Knowing full well that more than just men like football, we are bringing you two sides in the debate over Penn State.
Was the NCAA punishment too hard or not hard enough?
Be sure to weigh in and let us know on which side of She Said/She Said you fall.
Terminal Sentence – by Kristie, CGG Staff Writer
The NCAA has announced the punishment…er…”sanctions” to be levied against the Penn State Nittany Lions football program for its role in the child rape scandal involving Sandusky and various administrators, and it appears that the NCAA is *not* messing around. A $60 million fine, 4 year bowl ban, reducing available scholarships to 40 over a four year period, and relinquishing all wins from 1998 until now.
—Some background—
Jerry Sandusky, the former Penn State football coach and generally terrible human being, was convicted on June 22, 2012 of 45 separate charges involving child rape. The Penn State football administration have been accused of knowing about Sandusky’s predilection for young boys entrusted to his care, and despite an assistant visually confirming the anal rape of a child in a Penn State locker room, Sandusky was allowed to continue his reign of pedo terror for years.
The story disgusts me on a visceral level. I have a little boy, and you can bet that if anyone laid an inappropriately sexual hand on his tiny little self, I would rage out so hard that I’d likely spend the rest of my life in a mental facility. I have been quick to condemn everyone involved, including the sainted Joe Paterno (head coach during the assaults), for covering up the assaults and failing to protect innocent children. Even the assistant who tattled, Mike McQueary, is on my short list of people to mow down if the universe ever sees fit to equip me with untraceable eyeball lasers. Walking in on a 10 year old being raped, and then reporting it THE NEXT DAY?? Lasered. I’m not saying that he should have run into the shower and beaten the snot out of Sandusky, then rushed the little boy to safety (that’s exactly what I’m saying), but he should have called the police immediately. All of these men deserve everything that’s coming to them.
—End of background—
I’m curious, though, as to whether or not these punishments are in any way actually punishing the wrongdoers, or if they are instead just going to kill a promising football program for young athletes, destroy school pride for hundreds of thousands who have and will attend the school, and reduce an overall very good college over the sins of a few disgusting “men.”
Some of my fondest memories of college involve getting dressed up in my CSU colors on a crisp, fall day, and heading to the stadium with thousands of other (similarly juiced up) students to cheer for my CSU Rams football team. College football can be an immense source of school pride, excitement, and scholarship opportunities for excelling athletes who might not otherwise be able to afford college. To take that away seems like it’s punishing all of the wrong people for the sake of being able to say “Hey, we totally did something about this.”
Are there other options where money can be raised for childrens’ advocacy charities, but the students, athletes, community, fans aren’t being beaten down for rape that they didn’t commit or endorse? With Sandusky in prison for the rest of his stupid, miserable life, and with Paterno dead, and other administrative officials removed from office, the only people left at that school are innocent of any wrongdoing. My question for the NCAA, I guess, is “who are you punishing?”
My instinct says that NCAA should jump in on matters of bribery, game ethics, shady scholarship programs (see Reggie Bush), academic dishonesty, pay-for-play, etc. Child rape and accompanying cover-up, though? That’s something for POLICE to deal with, and punishment should deal immediately with the rapist and those who didn’t stop it from happening.
I’m not a cop, not a college student, not a Penn State alum, and not a part of the Nittany Lions community. I’m not a member of the NCAA, either. My role, at this point, is to say “RIP, Penn State football.” Chances are good that their football program was just dealt a terminal sentence.
Not Hard Enough – by Daisy, CGG Staff Writer
I’m an avid football fan, and before we get too much further I’ll admit that my college and professional allegiances lie with teams that are no stranger to loathing, sanctions and trouble: the USC Trojans (my Dad’s alma mater), the University of Michigan (my husband’s alma mater) and the New Orleans Saints (where I lived in college and fell in love football). I know. I couldn’t have picked more poorly if I tried. Unless of course I was a Penn State fan.
