I think the “somebody died here” angle is going to play a big role in the decision. But like I said, I think there’s an aesthetic that would be gone forever if/when they tear it down.
FC: PSU will acquire Beta Theta Pi house for $7.3 million
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If they use it for a good cause, that stigma could be reduced.
"Those frat boys had hours to do the right thing and help the young man who was incapable of helping himself and they chose not to."
This is not true
This just isn't true LB99. That's what was spread all over the media incorrectly
He did NOT consume the amount of drinks in 18 minutes which the video clearly shows. It was over an entire evening where he was first to the bar each time
Did you know that he texted his girlfriend that he wasn't going to come home because he was going to get wasted? Did you know he was on medication prescribed which prohibited alcohol and he had a significant spleen bruise from another "slap shot" regatta drinking event at a rush party days earlier? Did you know he slipped on the stairs due to a woman's vomit to fall down? Did you know that brothers stayed with him until 4:00am until they fell asleep? Did you know he got up to leave the next morning and reportedly fell into a stair well railing further injuring his spleen? Why was the civil attorney involved with the DA writing the description of events for conviction?
By that logic, Pattee Library should have been razed after the student death/murder decades ago.
It’s a big, old school. The odds dictate that some small volume of tragedies will occur.
Ok? None of that changes the outcome or my perspective. I’m also not into conspiracy theories.
It was a horrible event. I don't want to minimize that. There's also no way I'm going to criticize any parent who is mourning the loss of a child. With that in mind, I agree with the above. Other students have tragically died on campus and I've never heard proposals to name a building after them. Betsy Aardsma and Melanie Spalla are two who come to mind but I know there have been others. AFAIK, nothing has been named in their honor. It doesn't make sense to me why there should be a special memorial to young Mr. Piazza as if his death is somehow more tragic than that of Miss Aardsma or Miss Spalla. Or maybe I'm just a jerk. Some people think so.
It came across pretty clearly to me. You can be pissed and angry at a lot of different entities. But you shouldn’t ignore your own kids’ responsibility in what happened.
I don’t think that invoking this logic makes someone a jerk. Awful things happen at big universities. There are remediations and significant legal ramifications that rightly follow.
But it’s tricky as to how far to take things. PSU will likely raze that grand, old house. But I think it could also be put to good use and a better purpose with some thought. And it adds historic charm to west campus, IMO.
I hope PSU does the right thing and repurposes that beautiful house instead of tearing it down.
That said, there is much misinformation in this thread about the incident.
1) Piazza's spleen was severely injured / perhaps ruptured the day before, or even two days before the Friday night incident because he was playing street hockey and someone shot a hard puck into his abdominal region. I don't know if alcohol was a contributing factor in that incident, but it is very possible. The spleen plays an important function in filtering blood and he was probably already bleeding internally before visiting the BTP house.
2) Piazza's parents quickly spent their settlement proceeds on a semi-nice, non-waterfront second home near the Jersey Shore. They seem very content with their purchase.
That said, there is much misinformation in this thread about the incident.
1) Piazza's spleen was severely injured / perhaps ruptured the day before, or even two days before the Friday night incident because he was playing street hockey and someone shot a hard puck into his abdominal region. I don't know if alcohol was a contributing factor in that incident, but it is very possible. The spleen plays an important function in filtering blood and he was probably already bleeding internally before visiting the BTP house.
2) Piazza's parents quickly spent their settlement proceeds on a semi-nice, non-waterfront second home near the Jersey Shore. They seem very content with their purchase.
Exactly. The piazzas (i.e., their lawyers) pushed Penn State, and Penn State bent over. Now, a building bears the piazza name and he is a high-profile part of our legacy. He shouldn’t be. The university should not bear the blame to that extent. It’s absurd. I’m well beyond the sadness of the incident and am just pi$$ed off because the message is twisted. Screw the piazzas and their PSU money.
He was also taking medications, and had fallen either the night before or two nights before.
Believe me, Vermilion knows of what he speaks.
I’m appreciating the discourse in this thread and have definitely learned some things I had no prior idea about.
Thinking about this whole tragedy again, I’m shaken. That’s my predominant reaction, far above and beyond any opinions I have about the degree of fault of any of the players. Just an awful thing that happened
I say this as a former fraternity president from the early 90s. I shudder to think of the extremely stupid things we sometimes engaged in as young men — and thank my lucky stars that nothing went horribly wrong when it easily could have.
