No, Dan Connor Didn’t Prank Call Jerry Sandusky In 2005

by Dan Fogarty | 5:56 pm, November 10th, 2011

When something like the Penn State sex abuse scandal occurs, something that’s sordid and horrible and deals with a lot of powerful people covering things up over a long period of time, rumors are inevitable. Usually, those rumors gain traction on college football message boards. In the case of a story of this magnitude, they can even gain traction on hip-hop message boards.

Some of these rumors come from reliable sources and have some semblance of credibility to them. The rumor earlier today, from reporter Mark Madden, about Sandusky possibly “pimping out” little kids to donors, is one that has credibility. The one about Carolina Panther (and former Nittany Lion) Dan Connor prank calling Jerry Sandusky in 2005 (and getting suspended by Joe Paterno for it), it seems, is not.

Connor was suspended in ’05 along with three other players, and it was because they prank called a former Penn State assistant. At the time, the victim of the calls remained anonymous, and the prank calls were described as “escalating to to the point of harassment.” The message board speculation du jour was that those prank calls were directed at Sandusky, and that they had something to do with his rumored preference for young boys. But today, in an interview with Delaware’s Daily Times, Connor squashed it.

That victim has remained anonymous, though Conner says it wasn’t Sandusky.

“No,” he said. “No, it wasn’t. It was another coach.”

Had Sandusky been the prank call target, and had the subject of the pranks calls been his reported pedophilia, we’d have a whole new batch of issues on our hands (namely, that if a linebacker on the team knew Sandusky was molesting kids, it was an even worse-kept secret than previously thought). Thankfully, it doesn’t look like that’s the case.

http://twitter.com/SimpleXI Chris Oliver

Your article fails to mention who it was that Connor DID prank call–Joe Sarra, a former assistant coach, who came to Penn State in 1984 via his employment with Jerry Sandusky’s Second Mile foundation. Coincidently, Sarra was demoted to Special Projects Assistant to Paterno in 1999, the same year Sandusky “retired.” Sarra “retired” in 2005, just months before Ray Gricar disappeared and the prank calls began.

Occam’s Razor dictates that you still have a whole new batch of issues on your hands.
Rhinosaur

How about the fact that when Sandusky left, NOBODY wanted to hire him. The Assistant Coach of the Year when he left, there were zero teams in the NCAA who showed interest for head or assistant coaching jobs. I think those who knew about him stretched far beyond Penn State inner circles. They probably didn’t know the degree of Sandusky’s perversions and actions, but they all knew something was off with him.
I knew about it.

Yeah….so lets continue on here…..Sandusky leave…….NOONE, not one school in the ENTIRE nation comes calling, or at least, that is what I have read. Are you meaning to tell me that the rumors were SO prevalent that every single school knew about him………………………but these extensive rumors NEVER, EVER got into the vast ear of …………………………..ESPN. The center of sports in this country and one that is lead protestor and blamer of all those in the media.

Doesn’t that seem hard for one to believe?? A company who JOB it is to come up with stories in sports, investigator this, investigator that……and they KNEW NOTHING????? About something that every single school in the USA SUPPOSEDLY knew about (cause he got no job offerings!!!!!) according to ESPN…………by the time this is all over……
Willie Green

Occam’s Razor is often misapplied by tinfoil hat conspiracy theorists to conduct connect-the-dot witch-hunts.
Willie Green

Occam’s Razor actually dictates that the simplest explanation for the “coincidences” is that they actually ARE coincidences and that there are no further issues to investigate in that direction.

No, Dan Connor Didn’t Prank Call Jerry Sandusky In 2005

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