Since the scandal broke, and more importantly after the Freeh report was released my feeling that Penn State needed to be served the Death Penalty wasn’t a secret. The Death Penalty, the catch phrase for the NCAA’s ability to ban a school from fielding a team, has only been used five times in NCAA history and only once for a football team. Southern Methodist University (SMU) was given the death penalty for the 1987 and 1988 seasons and arguably has never reached a high level of competition since then. It is my firm belief that Penn State should have been given the death penalty for Coach Paterno’s failure to do more when the truth about Jerry Sandusky emerged beginning in 1988.
It is true that the Death Penalty would punish the entire school and community of University Park, but in my opinion one aspect of punishment is using it as a deterrant. It needs to be clear to every university in the country that the long allowed tradition of “team first, people second” is over. A new era has begun, one where administrations and programs play by the rules, where no “honor” or “tradition” of a program comes before justice and doing the right thing. Covering up a child rapist to protect the honor and fiscal viability of a football program should disgust everyone to their very core, and no punishment should be too great. I believe the pride in Penn State was crushed when the allegations were revealed, and further demolished by the guilty verdicts, the Freeh report, and every day of gut wrenching testimony by Penn State officials and coaches who did little if anything to stop what was going on.
Much has been said about the “fairness” of the current penalties on the current players. To that I say: too bad. Every high school senior knows how the NCAA works, and there is always a possibility at any school that if the program is punished for past transgressions, it is the current players and coaches that will pay. More recent examples include punishments against USC and Ohio State. In this case the NCAA has gone out of their way to give the current Penn State players the ability to play elsewhere, they are all allowed to transfer without losing eligibility and the NCAA has said it will consider waiving scholarship caps for schools that take a Penn State player. (Schools are limited to 85 scholarship football players over a four year period.)
In the words Mark Emmert, the NCAA President: “Football will never again be placed ahead of educating, nurturing and protecting young people.”
I am glad that Penn State has to pay 60 million dollars (over time) to a fund to help abuse victims, I am glad that Joe Paterno is no longer the winningest coach in NCAA-I history and I am glad that their team has been reduced to nothingness for the next four years. In my opinion it is a small, small price to pay for the horrors that were covered up in the name of football.
You were Penn State. And now you are a lesson to every athlete and program in the country. People first. Sports second.
Seems appropriate to me. With the coverup involving coaching staff and administration, they clearly put football (and lots and lots of $$$) ahead of children being raped. Seriously, how much money makes that okay? That’s what I’d like to hear the administration answer.
“Kids were being raped by a coach on school grounds?”
“Yeah, but in our defense, did you see how much money we made in ticket sales, merchandise, and alumni donations to the school in the years AFTER we learned about it and didn’t report it?”
No, Daisy, you are wrong…we ARE, and will continue to be, Penn State, despite the horrible actions of a few.
(Please pardon any typos. I am on my phone).
Full disclosure: I am a professor at Penn State, and I have had a number of football players in my class the past two years. However, I did not attend Penn State or any other B1G school.
Originally, I agreed with Daisy. It was interesting being on campus when this all broke out. I wanted the football team gone, the culprits fired, and I wanted to move on.
What the public sees and what we see here in Happy Valley are two very different things. The public sees pictures of students rioting when Joe Paterno is fired. We saw our students raise the most money EVER raised by a public organization during THON (it is an event to raise money for children). I saw students crying at the immense pain these children were suffering. I saw students call for heads and come up with ways to raise money. They were proud. The said their school is better than this, and they are right.
I think the NCAA overstepped. As a former sports lawyer, I can tell you there is no specific rule in the NCAA handbook that PSU broke. That said, I don’t think the NCAA was wrong to step in. Did they take it too far? I think so.
Here’s the thing. These football players and students LOVE this school. Not for what happened, but for what it really and truly is: one of the best public academic institutions in the country. It is home to over 60,000 students (across all of the campuses and grad schools). They truly love it here. Everyday I am blown away by the loev these students have for the community.