Prime example: I once had to pull one of my trashed-out-of-his-mind brothers down from where he was dancing in a bathrobe on the railing of a stairway landing, right on the precipice of about a 20-foot fall. Yikes.
I’m having a very “There but for the Grace go I” moment here
Thinking about this whole tragedy again, I’m shaken. That’s my predominant reaction, far above and beyond any opinions I have about the degree of fault of any of the players. Just an awful thing that happened
I say this as a former fraternity president from the early 90s. I shudder to think of the extremely stupid things we sometimes engaged in as young men — and thank my lucky stars that nothing went horribly wrong when it easily could have.
Prime example: I once had to pull one of my trashed-out-of-his-mind brothers down from where he was dancing in a bathrobe on the railing of a stairway landing, right on the precipice of about a 20-foot fall. Yikes.
I’m having a very “There but for the Grace go I” moment here
I recall the guy in my dorm who was having a race down the hall agains another person in the other hall (think H shaped). He was so drunk he forgot to stop. Thankfully the screen as well as the window were still in, which broke his momentum enough so he did not fall out of a three story window. But he badly sliced up his arms on the broken window. They eventually had to fly him to Philly as the local hospital could not handle the bleeding and as I recall, nor could Geisinger. There was a large puddle of blood outside my dorm room (as we were at the end of the floor).
I had three kids from floor find keys outside our dorm building while coming back from dinner. They decided to try doors to see if any of them unlocked. Worked on the first one, so they took it for a ride. Then the kid driving decided to take it to Pittsburgh to get it chopped. One kid walked away a few blocks to get a Slurpee while the other two were cleaning it out in an empty lot. As he’s walking back, he see police cars where they were so he stops. They get arrested so he wanders around Pittsburgh (he was from Philly) before deciding to stop in a rectory and talk to a priest who convinces him to call his father. His father drives from Philly to Pittsburgh to pick him up and drive him back to Lock Haven. We saw his father walking him back to his room and he was not a guy to mess with. Hands looked like cement blocks.
Just stupid decisions by people with not yet fully formed brains.
Sad when anyone dies too young for whatever reason. Lots of blame to go around, including the victim. I never understood the whole Greek thing. Punishing your pledges (so called future "brothers") to gain acceptance, why? And then turn around and do it to futures pledges, what fools. I know the Greeks do a lot of good, but this kind of thing negates it all.
Carrying a rock around with the house letters, depriving pledges of sleep, or making them cleanup after their parties, seems within bounds. But forcing (or encouraging) them to drink excess amounts of alcohol to get into the "club" is just plain sad. What is even sadder is that someone feels the need to do these things in order to be be accepted. I never understood it and glad I never felt the need to do all those foolish rituals.
Carrying a rock around with the house letters, depriving pledges of sleep, or making them cleanup after their parties, seems within bounds. But forcing (or encouraging) them to drink excess amounts of alcohol to get into the "club" is just plain sad. What is even sadder is that someone feels the need to do these things in order to be be accepted. I never understood it and glad I never felt the need to do all those foolish rituals.
I didn't say it was in 18 minutes. It's way too much over that period of time. He's also underage. End of story.
Also, for whatever talk there is about his spleen and a pre-existing injury, didn't he fall head first down stairs, fracture his skull, and have a brain bleed? And didn't the brothers find him in the morning, put him on a couch as he was in an extremely serious condition, then take 40 minutes to try and determine if calling 911 for a kid approaching death was the right thing to do? Seems that some want to minimize all of those aspects of this sad situation.
I think the main point is that there was a huge amount of negligence by all parties and it tragically led to this poor kid dying.
Pointing fingers in hindsight won’t change that and not a single parent here wants to begin to imagine what The Piazzas have been through.
In these circumstances, the big organization (PSU) is always the juiciest legal target.
...and in the end, still winds up w/ what they crave most. Land. $7.3 million is Old Main couch cushion money.
University files suit against illegal fraternity | Penn State University
I was in that house a couple times as an undergrad back in the 80s. The interior was kind of a dump as far as I can remember. I read it was much worse after the charter was pulled.
Very sad and tragic indeed all the way around. The initial fall down the stairs was due to being intoxicated and tripping over a sorority girl. To my knowledge, this wasn't the critical fall where he hit his head. To my knowledge the critical fall was very early in the morning when he was leaving. He was supervised on the couch all night until 4:00 am (I've done this many times with friends) then very early got up to leave and had a very critical fall. The boys found him in the basement away from all of the morning activity