years in prison, respectively.
Apropos of reporting, there are all kinds of conflicting stories about when (or even if) Bobby went – with this incriminating tape in hand – to university officials and the police. But ESPN executives admit having it since 2003. Yet they claim that because only one victim was involved they did not feel it was sufficient to sound the proverbial alarm —as if Fine was entitled to a free pass on the molestation of one boy.
In fact, if it were not for the scandal at Penn State giving two other victims the courage to corroborate Bobby’s allegations, chances are very good that ESPN would never have published the tape, and Boeheim and others would have continued their willful cover up of Fine’s abuse to protect a basketball program in which they all have considerable financial and/or sentimental interest.
As it happened, mere hours after ESPN published it on Sunday, the university fired Fine – prompting Boeheim to issue a patently disingenuous and self-serving statement expressing shock, shock at what is being alleged against his old friend and long-time assistant coach.
Now Fine and Syracuse are facing the same kinds of civil and criminal investigations currently underway at Penn State. And Boeheim is right: it’s going to cost them tens of millions (with every Tom, Dick and Harry who ever served as a ball boy coming out of the woodwork to file claims) … and rightly so.
In the meantime, just as Penn State had the presence of mind to summarily fire Paterno to save itself, I suspect Syracuse will end up doing the same with Boeheim.
I also think the NCAA should suspend the university’s basketball program indefinitely. For there can be no greater indictment against it than harboring an assistant coach who repeatedly abused the ball boys – who probably regard their service to the team as every bit as sacred as altar boys regard their service to the Catholic church.
Finally, if nothing else, these child sex-abuse scandals in Pennsylvania and New York should compel all 50 states (or Congress) to enact legislation mandating all adults to report suspicions of child sex abuse to the police or child protective services. And the penalty for failing to do so should be significant jail time as well as a substantial fine.
Related commentaries:
Penn State’s Catholic Church problem