My issue with the NCAA has always been that they can only retroactively punish (much like any other sports organization) so people who did not participate are affected. Every single person in the cover up is no longer with the university by death, imprisonment, or termination. I get the NCAA was trying to make a statement, and they certainly did. However, I think other schools now need to realize the NCAA has expanded its power to punish for criminal activity. As the NCAA admitted recently, they were struggling to punish PSU because it idn’t break any rules. Does this now open up coaches and players who get DUIs or other such charges (there have been prior unpunished sexual abusers in the NCAA system).
I leave you with this. If this was an English department or a Biology program would we be calling for these same punishments? Or are we doing it just because it is football? Would we be screaming that a school should shut down their business school if a cover up like this had occurred there?
These kids are STILL Penn State, because PSU is so much more than football.
I appreciate what you’ve said about the students and players – it’s good to hear that even if we’re not seeing it in the news, they care greatly about the children who were abused.
As to your question – your implication is correct, I think – we wouldn’t be going nuts if this had happened in an English department. On the other hand, would a university have gone this far to cover up child rape had the offender been an English prof? Doubt it. It seems to me that PSU is the one w/the unhealthy focus on football, not the outraged American public.
Blergh. Let me re-state that last bit:
As to your question – your implication is correct, I think – we wouldn’t be going nuts if this had happened in an English department. I believe this is because a university wouldn’t have gone this far to cover up child rape had the offender been an English prof. It seems to me that PSU is the one w/the unhealthy focus on football, not the outraged American public.
I do think all D-1 schools are obsessed. Although it does make one wonder if schools would do this for a professor who was popular with the community/profession.
I agree on the D-1 point, though certainly there are some that are more focused than others, PSU being one (but not the only one, for sure).
I could see a school doing some sort of cover up for a popular prof but not to the level of this. It just wouldn’t be worth it to them, I don’t think. I can’t think of any program or profession where a professor stands to bring in as much revenue as an incredible football program.
We appreciate you chiming in with such a thoughtful point of view. While I don’t agree with everything, I do get what you are saying. I believe that football teams, that make schools so much money, have always been put on a pedestal where they could do no evil. I hope that era is now passing and we hold athletes and their coaches just as responsible as any other member of an educational organization. If this had happened in an English department I don’t think it would have been covered up….
Daisy, I enthusiastically agree with you, both with your statement above and your comment here. The dynamic of putting the success of a program over the well being of people generally doesn’t happen in departments other than sports programs because there isn’t nearly as much profit/glory involved. If an English professor raped a kid and someone saw it, he would have been out of there in a nanosecond. That’s precisely why it was justified for the NCAA to make such a harsh, bold statement. It needs to be stated in no uncertain terms that there will be ZERO tolerance for that kind of sports-first, people-second culture that is so common among big sports programs.
The sanctions seem appropriate to me. This should cost the university big money and the wins should be vacated.
Nothing the NCAA does to Penn State will make amends for the horror these kids were subjected to at the hands of a monster, all while those who could have stopped it willingly looked the other way.
Personally I think it should have been the death penalty for a minimum of four years along with a $200+ million fine. The monetary fine was only for 1 year of football revenue…which is atrocious. After the one year, they get to keep their revenue from football after 13 years of an absolute abuse of public trust. Football will continue to go on as there are still 130+ schools in the FBS, one university without a program (and a healthy endowment) will be just fine.
I couldn’t agree with Daisy more. I don’t think the punishment is enough, frankly. I think it will go a long way in reminding colleges nationwide that their first duty is to protect and nurture young people. If you stand by and let a rapist get away with his crime, and then turn a blind eye while more and more children are victimized by him, you deserve every punishment you can get.
