Accuser of assistant basketball coach Bernie Fine admits lying. Via the Post-Standard of Syracuse:

The fourth man to accuse former Syracuse University assistant basketball coach Bernie Fine of sexually molesting him said Friday that he lied and Fine never abused him as a child.

State prison inmate Floyd “David” VanHooser said he lied to police and news reporters to get back at the coach who helped raise him because Fine did not hire a lawyer for him to fight his most recent criminal conviction.

VanHooser, 56, told two Syracuse police detectives in late November that Fine began molesting him when he was 14 or 15 years old and the sexual contact continued until last summer. VanHooser told The Post-Standard the same story in interviews at the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora on Dec. 14 and Dec. 20.

On Thursday, The Post-Standard received copies of two letters dated Nov. 29 that VanHooser wrote and mailed to Fine that say VanHooser lied. One letter is addressed to Fine and the other “To whom it may concern.”

“In a statement I gave I told a lot of lies about Bernie Fine. None of what I said was true,” VanHooser wrote. “Bernie has been nothing but good to me over the years. He was the only thing I had close to a father. He never did any thing wrong he is a good man.”

The rest here.

Sally Jenkins of the Post sat down with Joe Paterno for his first interview since the Sandusky scandal. It’s a good piece and Jenkins doesn’t whitewash what happened, although you can tell the Paterno family wanted the interview to try to get the media to focus on his accomplishments and not just on what he did wrong. The opener:

STATE COLLEGE, PA. — Joe Paterno sat in a wheelchair at the family kitchen table where he has eaten, prayed and argued for more than a half-century. All around him family members were shouting at each other, yet he was whispering. His voice sounded like wind blowing across a field of winter stalks, rattling the husks. Lung cancer has robbed him of the breath to say all that he wants to about the scandal he still struggles to comprehend, and which ended his career as head football coach at Penn State University. The words come like gusts. “I wanted to build up, not break down,” he said.

Crowded around the table were his three voluble sons, Scott, Jay, David, daughter Mary Kay, and his wife of 50 years, Sue, all chattering at once. In the middle of the table a Lazy Susan loaded with trays of cornbread and mashed potatoes spun by, swirling fast as the arguments. “If you go hungry, it’s your own fault,” Paterno likes to say. But Paterno, 85, could not eat. He sipped Pepsi over crushed ice from a cup. Once, it would have been bourbon. His hand showed a tremor, and a wig replaced his once-fine head of black hair.

Paterno’s hope is that time will be his ally when it comes to judging what he built, versus what broke down. “I’m not 31 years old trying to prove something to anybody,” he said. “I know where I am.” This is where he is: wracked by radiation and chemotherapy, in a wheelchair with a broken pelvis, and “shocked and saddened” as he struggles to explain a breakdown of devastating proportions. Jerry Sandusky, his former assistant coach at Penn State from 1969 to 1999, is charged with more than 50 counts of sexually abusing young boys over a 15-year period. He maintains his innocence. If Sandusky is guilty, “I’m sick about it,” Paterno said.

How Sandusky, 67, allegedly evaded detection by state child services, university administrators, teachers, parents, donors and Paterno himself remains an open question. “I wish I knew,” Paterno said. “I don’t know the answer to that. It’s hard.” Almost as difficult for Paterno to answer is the question of why, after receiving a report in 2002 that Sandusky had abused a boy in the shower of Penn State’s Lasch Football Building, and forwarding it to his superiors, he didn’t follow up more aggressively.

“I didn’t know exactly how to handle it and I was afraid to do something that might jeopardize what the university procedure was,” he said. “So I backed away and turned it over to some other people, people I thought would have a little more expertise than I did. It didn’t work out that way.”

Former athletic director Tim Curley and school vice president Gary Schultz face charges of perjury and failing to report suspected child abuse, based on their inaction. They have pleaded innocent. Though he is not charged with a crime, Penn State president Graham Spanier was fired on Nov. 9, along with Paterno.

