I’m going to take a wild guess and say that a staff meeting for the Rutgers athletic department is not the appropriate place to make a Jerry Sandusky joke.
Rutgers athletic director Julie Hermann, who apologized to Penn State officials this week for the “regrettable actions” of some fans at Saturday’s game, made her own joke about the child sex scandal involving Jerry Sandusky, NJ Advance Media has learned.
Following a NJ Advance Media investigation that included statements from more than a half-dozen people inside the Rutgers athletic department, university officials acknowledged Hermann made the Sandusky-related remark at a staff meeting last fall.
“Julie’s comment was an off the cuff response to a give-and-take interaction urging the fundraising team to reach out and touch the donors,” said Pete McDonough, senior vice president for external affairs, when pressed for a statement from Rutgers President Robert Barchi. “There probably isn’t a person alive today who hasn’t made an impromptu remark in a private meeting that probably shouldn’t have been said. Even taken out of context, this single comment was not directed at Penn State, its students, staff or faculty.”
Hermann, through spokesman Tom Luicci, declined comment. On Thursday, Luicci texted a NJ Advance Media reporter to cancel a meeting that had been scheduled earlier in the week.
Multiple people interviewed by NJ Advance Media — who would speak only on the condition of anonymity because they feared retribution — said Hermann was talking about “reaching out and touching the donors” of the program and her punchline was to not do it “in a Sandusky way.”
“Everyone looked at each other and said, ‘Say what?'” said a Rutgers official at the meeting.
While I’m sure Hermann didn’t mean any harm by her comment, she should know better that a topic as sensitive as Jerry Sandusky is something you never joke about, especially in a professional setting.