This is essentially a death sentence for PSU football anyway. But I believe that a death sentence was dealt to school pride the second these allegations surfaced and with every word of testimony. Perhaps current students and alum can again find pride knowing that maybe, somehow, these sanctions will stop someone else from being a victim one day.
I’m a Penn State grad, and State College is my hometown. I won’t even get into all the rage I feel for the victims, my school, and the ramifications on my community.
All this talk about the NCAA ruling, while significant and difficult, is missing the issue that Spanier, Schultz, Curley, and now-governor Corbett are guilty of covering up the abuse and haven’t been arrested. I’m waiting for their crimincal prosecution–not obsessing over the football program.
I agree with you there. I come from a family that is very involved in the Penn State community (academically, professionally, etc). I was one of the first (wildly unpopular) people to post that Joe Paterno is a slimebag and is very much criminally and morally liable, in part, for what happened to those children. I’m all for seeing each and every one of them memorialized forever as aiders and abetters of child rape. That said, I still don’t think the rest of the student body, community, staff, fans, etc. have done anything wrong, and punishing them is the wrong thing to do, as well as being a gross overstep of NCAA reach.
I agree with Daisy. It does suck that the members of the PSU community who had nothing to do with this are being punished . . . but that’s why punishment is effective. When a person goes to jail, it is usually not just them who is being punished, it is their family, friends, workplace, etc. It hopefully gives people pause when they consider criminal activity. I guarantee that this is teaching a solid lesson to people in all industries – that it is better to report a crime than to attempt to cover it up. No, everyone won’t learn that lesson, but many who might have paused or faltered, will now have a clear case to remind them to act swiftly and correctly.
Perhaps the weight of the punishment will cause certain PSU fans to finally stop crying over their school and coach and BEGIN crying over the systemic rape of children.
Maybe someone can help me with a rumor I’ve heard. Is it true that the 60 million is not to be taken from the athletic budget? If so, does that mean it’s being pulled from academics or support services?
No. It means the money doesn’t only have to come from athletics. They do this as to not punish other sports. It can also come from the endowment. It is to prevent them from taking funds from other sports to preserve the football scholarship fund for the future.
Are you serious? The punishment is effective because it hurts innocent people? That feels like an inherently flawed argument, as well as a self-regulating reason why punishments like this should *NOT* exist. Innocent students, community members, faculty, etc don’t need to suffer in order to send a message to child predators or negligent administration.
Those students, faculty and community might be innocent but they profited for years on a program that kept its profitability due to a huge cover up. The NCAA is now saying that those years of filled coffers are now coming to an ends. Football games will still happen, concessions will still be sold, and people will still tailgate and buy t-shirts – but the money is going to help the victims, not pay for a new state of the art practice facility. Punishments are not neat and tidy, kept within a little circle- they have implications far beyond the person or entity being punished, and to say that isn’t fair is to say that justice can’t be served because you don’t like the final outcome.
I like the final sentence of your paragraph, but completely disagree with the first. Those innocent people had NO idea they were profiting on something that would turn out to be…this. There was no way they could have known, so why should they be punished? There is a circle of people who are in the know here, and those are the people who should be punished. NOt the entire program, not the entire school. I say lets nail those responsible, help those who were victimized, and allow Penn state to recover from this.
To further explain my first sentence: just becuase you unknowingly profit off of something inherently wrong doesn’t mean you get to continue reap the benefits of that profit (whether it is monetary, reputation, sports wins, etc.) when the wrongdoing is discovered. I believe this is (appropriately) the NCAA’s way of saying that the entire community has to pay back for the wrongdoing, because whether they knew it or not, they were profiting (monetarily & otherwise) from a “stellar” football program.
I do believe that this punishment will be effective because it reaches beyond those who were directly responsible. I didn’t say it was fair, I said it was effective. Fair also does not equal right, or appropriate, either.
It will cause others who face similar (or hopefully lesser) situations to go straight to the police, to make sure that things are taken care of properly, because they don’t want this type of fallout to hurt THEIR organization or community, the way it has hurt PSU.