Paterno is accused of no wrongdoing, and in fact authorities have said he fulfilled his legal obligations by reporting to his superiors. Nevertheless, the university Board of Trustees summarily dismissed him with a late-night phone call four days after Sandusky’s arrest. At about 10 p.m., Paterno and Sue were getting ready for bed when the doorbell rang. An assistant athletic director was at the door, and wordlessly handed Sue a slip of paper. There was nothing on it but the name of the vice chairman of trustees, John Surma, with a phone number. They stood frozen by the bedside in their nightclothes, Sue in a robe and Paterno in pajamas and a Penn State sweatshirt. Paterno dialed the number.

Surma told Paterno, “In the best interests of the university, you are terminated.” Paterno hung up and repeated the words to his wife. She grabbed the phone and redialed.

“After 61 years he deserved better,” she snapped. “He deserved better.”

The rest here.

It’s Bill O’Brien, current offensive coordinator for the New England Patriots.

And to welcome the new coach to Happy Valley, Penn., a group of former players and influential alumni are doing everything they can to make sure O’Brien fails as the coach:

Former Penn State All-American linebacker Brandon Short told ESPN.com senior writer Don Van Natta Jr. that members of the influential Lettermen’s Club have a meeting scheduled with Joyner for Friday at 1 p.m. ET.

“It’s unfortunate that coach O’Brien … has not been made aware of the implications of him being in this position,” said Short, an investment banker. “I don’t envy him at all. He doesn’t have support of the vast majority of former Penn State players and the vast majority of the student body and the faculty won’t support him. I feel sorry for him.”

Short said some members of the group were considering a range of options to express their displeasure, including asking current players to transfer and recruits to de-commit. Short told USA Today they were mulling a lawsuit in an effort to bar Penn State from using their likenesses or images for marketing purposes.

“It appears as if it is Dave Joyner’s intent to disassociate himself with everything related Penn State,” Short told ESPN.com. “Then a group of former players will now disassociate ourselves from everything related to Penn State.”

That’s the spirit!

Urban Meyer has banned the Buckeyes from using Twitter.

I understand the move, but I don’t like it. We’re talking about adults here. I’d rather have Meyer allow Twitter and come down hard on the idiots.

What stings most about this kid’s choice is that he’s from Indiana. If Kelly can’t lock up an Indiana recruit, what good is he?

Richard Langford of The Bleacher Report writes this will eventually cost Kelly his job:

On Tuesday, Steve Wiltfong of 247Sports.com reported on SI.com the news that Indiana high school quarterback sensation Gunner Kiel was committing to LSU.

Wiltfong noted that Notre Dame, along with Vanderbilt, were Kiel’s top three choices. Kiel is almost universally considered on of the top 20 prospects in the nation and the No. 1 pro-style QB prospect.

Failure to Keep Prized Recruits in State

The first check mark for Kelly in this announcement that will lead to his doom is his failure to lock up a prized recruit in-state. 

Notre Dame is a recruiting powerhouse. It isn’t supposed to lose out on recruits like this that come from its home state. Locking up premier talent is a prerequisite for Notre Dame coaches. 

Still, Kelly has been doing a fine job of recruiting while he has been employed at Notre Dame, and this factor alone is not nearly enough to lead to his demise. 

The ultimate part of this deal is the next factor.

QB Starved Future

Notre Dame’s biggest weakness this season was shoddy QB play. The Irish used three QBs this year—none of which displayed that they had the ability to be the permanent answer. 

Sophomore QB Tommy Rees was clearly the best of the three, but the QB is mistake-prone and inaccurate. Rees has 19 touchdowns and 12 interceptions. This is certainly not a horrible ratio. However, it is not nearly good enough to make this program elite.

And like it or not, this is the QB Kelly is going to be tied to for the foreseeable future. 

Rees is never going to lead this program to a level that Kelly needs to maintain his employment, and his Notre Dame career will not last long enough to wait for a top notch QB to enter the program and make in impact in the ensuing seasons.

The rest here.

At the start of the football season, two out of the eight head coaches in the Ivy League were African-American. With the firing of Norries Wilson at Columbia and Wednesday’s resignation of Tom Williams, there are now no African-American football coaches in the ancient eight.

Wilson has been replaced with Pete Mangurian, who is white. Over to you, Yale.

Note: I’ve met Coach Wilson and he’s a great guy. I don’t want it to look like I’m lumping him in with the lying Williams from Yale. Wilson was fired because he failed to turn the Columbia team around, which in the head-coaching world is a fact of life.

What a scuzz. But it does call into question Yale’s vetting process. I can see missing the “Rhodes” lie, but to not check if this guy actually played in the NFL? New York Times:

For a couple of weeks in November, the story captivated even the casual college football follower, perhaps because it did not concern allegations of child sexual abuse or recruiting violations.

Yale’s senior quarterback, Patrick Witt, the most productive passer in the program’s history, was wrestling with a decision that generated national attention and debate. Should he play in the Harvard-Yale game one more, final time, or should he attend an interview in Atlanta as a finalist for a Rhodes scholarship? Because of the schedule of the events, he could not do both.

The quarterback’s situation had an unlikely twist. His coach, Tom Williams, said he had faced almost identical circumstances in 1992 when he was a linebacker at Stanford. Williams said he had chosen to pursue a career in professional football at the expense of a possible Rhodes scholarship — and never regretted the decision. Witt leaned on his coach for advice, and eventually decided to play in the game. Yale was crushed, 45-7.

As it turned out, the shellacking of the Bulldogs by their rival in the Yale Bowl on Nov. 19 was far from the worst of it. The appealing back story — Williams’s providing counsel to his talented quarterback based on his own experience — turned out to be founded on a lie.

The coach had never been in Witt’s position. He had never been a Rhodes scholar candidate or applicant, let alone a finalist, as he had let the world believe. He had told Yale he was a candidate with an entry on his résumé. His biography on the Yale Web site said the same thing.

The rest here.

SEC Tackles ‘Rudy’ in Fraud Case.

Here’s video of the amazing final point between Illinois and USC.

Via USA Today:

1.  Penn State officials Tim Curley and Gary Schultz have been ordered to stand trial.

District Judge William Wenner ruled that prosecutors had probable cause to send the case against Tim Curley and Gary Schultz to trial.

Wenner heard testimony against Curley and Schultz on charges they lied to a grand jury and didn’t properly report an allegation that former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky sexually abused a boy in a locker room shower in 2002.

Their lawyers maintain the men are innocent, and contest testimony that they were told about the seriousness of the matter.

2.  As much as Coach McQueery wanted his former teammates to believe he did something to stop the alleged assault by Sandusky on the boy, his testimony today confirms that he did nothing:

McQueary said Friday that he heard “rhythmic slapping sounds” in a locker room shower and saw Jerry Sandusky with his arms wrapped around a child.

“I believe they were having some kind of intercourse,” McQueary said as his mother sat in the courtroom on the verge of tears.

McQueary said he moved toward the shower and Sandusky separated from the boy.

“I know they saw me,” he said. “They looked directly in my eye, both of them.”

McQueary said he then left.

And 3. When McQueery told Coach Paterno, he didn’t give him the gory details:

At Paterno’s house the next day, sitting at his kitchen table, McQueary said he described what he saw and that he told Paterno that Sandusky was in a “sexual” act with the child and described it as “extremely sexual.”

McQueary said he did not give Paterno explicit details of what he believed he’d seen, saying he wouldn’t have used terms like sodomy or anal intercourse out of respect for the longtime coach. He described it as “rough positioning” of Sandusky and the boy.

I guess the University of Pittsburgh’s move to the ACC wasn’t happening soon enough for (now former) head coach Todd Graham:

PITTSBURGH — Pittsburgh coach Todd Graham is leaving the Panthers to take the same position at Arizona State.

Graham will replace Dennis Erickson.

“I have resigned my position at Pitt in the best interest of my family to pursue the head coaching position at Arizona State,” Graham said in a text message sent to players on the Pittsburgh team. “Coaching there has always been a dream of ours and we have family there. The timing of the circumstances have prohibited me from telling you this directly. I now am on my way to Tempe to continue those discussions. God Bless. Coach Graham.”

I can’t say that I blame him. Pittsburgh is a pro-sports town. To make matters worse, Pitt doesn’t have its own stadium and has to play at Heinz Field, which isn’t exactly on campus.

ICYMI, over the weekend, rivals Cincinnati and Xavier ended their game with an epic brawl. Video:

So epic in fact that the DA is now considering criminal charges against some of the players:

An Ohio prosecutor is considering criminal charges in the wake of Saturday’s bench-clearing brawl between cross-city basketball rivals Cincinnati and Xavier.