I’m with Kristie. I think too many innocent people are being punished. The horrific people who did the unspeakable things have been handled. Many young people’s dreams are being crushed. What if your kid had always dreamed of playing football for PSU? Now they’re guaranteed no bowl games for their college career. Punishing the future for acts of the past is on par with people blaming current people for slavery.
Of course I think the acts were horrific and deserve swift and major punishment. Assuming the fines go where they’re supposed to , I think the fine is a good idea. But to agree with Kristie, I think this was more a matter for police, not for the NCAA.
I live in the most football obsessed state in the country, better known as Alabama, also known as the state that hasn’t allowed the crystal football to leave it’s borders in three years. Roll Tide.
I say that because I’ve lived through NCAA sanctions and their aftermath (see the 2002-2007 seasons). I know what it’s like to feel like your school has been unjustly punished and/or that the wrong people are being punished.
I also worked for UA’s athletic student services as a tutor for a year and got to know numerous athletes, football players among them. I saw first hand the kind of work it takes to be a collegiate athlete at a major division I school. I also saw first hand the kind of pride the players take in their team and their school, both for the current achievements on the field and the history that they are a part of everyday.
Alabama is similar enough to Penn State in tradition, number of wins, and coaching legends to know how it must feel to be punished like that, to feel like the current players, coaches, students, those who weren’t involved, don’t deserve to be punished so harshly.
But on the other hand, the university did what so many schools do: put athletics and their ability to make money ahead of everything else. And now they have to pay the price. I am in full agreement that all those wins between the time the first allegations came out until criminal charges were filed should be vacated. A bigger fine could have (and probably should have) been imposed. But I’m not sure what, other than sending a very strong message, taking away scholarships and bowl eligibility really has to do with criminal acts committed by persons no longer associated with the school.
I think this is something we can continue to debate. The NCAA is known for weird punishments (or lack thereof) so this isn’t surprising. But I don’t think there will ever be a good answer. Especially not for the victims.
I’m commenting anonymously today because I actually work for a university and I don’t want this comment to come back to bite me in the ass.
I think they deserved the sanctions and even more. There is a systemic culture on university campuses that allows these types of things to happen. This could have happened at any school in the country with the same outcomes. This is a top down management problem that needs to be addressed at ALL schools. It is sad that the students feel like they are being punished, but the administrators deserve everything they get and more.
My good friend Daisy implored me to comment on this after chatting with her about the Penn State issue, and after enough coffee to organize my thoughts, here goes.
I’ve been constantly looking at this tragedy (and the whole thing is tragic) from multiple vantage points. First as an avid college football fan and alum of a major university (I went to Michigan with Daisy’s husband), second as a lawyer, and third as a human being. Each hat carries with it a drastically different take on what has transpired in Happy Valley.
As a human being, my take on this is simplest. What happened has ruined the lives of many people who will never fully recover from what that monster Jerry Sandusky did to them. For Sandusky, there is no penalty too harsh, our legal system and Constitution be damned. Additionally, it’s clear in the Freeh report that Joe Paterno had at least some clue of what was going on, and as a passive accomplice, deserves a punishment that his timely death spared him of. Simply put, they can both burn in Hell.
As a lawyer, my view gets slightly more confused. I’ve been trying to draw a comparison what happened at Penn State to anything I’ve studied or experienced in my legal career as either a student or attorney, and the closest comparison is to corporate law. Even though the University is organized as non-profit, the fact is that the athletic department makes millions of dollars creates an apt comparison to a corporation.