Hamilton County prosecutor Joe Deters said he would review the game to determine if criminal charges such as aggravated battery are appropriate. The two schools suspended eight players on Sunday over the incident and now their coaches are struggling to make sense of what happened.

Cincinnati coach Mick Cronin, appearing on ESPN, threatened to keep his players benched if they don’t apologize publicly: “They’re going to sit in front of a camera and say how sorry they are and how grateful they are for getting a second chance.” Cronin suggested the episode was personally humiliating. “I’ve never been this embarrassed.”

The most egregious punch was thrown by Cincinnati forward Yancy Gates, who smashed Xavier’s Kenny Frease in the face, leaving him with a swollen black eye. Cincinnati suspended Gates, junior Cheikh Mbodj and freshman Octavius Ellis for six games each. Freshman Ge’Lawn Guyn was suspended for one game. Cronin said the four suspended players will have to earn their way back on to the team.

The rest here.

Game over: the clock has run out for the prosecution:

Former Syracuse University basketball coach Bernie Fine cannot be charged under New York state law for allegedly fondling two ball boys even though investigators believe the accusations to be true, District Attorney William Fitzpatrick said on Wednesday.

Fine cannot be charged because the statute of limitations in New York state has run out, Fitzpatrick said. It requires victims to come forward within five years of their 18th birthday.

He said that the evidence would now be handed over to federal authorities, who will try to determine if there are other alleged victims.

Former ball boys Bobby Davis, 39, and his stepbrother Mike Lang, 45, accuse Fine of sexually abusing them.

Davis alleged the abuse happened “hundreds of times” until he was 27, while Lang alleged the abuse occurred “numerous times” until he turned 19, the prosecutor said.

Davis tried to report his accusations in 2002 to Syracuse police, said the district attorney, who criticized the police department’s response. The Syracuse police chief at the time was a former Syracuse basketball player.

“Bobby, I’m sorry it took so long,” the district attorney said. “I wish I had known you as a prosecutor in 2002 or even better in the 1990s.” Davis and Lang were not at the news conference.

“If the statute of limitations had not run, there would be criminal charges against Bernie Fine that I would ethically feel comfortable asking a jury to convict him of beyond a reasonable doubt,” he said.

Spurrier Tim (Tebow) is next on the list:

Betrayed Gator mom wants to change little Spurrier Urban’s middle name

When Urban Meyer decided to take the Ohio State job less than a year after retiring from Florida, many Gator fans were upset with their former coach. But few more so than Jen Wiley, who named her son after Urban because of her and her husband’s allegiance to Florida.

Wiley’s son, now 4 years old, is actually named Spurrier Urban Wiley, after Florida’s two national championship winning coaches — Steve Spurrier and Meyer — but after Meyer’s move to the Big Ten, Wiley wants to change her son’s middle name.

“My husband and I got married in 1996, when Spurrier won the championships,” she said, “and then we conceived in 2006 when Urban Meyer won the championship.”

It was a seemingly perfect fit for these Florida fanatics, until now. So mom’s ready for a change.

“I want to change his middle name,” she said. [...]

Wiley’s husband isn’t on board with the change, and she said she won’t officially change her son’s name unless her husband agrees.

If he does, she’s thinking Tim after Tim Tebow, the great Gator quarterback who is becoming a star in the NFL.

Unreal. Zach Tomaselli, one of the three who have accused Syracuse assistant coach Bernie Fine of sexual molestation, has now admitted that he molested a boy while he was a camp counselor.

Details here.

The Dispatch is reporting that interim head coach Luke Fickell will stay on as defensive coordinator.

As reported by the Columbus Dispatch. News conference scheduled form 5:15 pm.

Horrible.

Five years ago, the University of Michigan football team was headed into its final game of the season 11–0 and ranked No. 2 in the country, facing 11–0 and No. 1 ranked Ohio State. “The Game” had become “The Game of the Century” and everything was on the line: a chance to beat archrival Ohio State; a national-championship-game invite; and an opportunity to put the capstone on Lloyd Carr’s Michigan career (one that had steadily lost its glow since his 1997 national title).

On what seemed like the precipice of greatness, however, the program instead fell into darkness with wailing and gnashing of teeth.