In the corporate world, a Board of Directors or officer cannot be personally liable for its actions in working for the corporation. The “Business Judgement Rule,” as it is called, is a very generous rule that protects those leading a corporation if they are acting in the interest of the corporation. However, for truly extraordinary acts or omissions, directors or officers can be held personally liable to the shareholders. Now, consider a scenario in which an officer of a major corporation is committing the same heinous acts that Jerry Sandusky engaged in. In order to protect the integrity of the company (and stock price), the Chairman or CEO of the company works to cover it up and protect the officer from the law. Is the Chairman working in the best interest of the corporation? Certainly. But is covering up sex crimes a crime? I’d certainly say so. The Sandusky-Paterno link to this is easily found. Similarly, Curley, Spanier, et al should all face criminal charges, and if the Freeh report is accurate, should be found guilty.
As a college football fan and alum of a major university, I’m torn further. My heart goes out to all the victims of this tragedy, and I don’t think there is any punishment too harsh for Sandusky, Paterno, or anyone else who worked to conceal Sandusky’s perverted acts. However, why should a fan base or alumni association suffer for their acts? Obviously it’s an entirely voluntary act to become a “fan” of anything, although I’ll argue that I was born in Maize and Blue, and nobody has held a gun to our heads demanding who we cheer for on Saturdays in the fall, but Penn Staters, at least the vast majority, had no idea what was going on in the showers, right? So why should they suffer the consequences?
Because when the crimes and misdeeds happen at the institutional level, the institution must in some way be punished. The only way to punish an institution like Penn State athletics is with money. The bowl ban, the $60 million fine, and the loss of scholarships are all financial penalties which will take far longer to recover from than most realize.
While Daisy and I argue over whether she or I was the first to call for the Death Penalty in this case, I’m now glad that it was not applied. I think it’s too broad and affects too many people who are part of the Penn State community yet had nothing to do with the scandal. Moreover, the real penalties in this case need to be applied to the individuals who let a monster operate for years after discovering his secret life. The NCAA cannot issue those penalties, only our justice system can. I truly hope the all individuals involved are fairly tried and convicted for their crimes and punished to the fullest extent.
A final note on the Paterno family. Somebody should tell them to stop wasting paper and bandwidth on their “press releases.” Nobody reasonable cares about what they think and they are embarrassing themselves in defense of their patriarch. The man whose legacy they are trying to save is dead, and has been exposed as a willing participant in covering up child molestation and rape. When this story broke, people immediately took sides with regard to Paterno. My opinion has been simple: he either knew what was going on and covered it up, or he was too senile to know what was happening. If the former is true, then his death spared him greatly. If it was the latter, then shame on him and his family for allowing him to stay in such a position of power while lacking in such basic judgement and human decency.
I can’t help but wonder what this means for the long term vitality of college football. Ours is the only nation in the world where athletes play for free (argue if you will, but they are certainly underpaid if paid at all) for educational institutions before commencing a professional career. I can’t help but wonder how long that will continue in the wake of this. One must believe that Mark Emmert is fighting for his organization’s life at this point.
This comment turned tome became far longer than I originally intended. Now that I’m one of “those people” who comment on blogs, I’ll sit back and allow myself to get flamed.
No lighter here Kyle…
I really appreciated your perspective. I don’t think I can really add anything new. In a huge way I feel proud that the NCAA did something…anything. I’ve always felt higher education has a way of ignoring things they’d rather not see to the benefit of athletics. I do realize that athletics make money but money should never be as important as people. It feels like sometimes educational institutions completely forget why they exist in the first place and that is to educate students. Of course, college should be fun and feeling part of a place like PSU must feel really awesome (pre Sandusky situation coming to light).
I don’t quite understand why current students and the community will have to pay so much but I can appreciate the fact that a very strong message is being sent by the NCAA saying “this is not ok.” However, I will not be satisfied until criminal charges are brought against every single person who in my mind are accessorys to these horrific crimes.
Also no flames here. I appreciate your varied perspectives.
I think that it’s actually a good thing for a fan base, alumni group & booster group to suffer for these acts. Fans, the NCAA & others have turned a blind eye to lesser abuses for decades (perhaps since the beginning of college sports) and I think that our refusal to hold teams & administrators accountable in the past has something to do with what happened with PSU. What happened is horrific but it was only able to get that far because as a culture we excuse stuff almost as bad as this, all the time – in the name of entertainment and greed.
This case, I hope, will make us all look at where we invest our time, energy and finances. I hope it will remind us to demand accountability when both big and “small” abuses take place.
[I'm struggling mightily with my response to this. Honestly, I feel like I'm on both sides here, so if I make no sense, just move on.
]
While I appreciate the message the NCAA is sending, I also don’t really see how they have the power to do anything like this at all. Yes, these horrible actions and people were in the football program and used that as influence. Sickening. My issue is this: if it happened in any other department or even in another sport, would there be sanctions? Would anyone besides the police and lawyers have gotten involved?
That said, I know the NCAA is using PSU as an example and I think that sending a message that sports are not more important that the safety and education of our children is good…but they still get to play football. They lost prior wins, can’t go to bowl games, etc, but the kid that always wanted to play football at PSU still gets to play (assuming he doesn’t need a football scholarship). Why does he care about past wins? What does it really have to do with his future? (ok, I know it can, but if he’s not looking to go NFL, it really doesn’t). Will these sanctions keep the student section from filling up? From the students spending their money on concessions and tickets? From the parents and alumni from coming? Is wiping out records really a punishment in the grand scheme?
If the NCAA wanted to truly punish the football program, then they should have invoked the Death Penalty. If you want to punish football, you have to TAKE AWAY football. It’s like grounding a kid, but letting him keep his DS – not really a punishment.
The thing is this: it’s a fine line between punishing the football program and an entire college. It’s a trickle down effect. Take away football Saturdays and you’ve not only taken away revenue from football, but from local businesses. Take away scholarships and you’re taking away students. Less students means higher fees for the ones that are there. Less enrollment due to this means less educators needed…and so on.
I guess I just can’t see it so black and white. Yes, I’m happy the money goes to victims and children’s funds, but why make it end? Why not require a portion of ticket sales to go to those FOREVER? Instead of taking football away, why not make it MEAN something? How about instead of taking away those scholarships, you move them to other parts of the school or spread them to other sports? How about when someone donates to the football program, you automatically get to take a part of it and donate to a victim fund?
I know this college and football team mean a lot to people, but you have to see it for what it is: A business. Everything is. The school, the football team, the coach, the records. Sure winning and legacies and childhood heroes and all that shit is fun, but while everyone was tailgating and chest bumping, little kids were getting raped. Of course one evil man is the true cause of this, but had your football team cared about anything but winning (read: MONEY) they wouldn’t have covered it up like they did and probably a lot of kids wouldn’t have been abused. So while the school/football program did not directly commit the crime, it indirectly benefited from those kids being raped — for YEARS. It also gave a horrible person the power to get away with it. This has been proven. We could argue all day about whether or not the punishment is just — and regarding the NCAA’s authority and true intentions — I don’t care about any of that. Neither does the rest of the world. I hate this soapbox shit, but I’m sick of reading status updates in my news feed subtly defending and supporting a horrible, corrupt organization and man. I don’t mean to accuse you of supporting horrible things, because I know you don’t, but nitpicking terms of the punishment isn’t exactly relevant to the real issue at hand.
I get that this is personal for many. If we were talking about Sid Bream and the 92′ Braves I would be crushed, devastated even. My 8-year-old self might even lose faith in humanity and turn bitter and cynical (imagine that), but I’d eventually realize that there’s a much bigger picture, and that no amount of passion and admiration could possibly deny the horrible horrible truth that blood money is behind everything, and that some people are just plain evil.