With eerie symbolism, legendary coach Bo Schembechler died the day before The Game. The next night, Michigan lost in heartbreaking fashion, 42–39, and then lost again to USC in the Rose Bowl, 32–18.

The following season, the Wolverines (ranked No. 5) lost to Appalachian State in one of the most stunning upsets in college-football history. This downward spiral was briefly interrupted by a 9–4 season and a win in the Capital One Bowl. But the next three seasons would prove to be perhaps the ugliest and most difficult in the long history of Michigan football.

And John U. Bacon found himself with the kind of access unheard of in modern athletics. The result is a remarkable book: Three and Out: Rich Rodriguez and the Michigan Wolverines in the Crucible of College Football.

Lloyd Carr retired at the end of the 2007 season and Michigan eventually hired West Virginia’s Rich Rodriguez. In one of those quirks of fate, a former student of Bacon’s worked for Rodriguez’s financial adviser. This connection led to the idea of Bacon’s writing a couple of articles about the spread offense coming to Michigan, and then maybe collaborating on a book.

It is the height of understatement to say things did not work out as planned.

For most Michigan fans (myself included), that makes this book particularly painful. It is like watching a replay of your car accident in slow motion, on repeat. You know both the ultimate end result and the final score of every painful game and yet you force yourself to read the excruciating details as you relive the nightmare.

But if you are simply a fan of college football, or interested in big-time college athletics more generally, it is a fascinating read. Ohio State fans might find it entertaining and strangely cathartic.

What happened? What went wrong? Well, just about everything.

Having lost the legend, and the glue that held the community together, the Michigan football community became unorganized, splintered, and ineffective. The search for a new coach was bungled; the eventual hire was undermined at nearly every turn; the media were hostile to a degree hard to fathom outside of Ann Arbor; the coach far too often failed to see the repercussions of his words and actions; a lack of recruiting, injuries, and poor decisions decimated the talent available; the offense eventually soared but the defense cratered; and ultimately the football team lost far too many games. End result: Rich Rodriguez was fired after going 15–22 in three seasons.

While Bacon is frequently critical of Rodriguez, the picture he paints is largely one of Michigan never giving him the chance to do what he does best: coach football. Athletic director Bill Martin’s incredibly bungled search for a new coach undermined trust and began the bad feelings that would be a source of constant distraction and disunity. Having failed to get the Michigan Man so many wanted in Les Miles, Martin and former coach Lloyd Carr seemed unaware that Rodriguez would need extra support if he were to succeed — support he never really received.

Carr, who refused repeated interview requests from the author, bizarrely called Rodriguez to encourage his interest in the job and then seemed to undermine him at every turn — including encouraging recruits to transfer and never really sticking up for the new coach or the team.

Rodriguez fatally assumed that, Michigan being Michigan, 1) the talent would be there and 2) the backbiting and lack of support that drove him away from West Virginia wouldn’t happen. Desperately wrong on both counts. Rodriguez contributed to this problem by never hiring a defensive coordinator that he could trust and work with (even a half-decent defense would have made a world of difference, as his team gave up leads and lost heartbreakers with soul-crushing frequency) and failing to grasp the impact of his words and actions off the field. He increased the bitterness by careless words and not working hard enough at building relationships.

The “Michigan Family” takes a beating as well. The story is full of petty jealousy and bickering that undermined a high-quality coach – and, by all accounts, a genuinely good person — and also the very program and institution that Michigan people claimed to love and support (and, in many cases, the employer who paid them large sums of money).

What strikes me as truly amazing, however, is the dedication and commitment of so many of the players despite the never-ending negativity and criticism. After a rocky start, and with a few exceptions, Rodriguez molded a team that fought hard and cared deeply for their teammates and their school. The same cannot be said of too many of the adults tasked with supporting them.

On Saturday, some who endured this epic soap opera have a chance for some redemption. If new head coach Brady Hoke can lead his team to victory in this edition of The Game (against a 6–5 Buckeye team mired in scandal) it would portend an end to the dark cloud hanging over Ann Arbor since that fateful day five years ago when the heart and soul of Michigan football passed away.

And maybe, just maybe, Michigan’s return to greatness can really begin.

— Kevin Holtsberry is a writer, consultant, and Michigan fan living deep behind enemy lines in Columbus, Ohio.