“[W]hile everyone was tailgating and chest bumping, little kids were getting raped”–I don’t think it’s fair to make this association. Very few people knew about the abuse while it was occurring, so you can’t associate enjoying football with turning a blind eye to child abuse. Should the people who did know have done something, anything? Absolutely. There’s no defense. PSU fans, employees, and community members are devastated by the abuse–not the NCAA ruling but for the children who suffered and still are suffering. Please don’t portray us all as complicit in the abuse just because we have some association to PSU.
I wasnt implying the fans. I meant the coaches, the university president, the assistant coach & the janitors (yes, multiple) that witnessed something wrong happening to the little boys. They cheered on their team knowing full well what was happening. but didnt care enough to stop it completely bc *gasp* something bad might be said about good ol PSU. Its not like they witnessed someone stealing money. they witnessed rape. its disgusting that in the mind of those people and those officials and powerhouses on the PSU payroll the football team and school take precedent over that. puke.
although you have to admit. the fans seem to have their blue & white blinders on in this whole mess. Praising JoPa? Hello! He didint do anything to stop this horrible man! he had more power there than ANYONE. And he just passed the info along like it was someone caught stealing a cookie from the cookie jar. not CHILD RAPE. He’s as much at fault as the rest of the greedy bastards. PSU fan or not.
I’m not at all defending Paterno or anyone else who knew about it (and there were sickeningly too many who knew). No, I would not agree that all fans had their “blue and white blinders” on; that’s an unfounded, sweeping generalization.
Again, I’ll reiterate that they are other men who knew who shoud be criminally prosecuted. Getting mad at the NCAA ruling or at some shortsighted fans is still secondary to the men who are still around and need to be arrested.
My cousin made a pretty solid point, too, when he said that removing scholarships hurts student athletes for all colleges. There are a finite number of scholarships available, and when some are removed, then there are more people competing for a smaller amount of available educational funding. That’s certainly not in the best interest of anyone.
I went to a Big 10 school for grad school. Although I’m not a college football fan, it was impossible to miss the palpable enthusiasm and love for the Hawkeyes, both on campus and throughout the state. And I do think that the NCAA overstepped its bounds. But:
How, exactly, are innocent people being punished? By not being able to watch football? By not being able to take pride in a college team (and who says they can’t take pride in watching their team rebuild and recover)? There may be a case to be made for players on scholarships, players who may now miss their chance to play pro ball. And that is a shame. But their going pro was not a guarantee. They may have made it, they may not have. They may have taken a bad hit in the upcoming season and not have been able to play again ever anyway. My point is, what is happening at Penn State via these sanction shouldn’t affect the reason why most of the folks at the university are there – for an education. It is possible to attend a Big 10, football obsessed school and never pay any attention to the football program.
Bottom line: it will hurt the school, yes. And in my opinion, it isn’t the NCAA’s place to make this call (though Daisy made a persuasive argument otherwise). But there needs to be some perspective on what, exactly, is at stake here.
I think what the NCAA did was somewhat wrong and some what right… Yes fining the school taking down the statue an anything with sanduskys name or paternos name get rid of it but taking it out on the current players and player of the past some who might have been raped by this monster. I guess what I’m saying is now you are hurting college kids that may have to relie on scholarships to get and education becase they come from an underprivileged family now they’re scholarships are getting cut and some may not be able to continue an education. The former players (some who may have be raped) now your saying you going to take their wins away because of some monster how will it affect the student who are already experiencing bad enough feling for being raped!
you have to punsh the school as a whole like this. There is no other way. Otherwise they will continue to get away with stuff. Thinking that they wont get a big enough punishment if caught. So might as well continue.
Re: Spanier & Curley – there is something more going on with them. Google Spanier and Franklin and see what you come up with. The connections between him and another even more heinous crime are too much to discount. This is just the tip of the iceberg, I’m afraid. Remember that sportscaster (Mike Madden?) that stated last fall that there was much more to this story – possibly ‘pimping’ of boys via the Second Mile to highly connected men in the community. He has been muzzled. Someone got to him.
And no, I don’t believe for a minute that Oswald acted alone.
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